Sassafras

Sassy was my first horse and was Charlotte's pasture buddy. We were told when we bought her that she was a handful and was a feisty pony. But, I wanted a challenging horse, so we decided to get her. I had normal riding lessons with her for about a month and she was doing pretty well... with a cavesson noseband and a twisted snaffle. Of course, my normal mind at the time didn't see anything wrong with it. Once we got Charlotte and Sassy at our own barn, Sassy immediately developed a severe cough whenever she would move. So, one day when we went to ride Charlotte we put Sassy in a stall so she wouldn't get worked up running around. When we returned from the ring Sassy was in a deep sweat and clearly freking out, so we did the normal thing: closed the top half of the dutch-door, thinking "she'll calm down, she just needs to get over it." It didn't take long for her to go completely bonkers, so my mom opened the top half again and told me, "get her lead rope!" Before I could get into the tack room, I heard a big commotion and turned to see my horse hanging over the stall door. That's right, Sassy had jumped, from a stand still, over the top of the stall door.
Although she came out of that accident with a scraped back leg and semi-permenant back damage, we came out of this incident with a whole new perspective towards horses, which eventually led us to Natural Horsemanship.
Sassy was a very difficult horse to figure out and to work and play with. Both me and my mom have tried to work with her and through her little temper tantrums, but at a certain point she would always get too much for me or my mom to handle. We tried to work it out through Parelli, chiropractic work, acupuncture, and miofascial release sessions. Eventually, we both realized she was suitable for a MUCH more savvy owner than what we could give her, so I started to look for another horse.
Our friend Terrie has a big herd of horses, which used to include Woody, and it worked out for Woody to become mine and Sassy to be hers. Now, Sassy is happily living her life in a big herd and with a very knowledgable and natural home which she seems to enjoy much better.