Joaquin aka Thunder

Joaquin was rescued in 1998 before I started keeping records of the lists. Before I knew I was gonna start a horse rescue!

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Thunder (aka Joaquin) has a new barn and pasture with two stable mates. He loves it, you can tell. He also has a new trainer who has done wonders with him and a new friend, a 22 year old guy who loves him dearly. He will also be a member of our stables and should this fellow decide he can no longer look after Thunder he will come back to us. For now though he has a wonderful life for a horse.

Update 8/4/00 - Thought you'd be interested I had originally adopted Thunder out to a young man who was going to use him as a trail horse in the mountains. Well something happened and he asked to return Thunder and of course, I did along with his adoption fee, this is standard for us.

Thunder has always had a friend here at our stables, a 14 year old girl named Lydia who went into a very deep depression after I adopted Thunder out, this was a great surprise to myself and her parents. What a happy girl when Thunder came back to the stables. This all took place in March of this year, Thunder came back, with training and is a great little horse.  

Lydia received a card and a horse (Thunder) with a happy birthday wreath around his neck yesterday on her 15th birthday. The kid was so convinced her father would never allow her to have a horse, when she saw the wreath she thought it was just a crazy decoration. Thunder will board at our stables but will be adopted by Lydia - the two will have great times together. Almost choked me to not say anything to anyone before her birthday.

Update 10/14/00 -  I just wanted  to update you on how he is doing. I moved to a new stable, closer to my home so that I can see him every day. He is very happy there. He has a very large stall with very friendly neighbors. He has a new girlfriend named TA she`s a thoroughbred mare who`s very sweet. And a best friend named Spas, he`s a thoroughbred/appaloosa gelding. They get turned out together every day . I recently found out that Thunder is a pure bred Morgan. I was delighted, I don`t have any papers on him but I`m working on getting him registered. He`s a little underweight right now but with the help of the barn manager I am slowly fattening him up. We have been in our first gymkhana where we won seven ribbons, one first place. I am so proud of him. He is extremely gentle with little kids. I let one little girl ride double on him with me (she`s four) and he`s perfect, very slow and calm. He is getting used to the new barn and he seems to like it. Show season is over but we will be showing all next season and I think we`ll have a good chance at winning state. 

Update 10-22-00 - Just thought you`d like to here that Thunder is doing flying lead changes. I was so surprised since we haven`t done a lot work on leads. But when I was working him around an gymkhana course he did lead changes like he`d been taught them his whole life. I`m so happy.

Update 2-9-01 - It`s been quite a while since my last update so there`s quite a lot to write. Thunder is doing so well. It took a while but he is now doing half passes, turning on the four-hand, and collecting his gaits so nicely.
I love him more every day. For a while there Thunder was acting so calm I started to doubt his age, but not anymore. He is most deffinatly six. He loves to play and run with his buddys. He beat his old gymkhana time by about five seconds on tuesday. He injured his suspensery ligament two weeks ago on monday so he was down for a week, but he`s okay now. His feet
got trimmed to short and he tripped walking down a steep hill so, yeah. He is still the most popular horse at the barn, among the horses anyways. Today it was pretty windy at the barn and Thunder got a little spooky and started loping sideways, I didn`t mind though, he`s so cute about it all.
Well I`ve gotta go, I`l talk to you later,
> > > Lydia

Update 5/7/01 - Thunder is so wonderful he is the best. We had another show and after months of hard work and training, we brought home three first place ribbons and the high point award. He gave it his best and I was so proud of him. He fell once, right after we past the finish line, we were galloping and hit a deep spot in the sand. We were both fine. When you train for gymkhana you can`t not fall. We were both up fast. I think that we`ll start in division 6 and be in at least 4 by the time we get to state. I`l write back soon for more updates.

Update 7/12/01 - It's been quite a while since my last update. Thunder is doing very well. We have already been moved up a division in the gymkhana's. Thunder is one of the most popular barn horses. Anyone can ride him, he can keep up with the endurance arabs that board with us no problem, and he can run barrels with the best of them, though we are both still learning. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't thank the Lord for giving me Thunder. He gives me so much joy. He may be stubborn and hard to train at times, but he's worth the patience. The three years spent training him were not spent in vain. He'l do anything for me. The times when I've fallen off of him he just stood there waiting for me to get back on. The great thing about rescue horses is they know that they were rescued, and they will give their hearts to you. All of you who are reading this and who have rescue horses, never stop hugging them and being patient with them. No matter what you do they will always love you.