My Imaginary Horse

I had an imaginary horse when I was younger. Her name was Diamond and she was pure white, of course. My opinion on her breeding shifted through the years, depending on what I was reading. But she was always white.

She started out as a Shagya Arabian. I had a million horse books with breed pages in them and the Shagya was always pure white and they frequently had pictures of them jumping huge grand prix jumps, which is what I wanted to do.

So pretty. And white.

But then I read Justin Morgan Had a Horse and she became part Morgan.

Wait... what.

Morgans were awesome in the book. They were the fastest and the strongest and of course some kid had some kind of unshakable bond with it so I was hooked. Half Shagya, half Morgan. Right. Totally won't look like an abomination.

I continued reading the horse encyclopedias and decided that my dream horse needed a dream temperament as well. After perusing the horse encyclopedias the horse that had the 'best' temperament was the cowboy's old standby: the Quarter Horse.

I really hope 12 year old me liked foundation stock.
Not halter stock.

Let's be real, she was still white.

There we go. Front legs of a champion jumper.

But she still wasn't complete. Or, I still wasn't done reading. Because I of course picked up the Thoroughbred series which may well have shaped me for the rest of my life and all their horses were (obviously) Thoroughbreds. And so she reached her final form.

Why is Japan full of white TBs?

One quarter each of Shagya Arabian, Morgan, Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred. Oh and still pure white. Notice I am not saying grey because she is not grey or dappled she is WHITE.

My love for this animal is not an accident...

I really don't want to know what Morgan/Shagya Arab/QH/Thoroughbred cross would look like. But I kind doubt it's ability to do grand prix jumps. Or be... not... hideous.

It would probably look like this.

What that abomination would or wouldn't look like is irrelevant now. I realize the error of my psychotic twelve year old ways and no longer base my love on breeds in books I read because I have real life experience now! I actually didn't even look at any greys when I was horse shopping. Once you've had to get a new asshole sewn on a grey you never want to deal with the melanomas ever again. (I'm lookin' at you, Juanita)

So my dream horse now looks a little more like this:

And he's better than any horse I've ever read about anyway.