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Hera was a happy accident born into an unforgiving prestigious world of performance dressage. Her mother was a top of the line dressage and showjumping mare, a gleaming horse that her master had high hopes for. But when the owner of the dressage facility hit hard times and cash flow was little more than a trickle, he opened up some of his land for public boarding. At first he was picky about his clientele, not wanting to host a bunch of random horses and risk his reputation. But eventually he could not afford such an attitude and began letting horses of any variety onto his land. This included a rather interesting mixed stallion with unknown lineage and not a single registration to his name. The horse was large and had feathering, which suggested some draft influence, but had a refined head, a spiky short mane, and the tail of an arab. The stallion was also a bit of a hobby jumper, leaping the wooden fences with ease, out of sheer boredom. One thing led to another and the prize mare was bred to the stallion, producing
Hera. The moment her mothers stomach started growing
Hera's fate was decided. She would be sold to the highest bidder and forgotten.
Hera, however, had other plans.
Hera was a energetic filly who seemed to have a very minimal attachment to her mother, and was relatively unfazed when her weaning began. Instead of crying for her mother like most foals
Hera would race around her enclosure and try to buck the sun out of the sky. Soon the time came when
Hera was loaded into a trailer and dumped into a pasture with other horses of her own age. There
Hera's days were filled with racing and fighting and eating and just generally being a young mare. But as
Hera was soon to learn, nothing lasts.
Hera was two years of age when a young man with ropes and empty promises gathered her from the field. He taught her about halters and saddles and stalls and oats. Most of which
Hera detested. Back then her name was Gwen, and the man who trained her was very tactile and emotionless. If he liked horses it didn't show. He wasn't cruel, just very professional. And when
Hera was yet again loaded up and brought to a sale arena this time, it was clear that the man trained horses for sale, not for his own emotional fulfillment.
Hera was soon bought by a lady in clean clothes with a noisy impatient daughter. The young girl was always climbing around on
Hera, kicking her sides enthusiastically and yanking on the bit with fervor. It didn't take long for
Hera to learn to ignore the girls frequent pulling and jabbing, and she would walk and trot lazily until the girls arms and legs grew tired. It want on like this for a month or two before the girls father inspected the horse and instructed his daughter to use a harsher bit. The nasty piece of mental came as quite a shock to
Hera, making her rear in surprise when the girl yanked on the reins and sent pain searing through the mares mouth. The fathers solution was to tie the mares head down with a martingale to prevent her from throwing her head or rearing.
Hera's solution to this was to buck like her life depended on it. Thus
Hera was labelled unsafe and put back into the auction.
Hera was bought and used as a broodmare but had problems conceiving and when she did, gave birth to no live foals. Again she was sold, to an old man with no patience.
Hera gave him trouble and he put her in a pasture where she was forgotten about. A year later
Hera's health was in dire condition, her hooves were atrociously overgrown, her pasture was more manure than grass and her mane and tail were matted into large lumps of mud and twigs. A nearby neighbor found the horse when he was out dirt biking and called the nearby animal shelter.
Hera was slowly nursed back to health and began her dressage training with one of the volunteers. Once she was completely healthy her real training began and within a year she had quite a few ribbons to her name. The shelter sent the mare to Cottonwood where she would be guaranteed a pleasant life and a kind owner.
