By: Denise Bowman

     I’ll remember September 2006 as the beginning of a great love affair.  I’ve had horses all my life, and had lost my long-time horse Hank from a bad bout of colic.  The replacement horse Knight had been my most challenging horse yet.  Our personalities just didn’t mesh, and during the 6 years I owned him, we butted heads more often than not.  My confidence level had slowly been chipped away to the point I almost stopped riding altogether…it just wasn’t fun anymore. I couldn’t quite give it up though, and decided to find a new home for Knight, and start looking for a better match.  I wanted to get a Rocky Mountain Horse, and being that this breed is still a rarity to find for sale in my home of Southern California, I made a last minute decision to fly to Kentucky for the RMHA International Show to look at horses.  A trainer friend there had several lined up for me to try out upon my arrival to the Lexington Horse Park, and even though I rode some really nice horses, I just wasn’t finding “it.”  I had something very specific in mind, a certain age, height, color, personality, and calm but not a dead-head. After riding several horses throughout that day, and scouring every stall in every barn where there were horses for sale, I was on the last barn and feeling disappointed.  I came upon a very nice man who listened to my spiel of what I was looking for.  He asked me if I had been to see the people of Pegasus Stables, who were just around the corner in the next aisle (the only one I hadn’t yet been down).  He told me they have a handicapped therapy riding program, and always have great horses. I immediately headed over there, and met Peggy and Bill Edwards and again went into my spiel.  When I finished describing my dream horse, Bill said “We have a 5 year old gelding that sounds just like what you’re describing.”  Peggy’s eyes popped wide open as she said “who?”  Bill said “Copper” and Peggy said “Copper’s not for sale.”
You know when you can see people having a conversation with their eyes, not actually saying a word?  Well, that’s what was going on between Bill and Peggy and it didn’t look happy.  Peggy started asking me questions, like how long have I been riding, who do I ride with, where do I live, and where do I work.  After hearing my life story and answering some of my questions, she told Bill that he could show me Copper if he wanted, but I could tell she was not happy about it.
Bill took me over to the barn where the horse was being stabled, and right away when I met Peg’s Copper, I felt something special.  Bill asked if I wanted to ride him, which of course I did.  That was all it took, I was in love and knew that this was the “it” I’d been waiting for.  I felt a connection and knew that I had to have this horse.  I spent the rest of the afternoon, and most of that evening, with Peggy trying to convince her to accept my offer to buy Copper.  She really didn’t want to sell him, and had taken him off the market.  She had raised him from a foal and trained him herself, and even though this is the business they are in, she wasn’t ready to part with him yet.   Peggy told me she would sleep on it, and would let me know in the morning.
After a sleepless night, I showed up at the horse park looking for Bill and Peggy, but couldn’t find them anywhere.  Finally my cell phone rang, and it was Peggy who told me to go ahead and schedule a pre-purchase vet check.  She said she’d also had a sleepless night, and had spent most of it in the stall with Copper, crying.  She admitted she could tell that Copper and I had a connection, and she felt that I was the right person for him.  I was so afraid she would change her mind that I got the vet check scheduled for that morning.
Another surprise I had was that Copper had qualified for the championship finals in the show, so I wasn’t able to ride him again until after the show.  Imagine my excitement when he won Reserve Champion Gelding in show pleasure, and my name was announced as his owner (yep, as soon as the deal was done, I had hurriedly taken the registration papers to the clerk and had changed them into my name).  I had yet another surprise a few months later when I got a phone call from Peggy telling me to look in my copy of the year-end Rocky Mountain Horse Magazine, and there at the beginning of the story on the 2006 RMHA International was a full page picture of me and Copper with his reserve champion ribbon…I hadn’t even known someone was taking a picture of us as we were walking back to his stall.
In the 5 years I’ve had Copper, I have bonded more with him than with any other horse I’ve owned.  He was exactly what I needed in my life at the time.  We’ve been on campouts, in costume parades, won a challenging obstacle course competition, ridden on the beach, and on many trail rides.  Slowly, he gave me my confidence back.  Riding is so much fun again, and this horse makes me smile and laugh every single day with his antics.  Because of his training with therapy riders, he’s so good with children and the disabled.  While still in Kentucky, I saw Peggy’s grandkids Shelby and Madison run between his legs and under his belly, and my young niece and nephew have been learning about horses with Copper as their teacher.  I will be forever grateful to Peggy Edwards for loving her horse enough to let go so that I could love and own this wonderful horse named Peg’s Copper!

The Rocky Mountain Horse, Issue 1, 2008