I found a beautiful filly who made my heart skip a beat. She was young though, and I was looking for an older horse, one with experience and training and preferably a gelding. So I kept looking. Nothing.
I was talking to my mom one day and she said "I keep thinking you should get a mare." I hadn't even really looked for mares because everyone recommended a gelding, even my mom. I opened up the search criteria to include mares, looked for something in the price range I wanted, and close enough to home to be feasible.
I started reading ads to her, telling her about this horse or the other and I came across the young filly again. I read the ad, I don't remember now exactly what it said. Something about a horse like this would only get better with time. As I was reading the ad to my mom, I had this uncanny feeling of deja vu. I even stopped and said "Oh my god, I'm deja vu'ing this!"
She really was younger than I wanted, but for some reason I couldn't shake the feeling. I emailed the owner, didn't hear anything back. I'd been emailing on several horses and none had fit what I wanted, or gotten back to me, had already been sold, something that boiled down to a no-go.
A few days later I decided to call them. I tried a few times and got no answer. I tried on the way to pick my husband up from work, and got someone. I explained that I was interested in this filly, she was younger than I really wanted, but I kept coming back to her. I asked for more information, the lady told me about her. I asked some questions, she answered them. We don't have a horse trailer, so we were going to have to find some way to get her here from 4+ hours away. She said they would deliver her for a fee, she'd talk to her husband and find out what he'd charge. She called back and told me a price for bringing her to us, which I thought was really very reasonable considering the distance. I said to her "I'm really, really interested in her." The lady said "Then you'd better really, really pay for her today. I've got someone coming with cash and a trailer to look at her tomorrow at 1pm."
At which point, I had to make a decision. Buy this horse, sight unseen, going off what this lady said, or pass her by. She'd told me that she'd been answering emails about her non-stop for the last week.
Here's her ad picture:
You can see why all the interest.
I had the money to buy her, but it was in cash. She needed a bank wire transfer. It was getting late. I told her I'd get back to her, I didn't know if my bank would do that, but I'd find out and I'd be in touch shortly.
I called my mom and told her. I said "I really don't know what to do. I think she's the one but I've never seen her. I can't buy a horse I've never ridden or even seen!"
We talked about it and finally my mom said "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I'd get her."
So, long story short, I did. We signed contracts that night, faxed them and sent the wire transfer the next morning. She was delivered nearly 3 weeks later. My husband was sure I was insane, he's probably still sure. He's not a horse person. It was impossible to explain it to him so he would understand.
She looked remarkably like the unicorn I'd had on my bedspread, my pillow, my sheets, my curtains, my walls as a little girl. All she needed was the horn and a rainbow behind her. The bottom right corner of that picture where she's running, that was the exact image I lived and slept with for years. To see her, real, not a drawing on my bed...I just couldn't explain it, but I knew she was mine.
Courtesy of the magic that is ebay:
I read once that deja vu is our way of letting ourselves know that we're on the right path. Before we come to this life, we make a chart and pencil in those little moments of recognition. When we have that feeling of having been there, said that, done that, thought that, we did. It was just before we got here. So when we have that little prick of "wow I'm having deja vu" it's our spirit's way of saying "Yes, this is where you should be." And I believe that. I've had it happen too much to be able to say otherwise. When I had that with this horse, talking to my mom about her, and when I saw that picture and realized what she looked like, there was no way I could let her go. She was mine. She was meant to be mine and I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of that.
When we finally got her here, she looked very little like the ad picture. She was beautiful, but she was so thin. She had no spark in her eyes. You could see all of her ribs almost. She didn't know what an apple or a carrot was. She'd sniff them and walk away. She had the saddest look in her eyes.
But she was mine, and she was perfect, and I saw none of it. I didn't care, it didn't matter. She was mine now and everything was going to be alright.
We let her settle in for a day, I didn't do too much with her, I didn't want to overwhelm her. The second day, I went out and brushed her. She stood to let me do it. I didn't have to tie her or chase her. That day I spent nearly two hours trying to comb out her mane. Her hair was matted, her forelock was in dredlocks. I didn't even touch it that day. I used nearly an entire bottle of detangling spray on her mane and finally got it to where I could brush it. She stood there the entire time.
I decided not to touch her tail that day, it was worse. There was poop in it, and it was all tangled and a huge mess. Over the next few days I worked on her forelock and finally got that under control. I gave her a bath. They'd said she liked a bath. Not so much that day, but we got it done. It took me several days to get her tail brushed and cleaned. It was horrific how badly she looked.
I'd go out to catch her and she was horrified of a rope. They said she haltered easily and so after a few days, I took the halter off of her. The next day I spent nearly an hour trying to get it back on her. She was very head shy, especially with a rope or a bucket. The bucket was worse. I'm sure she'd been hit with both.
I started carrying a lead rope with me every time I went out there. For a while I didn't do anything with it, just carried it. Eventually she realized it wasn't going to attack her and she'd give it a sniff every once in a while. Within a week or so, she didn't seem too bothered by the rope, and would come to me and stand to let me halter her.
We put her on better feed. I made horse cookies for her and she was getting those several times a day. She had hay and grass whenever she wanted it. Within two weeks, she started to put on weight. She started looking a little better, a little livlier. She started getting used to us, and would come right to me. She was gentle with the kids, and would let them pet her and brush her and feed her cookies.
The vet came and said she was underweight, but otherwise looked good. She was still skittish with them, and wasn't overly fond of standing and letting them do things to her, but for us she was doing better than when she got here so it felt like progress to me.
She spent almost 3 weeks without a new name. The breeders had named her Misty but it just didn't fit. Every once in a while, I'd go to the kitchen window, slide it open and call out whatever the "name of the day" was. She was completely uninterested and ignored me.
Her name meant something, and it was a feeling more than a word which made it harder to come up with. I finally thought I had it. Anya, meaning favor, grace. She was my saving grace. And in so many ways I was hers, too.
Again to the kitchen window, I opened it. She didn't even look up. She was a ways away with her back to me. I yelled "Anya!" She turned and looked at me, ears perked. She started toward me and I knew that was it. I went out and gave her lots of love and a cookie, and she's been Anya ever since.
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