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My Chocolate Pony

by Gale Emmons, Oregon

My favorite Haflinger moment started with one isolated moment
some years ago; It was like when the chocolate company had a
contest at the Market Basket store each year back in the 1950s, to
win a pony and all you had to do was tell, in 25 words or less, why
you deserved the pony over all the other boys and girls. The
pony was usually grey or gold with a white mane and tail. I never
won the pony but each year I would look at the new pony in the
pen in the parking lot of the Market Basket store with every
confidence that this one was "my" pony. It was a wonderous
thing to wait all year and finally see that pony in the pen. Each
year though some other boy or girl won the pony. I had horses
by the time I was 7 but I still wanted that fluffy pony. Fifty years
later I had never even heard of a Haflinger horse and was at the Small
Farmer's Journal carriage & horse auction in Redmond. I
walked into a barn and there were two Haflinger fillies in these
pens and I was absolutely floored. I stood there with my mouth
agape until my husband gave me a shove. They were
like the answer to my prayers--kind of a rebirth of the "Western
Chunk" a breed type, now extinct, that would probably have
become a breed had the tractor not been invented; small, stout,
robust but still elegant horses with big hearts and sweet
dispositions. I can still feel that absolute wonder of when I
walked into that barn and there they were--the ponies I never won
in the chocolate contest only these weren't ponies--these were
horses and they were wonderful. This time I got my "pony" . . . she's
gold with a white mane and tail. Every time I walk in the barn and
see her peering over the stall door, I am a kid all over again
looking through the fence in the Market Basket parking lot . . . in complete wonder that this time, I'm the lucky little girl.
Gale Emmons
http://www.angelfire.com/or2/buggyworks