I'm lucky because my girl is registered with the AHS, and so she came with a certificate that showed the names and addresses of all her previous owners except the woman I got her off, who hadn't bothered to re-register her.
She was bred in West Yorkshire from a very well bred stallion who sadly died young, and was sold to a lady in that area as a three yr old to be a brood mare. She stayed just long enough for her first foal to be weaned and was then resold to a couple who lived surprisingly near me (as in 10 minutes away - imagine that!). She had another foal with them (or so I'm told) and was then resold as an unbroken 5 year old to the woman I bought her off. She stayed with this woman for nearly three years, was backed and did endurance but no schooling. I got her as an 8 yr old when the woman decided she needed to cut back on the number of horses she had and decided to sell Lou, her most recent acquisition. When she arrived (7 years ago now!) I was also given a little plastic wallet with her vaccination and registration certificates, a six generation pedigree, and several photos of her dam, plus various random slips of paper with random names and phone numbers.
When I'd had her for a year or so, I decided to try and trace all the previous owners. I wrote to the breeder and the second home to and recieved letters and photos back from both of them. The breeder was a rather lovely older lady, who seemed quite forgetful but was happy to send me any baby photos that she had of Lou, plus some random ones of youngsters who were definitely not Lou! The woman who had owned her next also sent me some pictures of Lou the day she'd bought her and some with her first foal, which were utterly lovely! I later wrote to both for information about Lou's sire, which they provided along with photos
.
Then, one of the phone numbers in the plastic wallet turned out to be for the third, very local home. I rang it up and managed to find out that Lou had been bought by a husband and wife who bred arabs, but that they'd sold all the horses when they'd gotten divorced (I spoke with the woman). She's apparently had one foal with them from their own stallion, and because the woman still lived locally, she arranged to come and visit Lou. Well, 40 minutes after she was supposed to arrive I was still waiting and so decided to go for a hack with a friend. As we were riding along a lane that led to our farm, a woman with numerous children in tow approached and asked 'is that Lou'. So I said yes, and she told me to carry on with my hack if it was only going to be short and that she'd go down to the yard and wait. Well, when I got there she was nowhere to be seen! I knew that she was in the process of moving house, so wasn't surprised that I got no reply when I tried ringing the house again several days later, but I was a bit annoyed that she'd just disappeared! What I really wanted from her was the name of the foal and it's sire so that I could try and trace it, and a contact for her ex-husband (they had children, so I assume she'd have known it) because she'd told me on the phone that he'd dealt most with the horses and so had all the photos etc. Sadly this is the area of Lou's life I know least about.
By chance, several months later, I managed to trace the first foal. My friend found a for sale ad in Arabian Lines that advertised a 5 yr old gelding 'out of Roulette mare'. She said, 'oh that could be one of Lou's foals'. We didn't think it was very likely, but I rang up anyway to ask and what do you know, the gelding turned out to be her foal! Coincidentally he turned out to also live fairly locally (only half an hour away) so I got to go and visit him and his owner came over to see Lou. She also gave me tonnes of photos, which was lovely
. I managed to trace him again recently, and got a nice email from the woman who bought him back in 2003 and still owns him now. She does endurance with him, and he looks just like mama!
There was also a contact number that I guessed, correctly, belonged to the woman who now owned Lou's dam. I spoke to her on the phone ages, and she seemed lovely. She said that, although Lou's dam was now 29 or so, she was still fit and going strong. I told her that I had some photos of her when she was younger and agreed to send them in exchange for some current ones, so we exchanged addresses. Luckily, some common sense prevented me from sending off the best picture I had, because I didn't get sent any pictures at all!! I was really annoyed at being taken advantage of - I was only 13, and I'd sent her 3 or 4 pictures of Lou's dam, as well as some of Lou herself, and she didn't bother to send any! I'd included my address in the letter I sent in case she didn't note it down properly over the phone so I eventually came to the conclusion that she'd either forgotten or couldn't be bothered
.
So, it was a bit of a mixed bag when it came to tracing her history, but I know a heck of a lot more about her than most people do about their horses, and she'll be with me for life now (sentimental thing that I was, I was very shocked that she'd been only 5 when she went to her 4th home!).
