This is Poptart.  That’s all, just “Poptart.”

In June of 2024, we visited some friends.  We told them, “It’s a good thing we’re visiting you tonight because we were talking earlier about going to the local horse auction, and we know what happens when we do that.”

So, we left to drive home.  Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at Jen and said, “So, what do you think?  Should we go to the auction?”

We did “the thing” that we’re not supposed to do.  We try to avoid horse auctions, because we normally don’t make it back out without adding at least one more horse to our farm.

We walked around the auction and through the sale barn.  We saw a little palomino pony and a miniature donkey that we liked, but they still had their numbers on them, and the auction numbers were higher than those numbers, so we knew that they had new owners coming to look for them soon.

Then our eyes fell on one stall.  Huddled to the side of that stall, tied to the wall was a pathetic, miserable-looking miniature horse.  He was tied there with horses about 20 times his size surrounding him.  We talked about how long he had been there standing tied to the wall, no food, no water, not knowing what was going on.  His numbers had been removed, so his reserve had not been met.  We had no idea how much longer he’d be enduring the sale barn.

He was a bay tobiano gelding with some blue in his eyes.  He was 27 inches tall (6.3hh).

We asked around.  We found his owner.  We made her an offer.  She countered.  We countered.  She countered, firm.  We walked after leaving her our contact information if she changed her mind.

She changed her mind and contacted us the next day.  There was a little bit more haggling, and then a price was agreed upon somewhere between the two extremes.  If I remember correctly, when Jen went to pick him up, he was still at that sale barn the next day.  That kind of broke my heart just a little bit.  That’s why I shouldn’t go to horse auctions.  I’d end up with a funny farm of misfit horses and probably all sorts of other animals, too.

He came home to our farm.

After quarantine (where he had to suffer the indignity of being groomed up like a Gypsy Vanner Horse), he was released briefly out into a pasture with some of our smaller mares, some of whom had foals by their side.  One of our momma mares took an immediate dislike to him, and after he’d been kicked like a little football (no harm done), he had to be removed from that pasture for his own safety.  This guy was tough, he had a Napoleonic complex, and he thought he was a full-sized horse and the boss of everyone else.  That wouldn’t work for larger stallions, and it also wouldn’t work for mares that had foals by their side.

We believe all things happen for a reason guided by the Hand of God.  This was one of those instances.  Everything clicked into place.

Liza had been stalled with Lucky for full stall rest until mid-September to make sure that Lucky’s leg had the best chance of healing.  After about a month, though, after several veterinary confers, Liza was stocking up so badly on her legs that we were forced to wean Lucky early to allow her back out into the pasture so that her legs could release the swelling that she had going on.  It was to the point that we had to risk it for the health of the dam or risk losing her.

That left Lucky all by himself at a very young age in a barn stall with a small, attached outdoor paddock (not large enough for him to run).

We didn’t want Lucky to be lonely and he couldn’t be in with larger horses that might risk injury to him.  We didn’t want Poptart lonely, but he had no large pastures where he would be safe from gigantic horses.  The two were destined to be with one another.  They both needed one another at this time.

So, after an hour or more of trying to catch Poptart in the pasture where we almost had to learn how to lasso horses (he was a fast little bugger), Poptart became Lucky’s stall-mate.

Poptart was the boss, always.  Lucky mostly ignored Poptart’s bossy antics.  As time went on, Poptart had to respect Lucky’s larger size (Poptart could walk beneath him even as a weanling colt).  It didn’t take too long for the two of them to become nearly inseparable, though, because they both had no one else to be with.

The folks that wanted to buy Lucky from us if his final X-rays all turned out well in September wanted Poptart with Lucky in the deal.  We felt bad that Poptart had not been with us very long, but we also felt good about the two of them going together to their new home where they could run in greener fields than the little stall and paddock they’d been sharing for a few months.

Poptart came and went, but he had his purpose for the time that he was with us.