Meet the Buddha

For the last 6 years, I have had the priviledge of having a horse in my life.  His name is Buddha - tranformed from Bud who was transformed from AB Dazzle as his papers state.  He is soon to be 19 and is a no spot  or solid Appaloosa.  A wonderful lady in Wisconsin purchased him for her son when he was 3, hoping to have a horse he could show. She had purcased  him from an auction in Florida and said  at the time he looked straight into her eyes (and soul) pleading to be rescued from his heavy handed trainers.   Turns out the young horse and the young son basically hated each other.  Luckily for me she decided to keep Bud and show him herself.  They did okay, but, she had to retire him early due to issues in the show ring.  Apparently,  he got so jazzed after performing ; he could/would not calm down and stand still as the judges prefered.  Ergo, his show biz career came to an abrupt stop. 

He resides on a 10.5 acre farm in Wisconsin and shares his space with several other equine.  One of which was an elderly gelding by the name of Piedmont. They had been together almost 12 years as Piedy's mate had passed away shortly after coming to the barn and Bud was there to pick up the slack.  They often grazed together, groomed each other and Bud would protect Piedy from any youngin who thought he would test his ego out by bothering this elder statesman.  They were quite the dymanic duo.

When I first met Bud, he was a tad untrusting and never the one to make the first move to greet - stranger danger - was his credo. We did alot of ground work in the beginning, walking around, lunging ( I hung on for dear life some days ) and especially grooming.  I recall our first session and he had one eye on me the entire time.  He was so unsure of what I was going to do next - he just could not relax...........now I have to remind him to stay awake!!!  I