Tuesday, October 1, 2013

My best friend & soulmate has to leave...

Have you ever had a real best friend and a soulmate that you have to let go of? I have and now the most difficult moment is almost here, on tuesday the 1st of October we must say goodbye.

I will start from the beginning and tell you about our journey and how I got the best friend you ever can imagine.

The year was 1988 I had turned 10 that summer and my grandpa started talking to my mom and dad and convinced them that it is now time for Anna to have her own horse. I was so exited and started to look in magazines and read about the different breeds and I hoped that I could buy a Connemara pony or an anglo arabian.

My grandpa had other plans though. He had some friends were their daughter had an arabian horse. They had bought him from a breeder down south in Sweden and now they heard that his half brother was for sale and here starts a journey that now lasted for 25 years.

In september 1988 we took a trip down to this breeder and I got to meet Danfas for the first time.
The first look of him didn't appeal to me at all, I thought that he was to skinny, not cute and I hoped the the filly next to him was the one instead but unfortunately not cause that was his half sister.
He was 3 months old at this time.


We talked to the breeder and decided that he was coming home to us when he could be separated from his mom and that were in december.

10th of december 1988 my christmas present arrived, a 6 months old filly. He had been screaming for his mom all the way home so his voice were not the best anymore.

I wanted him to be named Mr Moonlight don't know why but something I had in my mind. This didn't work out either cause the breeder already named him and Dayfas was his name. And later on when the registration papers arrived his name was changed to Danfas.

This was the best christmas present ever.

Over the first 3 years when I could ride him I did everything I could come up with together with Danfas. We went to the lake together and brought picnic. We went for long walks, we trained for the future when I was going to ride him so he had to carry stuff on his back all the time. Sometimes he thought it was ok some not and that he told me in big letters ;O)
On time I got dragged after him and got a minor concussing, another time he took off with his harness into the woods cause he got scared of something and I had to run after him.

Me and Danfas when he was around 7-8 months old and I was 10 years old

Here he is 2 years old

Here is 3 years old and still a stallion


 When he turned 3 I got help to break him in and when I sat on him and could trot for the first time that was a big moment for me and the greatest feeling ever.


As a young rider that I was then the only thing that was on my mind were galloping and jumping fences so whenever I had the chance that was what I did.
We started competing and of course in jumping. The results were mixed cause he didn't like it as much as I did even though I wanted him to. I tried to convince him but I had no luck with that.



After a few years he made me realise that we should try something else so the next thing we did were dressage. He said thank you this is much better and as an arabian he was he loved to show off and we started to collect ribbons. He also started to learn the dressage programs all by him self and that just showed how smart he was.

Competing dressage and train was something we loved to do or should I put it this way, he loved it and I was growing into loving it.
The dressage kept us away from the jumping for 2 years and we got a much more closer relationship and we also tried all other kinds of stuff that came in our way. We did some cross country, when he was 8 years old we started i our first endurance competition, it was a ride that was 31 miles long (5 swedish miles). That was really fun and we discovered that this was something he liked and were good at cause he never got tired.








During a couple of years we competed a lot and mostly in dressage. When he was 13 years old we wanted to try western riding. We got a trainer that helped us with the conversion so to speak. We started also to compete a a little.

At the age of 16 he was introduced to cows, we helped some farmers when they needed help to move the cows from one pasture to another. He was a natural, never ever got stressed and did the work as he never done something else.

When he was 18 we started to train roping, also this was never hard. We competed a few years in roping, barrel race and pole bending and he thought it was great, the speed was his thing.

This horse has learned so many people to ride including my lovely husband Garry. Hi was great with kids he.
He loved everybody and this was the perfect horse to be around if you were a little scared of horses.

It was not only people he liked and who liked him, the dogs loved him too.

I have realised that a horse like Danfas is one in a million. I feel very lucky that I was the one who got to know him and could spend the time with him.

Rest in peace my friend and I'll see you some day again. Love you Always!

I have picked out some pictures that I have gathered in a album. You'll find them if you click on the link below.

http://danfas.stewartranch.se