𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 Part 1

I met Pura at a small farmers yard in a small village near Amsterdam. After coming back to the city from working with a high level reining trainer I boarded my Quarter Horse named Nikki there. It was cheap, had an outdoor arena and most importantly.. 24/7 field time in the summer. It was time for Nikki to take a break from training and it was time for me to take a break from all the hard work. I was about 23 years old and my body was exhausted. I worked a fulltime administrative job and lived of €1500 euros gross per month paying my house, my car and my horse. So I needed something cheap but functional.

After a year of being there Pura was bought by someone else while pregnant and came to our yard. I didn't like her very much. She was 'hot', no one was allowed near her and I saw her behaving aggressive over the stall door.

She was about 10 years old. Got accidentally pregnant by a stallion that had broken free and she seemed just a real 'mare'. In the end the yard owner ended up owning Pura and in that time she had the foal.

The first thing that was very interesting that a lot of her 'hot' and 'angry' behavior disappeared after she had her foal. In hind sight it made all the sense in the world. With a kissing spine having all that weight hanging underneath you pulling that spine more down causes a lot of pain and discomfort!

Since the yard owner was an old man, we started taking care of her. It turned out she was full with red bloodworms but we couldn't treat her because she was feeding her baby.

We had no idea of her back issues and after 3 months we started training her. There were a lot of young girls around that were light and were happy to ride her. I'd train her a bit on the side. She could bolt and jump with the kids but with me she was quite okay. Let's just say I wasn't the nicest rider back then..

Little did I know how much this horse was going to change my life..