Annakah & Diesel {Our Story}
I spent countless hours behind the camera or keyboard, telling the stories of other equestrians and their beautiful partnerships that they share with their horses. Today, on the 8 year anniversary of owning my own equine, I thought it was a good opportunity to look back on the partnership that started it all.
I had been looking for a horse for many months when I stumbled on Diesel’s add on Kijiji. The hope and excitement I had felt early on in my horse searching journey was fading, as every horse I looked at sold shortly after, or it sold before I even got the chance to go see it. Diesel’s ad was everything I had said I didn’t want in a horse, he was a quarter horse and he was bay, with no white markings. I thought that was boring and ordinary. Yet something in me took a chance and we scheduled to go meet him.
It was a cold day in March when my dad and I drove to the private farm to meet him. I remember the sky being bleak and grey. We pulled up and I met Jazz, who had owned Diesel for a couple of years and trained him. She was a few years older than me but I remember thinking she was very kind and friendly, something which remains true to this day. I remember she had a rainbow halter to go and catch Diesel. He had been sitting mostly idle for a while and so was a little rough around the edges. They didn’t have an indoor arena so we were riding outside. There weren’t a lot of things about that day that seemed like it was going to go well, no positive signs if you will. Yet as soon as I got on that horse, something just clicked. I remember Jazz set up a small jump for us. That was the first time I had ever jumped a horse, not the smartest move looking back but from that moment on I knew that this horse would take care of me always. I got off and told my dad that this was the horse. We knew that someone was coming to look at him later that day, so we put 200$ down on the spot and never looked back.
Logically, I know there are a lot of decisions made that day that weren’t smart. We didn’t get a vet check, I didn’t have my coach with me, neither my dad or I knew much about the “art” of buying horses. Somehow though it all worked out. I don’t really believe in the meant to be, fate, the hand of the universe type thing, but if anything in my life was meant to be, it was Diesel.
So here we are, 8 years later.
In that time we have both gone from being clueless and rough around the edges to showing in the 1m classes, and winning. This horse took me to heights that I never believed possible, jumping 1m20, with ease, competing and winning against Thoroughbreds and Warmbloods, riding in clinics with top clinicians, jumping bareback and with just a neck rope, galloping with no reins. In all of 8 years, I have fallen off this horse maybe 5 times. I truly believe that my gut instinct that this horse would take care of me was never wrong, he is the most honest, hard-working and fair horse I have ever met.
More than all the ribbons and trophies, Diesel has been my absolute rock in life. He has been my friend when I thought I had no one, someone to tell my secrets to, my partner, my best friend and everything in between. And yet he was and is just a horse. My horse. My first horse. My forever horse.
