Photo of Gali, Laramie and Cooper when they first arrived in PA by Lisa Singer
I've had my Morgan gelding, Cooper, for nine years now. I bought him back in 2002, after I lost Merc (TGR Quicksilver), a wonderful Morgan, after colic surgery. I was heartbroken about loosing Merc. He was more like a puppy dog than a horse, and was turning into a very good competition horse. We had competed at Preliminary very successfully for a season and I was all set to move him up to Advanced when he got sick. Merc was only six and I took the loss hard.
My friend and teacher, Lisa Singer, encouraged me to get another horse. I really hate looking at horses for sale - it's just like a blind date - you get all excited about the propects of the new horse and then when you meet him - it's disappointing! Lisa is not usually a nagger but she sure nagged me about horseshopping. Later, after I bought Cooper, my daughter told me that Lisa was afraid I would quit horses because of losing Merc and that is why she kept on me to buy one.
Lisa was off to Wyoming to look at a horse (Gali)to go in her pair. She had invited me to go along and I bought a plane ticket, but had some visitors from California coming to our company and so I cancelled my trip. I was secretly relieved. Lisa found her horse and brought home a video of the many Morgans at Mears Morgans. One horse after another appeared on the video, loose in the large indoor arena. Lisa's handwritten notes had information about each horse. At one point in the tape, a pair of horses trotted loose around the ring in perfect unison. They were half brothers, both four year olds.
Lisa thought they were great and tried to talk me into buying them both! She thought they would make a great pair. I thought about it for a few days, then told Lisa if she bought one, I'd buy one. She agreed and called the farm to tell them to put all three horses on the van from Wyoming to Pennsylvania.
A week later Lisa called to tell me that the horses were arriving in a few days. I drove up to Pennsylvania from our then home in Virginia. As I thought about it during the drive, I realized that we did not know the horses names or anything about them, and we had never decided who was getting which horse. I figured that we could put names in a hat and pick our horse that way. When I got there I told Lisa about my idea and she agreed.
We went out to look at the horses and took their papers with us so we could figure out who was who from their markings. The smaller of the two was LR Ami B-Line, his brother was a bit larger and heavier boned. Both horses were friendly and good movers as we watched them in the paddock. I would have been fine with either one but have to admit I liked the smaller horse a bit more.
We wrote their names down on two pieces of paper, and closed our eyes and picked. I ended up with LR Ami B-Line. Not a very user friendly name. What to call him? I couldn't figure out any nicknames from looking at his papers. I went on line and entered B-Line in a search engine. Up came Cooper B-Line, a huge international corporation. That was easy - now he was named Cooper!
We loaded up and off we went to Virginia to start our life together.
Next: Part Two: Getting Acquainted
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