Horses We've Loved....    Continued

Wimpys Added Chrome

Mouse was my ranch stallion and my friend.  He was one of the kindest stallions I've ever handled...and I've handled a LOT of stallions.  Mouse loved his mares and treated them kindly at all times...whether it was pasture breeding or in hand breeding.

I bought Mouse when he was a six month old little brat.  He was one of the prettiest colts I'd seen up to that point and exactly what I'd dreamed of standing at my ranch.  He was nicknamed Mouse because he was a mouse gray color at birth.  I made sure that nickname stayed with him because I thought it'd keep him honest, especially since he was going to be allowed to breed.  He grew into a very handsome young stallion.  I took him to several open shows and he won them all.  I took him to his first APHA halter show and he showed against two "halter bred" stallions so they won of course.  But he did so well.  He placed high in the color class and earned a point through the OK Paint Horse Association.  I had started riding him and rode him western, english, and bareback all over--on trails, on roads, with other horses--he was always a gentleman.  The next month-April 2006, disaster struck.  Mouse kicked through a fence, almost severing his hock.  The vet came out and cut away all the flesh and damaged muscle without tranquilizers or pain killers and Mouse just looked at him.  Mouse trusted everyone.  A week later an infection set in deep within his hock... he started losing weight and getting listless.  I had to hospitalize him... The prognosis of some of the BEST vets in the state was that he had less than a 50% chance of making it...  and if he did make it, he would never be sound or rideable again.  I went to see him every day while he was in the hospital receiving direct antibiotic infusions into his joint.  I took him home 10 days later.  It was a long road but he continued to get better.  He was able to breed his first mare after injury in 3 months!  And he was fertile enough to conceive a foal out of that breeding--which, as most breeders know, most traumatic injuries and occurences can easily render a stallion infertile for a while.  He continued to heal.  Then I was diagnosed with cancer almost exactly a year after his injury--April 2007.  Mouse was pronounced sound to ride at that same time--the vet considered it a miracle.  I rode Mouse all through my treatments.  Most people wouldn't dare ride a stallion that hadn't been ridden or trained in over a year and was only green broke at the beginning of that year (especially if they were weak from chemotherapy), but I knew he wouldn't hurt me...  And he didn't.  In February 2009, Mouse had a very traumatic accident that killed him...  I have not hurt from the loss of a horse like I have since I lost Mouse.  I miss him... He can never be replaced.  I'm sorry Mouse.  We miss you... We have left his webpage intact due to his foals we own and the great influence he made on our breeding program.