Bad horses!?

In my young years (not to say that I'm old...) I would've done anything to be around horses. I would muck stalls just so the horses would be comfortable, etc. I knew a lot about horses because I just couldn't stop reading about them!

My sister and I probably got taken advantage of quite often. We were known for our "velcro seat" and we weren't afraid of any horse, tall or small. The day camp was right near the barn where Penny was stabled and they had about 15 horses. The camp was a non-profit organization, so they could hardly afford to feed, shoe or care for the horses at all. The tack was falling apart, the stable hands didn't know ANYTHING about horses and the horses didn't even have proper names, unless you think that Red for a sorrel and Black for a black is appropriate. Yet, they would plop kids (sometimes quite young) on those horses and let them ride without much supervision and in usafe places (I remember a fenced in circle... like a track with fence on both sides) that was falling apart, fence posts were pointing every direction and could've easily injured a horse or child.

The people that owned the place were used to taking advantage of everyone. As kids, we didn't know better. Since they were related to the Church, they expected that everything came free. So loving horses and knowing how to ride like we did (not perfect but probably the best THEY had ever seen), we were kind of expected to ride and TRAIN the horses! We were between 11 and 13 when this happened, you can't expect kids to train horses!

So not knowing any better and wanting so bad to ride as much as humanly possible, we ended up riding those horses quite a bit. Unfortunately, we didn't have the knowledge to train horses, so no progress was made there, but we did develop a good relation with some of the horses.

I remember a nice gelding. He was probably an OTT. He was bright sorrel and his name was Champion. I remember him being thinner than the others and SO tall! I fell in love with him immediatly. I was one of the first to ride him and he was a nervous wreck! I managed to get him on the bit (well I didn't know that at the time) and going nicely. Unfortunately, I was the only one who could ride him without him acting out, although he did run away with me a few times, he usually listened quite well.

Some kids got injured on him when he ran off with them, one rein broke off, kid fell to the ground. Another time, he was on the "track" (that's what I call the set up there) and started bucking and running, startled a whole bunch of horses (they all had issues) and kids got hurt, the one on Champ got really hurt. So they deemed him dangerous and I don't know where he went, they just sold him in an auction I guess.

Horses there were mistreated, overfed grain, some must've been lame. They were tied in tie-stalls for most of the time. Employees and kids must've hit them on the face because none of them were having any cuddles. They would bite, kick, lunge at anyone, rear, you name it!

I remember a team of Fjords, a gelding and a mare. The gelding was the best horse there and they were quite big, probably mixed with draft. The mare was ok, but she had a habit of rearing when she didn't get her way. That ended up by me having to endure her rearing for a half day ride.
Note that I was about 13 y-o at the time and wasn't pleased, this was the last time we rode any of the horses there! That same day, my sisters horse ran away with her... my friend and I had the huge Fjords and we blocked the path ahead of the crazy running horse. She stopped but afterwards, we were terrified at the thought that she could've jumped in the ditch (10 feet below). Needless to say that my sister walked the rest of the way, she was terrified! Having to pass on roads brought on a bunch of kids on their bikes... one of them charged right on my mare (called Lady) causing her to jump sideways, luckily I held on and didn't have to deal with the pavement below! Then, and I'm seriously not joking here! A guy on our path had about 5 or 6 doberman guard dogs.... that day... you guessed it, they had to be loose. With the kids on the bikes and the dogs that went straight for my sister's horse (my sister was still walking), spooking the crap out of her and nearly trampling one of the kids on a tricycle. The kids never moved dispite our plea to get away from the horse's butt. After that, the kids left and went home.

We finaly made it to the barn and never, ever went back there again... EVER! We had so much happen that we decided to quit while we were ahead!