This is STL Skye’s Phoebe Still A Baby.  We call her Phoebe, but she was also previously known as Kinlee.

We had to change her nickname, since we have a granddaughter named Kinley, and we try not to overlap animal names with family member names (unlike some of my relatives up in Michigan that like to name some of their cows the same as family member names as a joke…I think the most irritating animal often gets the spouse’s name).

Phoebe’s special to me personally.  We had acquired Denny to add some dun genes to our herd someday, and this was our next dun gene horse even though you can’t see it on her.  She’s a Dunalino Sabino, so the only clue to her underlying genetics visually is a slight yellowing on her mane, tail, and feather.  Otherwise, she looks like a white max sabino horse.

We had gone the entire summer without actively seeking out and purchasing new horses (even though Lorelei had found us).  It was a long summer.  Jen knew I was getting the itch to add more.  One day, after we’d met a lot of other financial obligations, she asked, ”If there was one horse out there that you could buy, which one would it be?”  She activated the launch sequence with those words.

I knew precisely the horse that I wanted to purchase.  I always know at every moment in time what my next horse purchase would be if I had the capability to do so.  I’m an avid collector of knowledge and I’m also an over-analyzer.  I keep tabs on as many of the horses that I know about that I can find (yeah, I’m a creepy horse stalker).  I know a lot about genetics, pedigree, health, care, history, and I’m improving my eye on conformational aspects of Gypsy Vanner horses.  There’s always so much to learn out there, though, that there never seems to be an end to the things that you can know about this breed.

The first picture on this post is the one that caught my eye.  Reading more about this horse, her pedigree, and loving the mix of her two parents, sealed it for me.  This was my “white whale” (which is kind of appropriate considering her coloration) and had been for months.

Based on personal experience with selling horses myself, I’m normally very reticent to reach out to someone selling horses unless I have an imminent interest in the horses.  Sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me, but I try to keep the question-asking impulses in check, since no one likes “tire kickers.”

I asked the seller if there was outstanding interest in Phoebe.  Yes, there was some, but as is often the case, the first person to a signed contract with a deposit being placed is the person who gets first rights to purchase the horse.  I don’t often negotiate prices.  If someone is asking X for a horse, I’ll consider the price tag against what’s being offered, and if I don’t think the horse is worth X, then I move along.  There’s not a lot of advantage in overpricing a horse unless you really do like waiting around for a very long time for exactly the right person to stumble upon your offering.  There’s also no advantage to telling a seller that their horse isn’t worth what they’re advertising them for.  That’s not the start of a good long-term buyer/seller relationship generally.

She was worth the price based on all my pricing research (quite extensive and I even have formulas to calculate value which is also helpful when acquiring equine insurance).

There were conversations back and forth, and in a portion of the conversation, I was also offered an option to purchase another filly that they had.  I confused the identity of the offered horse with another horse that was on the seller’s website, and I didn’t feel that was a good price for that improperly identified horse, so that conversation rested…

Until, the seller caught up with Jen and also let her know that she’d be willing to part with this horse (and, unlike me, Jen correctly identified which horse she was talking about, and fell in love with an appropriately priced horse…I’ll get to her when I introduce horse number 16).

Quick story about our transport from where we picked Phoebe up to where we were heading back in Tennessee.  She was a decent-sized gal already.  We had a two-stall trailer nicely-padded all around with narrow stalls that were boxed in.  The top of the back end of that trailer, though, is open air above the back doors that are half-height doors.  That always gives us pause, because we don’t like the idea of any transported animal getting the idea to try to jump out the back while we’re driving, especially if they are small enough to get themselves turned around.

For this one time, we didn’t think there was any possible way that she could go anywhere, so we left her untied.  Just a couple of miles down the road, though, she showed us differently.  She was already turned backward staring out the back of the trailer.  That led to a quick pitstop, reassessment, un-trailering, re-trailering, and her being tied off.  Never again for any horse would we put them in there without being tied off.  We probably looked comical on the side of the road with hazard lights flashing with the re-trailer of Phoebe.  We thought we might be there for hours trying to get this new horse re-trailered, but, thanks to the excellent training by her seller, she didn’t take any time at all to get back in position for the remainder of the trip home.

Phoebe was such a delicate little flower when I brought her home to our farm.  We let her in with our yearlings and weanlings.  I was immediately overprotective and concerned with this little darling and watched her interactions closely with the other horses like a hawk.

So…about three days in, she was the boss of that paddock and let every other horse know where they stood beneath her.  She didn’t take guff from any of those other weanlings and yearlings.  She wasn’t actively aggressive with the others, but she held her ground way better than some of the other yearlings a full year older than she was.

There are several horses that we have and have had that just can’t seem to eat without pawing the feeding buckets and the ground beneath their feeding buckets.  She was one of them.  Wait a sec, what’s the name of the horses in her lineage?  STL American Buzz Viking Skye and Viking.  How appropriate?  Phoebe, the Viking Destroyer of Buckets!  We make special arrangements feeding her to keep that down to a minimum, mostly rubberized feeding dishes with handles tied to the bottom of the fence.

And, speaking of buckets…and speaking of speaking…I’m guilty of talking and even singing to my horses when interacting with them.  The horses don’t seem to mind, but outside observers might think I’m a weirdo.  One day feeding Phoebe, it was after a decent rain the night before.  Her feeding bucket had about 3 to 4 inches of rainwater in it.  Dumping water from buckets is a speed bump during the feeding routine as I must empty each one out (for 20-some horses and 20-some buckets).  The regular routine is a little bit of small-talk, petting, and scratching for each horse before dumping in the grain ration.  Chit-chat with Phoebe from across the fence, and I approached her bucket.  She decided at that moment that she’d like to take a drink from the bucket before I dumped the water.  “That’s ok, Phoebe.  You can drink the water first if you want to.”  I leaned down to eye level with her through the woven wire fence.  And then she jet-streamed all that water directly into my face leaving me wiping my eyes and sputtering for air.  After I could breathe again, I had a pretty good laugh before I continued the feeding routine.  There was no spite in it…just another Phoebe prank.

Time has gone by, and Phoebe is growing up.  It’s hard to believe she’ll be two this coming year.  As a yearling, she was larger than some of our horses that were already two years old.  I’m quite pleased that, just like her momma, she’s going to be a big, beefy gal.

When voicing, Phoebe has by far the deepest voice of all the horses on our farm.  This sweet little butterfly sounds more manly than all our adult stallions.

Until recently, Phoebe spent a lot of her formative years with Denny, our grulla colt.  She and Denny formed a tight bond.  The two of them were partners in crime.  She kept up with all his boyish shenanigans, and she played hard with him like two colts would play with one another.  It was a sad day recently when I had to separate the two of them to avoid unwanted pregnancies.  She has another year and then some before she’ll have contact with boys again, and she’s spending that time with three adult mares, and a handful of other weanling and yearling fillies.

A lot of different things happen over the course of running a farm, and from time to time, horses come up on the list of horses that we might maybe consider selling…the list of horses that we might consider being talked out of.  Phoebe removed herself from this list recently.  She’s a very personable horse.  One day recently while waiting for the pasture’s water to fill, I was chatting with Phoebe and petting her over the fence.  Two of our other very overly friendly weanling fillies, Apple and Cherry, also approached for some scritch-scratches.  I took a half-step to the right and started to reach for Cherry.  Phoebe, in rapid succession, gave three of the standard “mean mare” ears-down head lunges toward Cherry (the mare version of “Get back Jack!”).  Phoebe’s selfish with the attention and didn’t want this interloper stealing it.  I had to compromise by petting Phoebe with one hand while taking turns petting the other two fillies flanking her with the other arm.  I have strong bonds with several of my horses, and this further re-cemented it for me with Phoebe.  She’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Because she’s so white, and because she’s a tomboy, Phoebe is likely the least-photographed horse on our farm.  She’s rarely photo-ready, so I present here the best that we have of Phoebe, which is a pretty sparse collection.