As a kid, I loved cats (and dogs). If asked what my "favorite" animal was, from toddlerhood to about 5 years old, I would always answer "cat." My "step" mom (who raised me and is by all intents and purposes my real mother) showed me the love of the horse - and it was all over. Because of her, I discovered the horse, and my life was never the same.
Every Christmas, all I asked for were Breyer horses. For some reason, I very infrequently received them. I should really ask about that. Some days, when I wasn't in school, I would go with Mom to her job in advertising sales for the Ann Arbor Observer. Next to their entrance, was a toy store. This toy store carried Breyer Horses. I would stand there for what seemed like forever, in the store, dreaming about being able to buy one and bring it home. In particular, I remember the "Appaloosa Yearling." She was $7.99. That seemed like an insurmountable goal.
Over the years, I managed to acquired a few Breyers. Mom gave me her bald-faced black stretch Morgan (Navarre), and her leopard Appaloosa Western Pracer (Yanawa (sp?). My biological mom gave me #40 Lynn Anderson's Lady Phase, and #51 Yellow Mount. She also gave me #205 Old Timer. I think she had a sense of humor sometimes. My biological maternal grandfather gave me #410 Sham (with heel spot and wheat ear). When I was in 7th grade, my parents gave me #165 Laying Down Foal in appaloosa for getting straight As. That was the only time in my life I was a straight-A student...I think that same year-ish, my folks also gave me #35 Bay Fighting Stallion.
Back in the early 80s, when I was 13 years old, my biological mother took me to the Stallion Exhibition at Michigan State University. Mom had grown up with horses in her family; my grandfather, and my uncle, and Mom showed them. I know at least some were Saddlebreds, but I believe they were used as Hunters.
While at the Stallion Exhibition, we came across the booth of a very nice lady, Pam Young. Her booth was dedicated to the model horse hobby - from collecting to - SHOWING. WHAT?! There were other people out there like me? What??? That day was monumental for me. I have been involved in the hobby as an actual hobbyist, in varying degrees, from the age of 13, to the present. That hobby has brought me some of my best life-long friends (Melissa Klutchko, now Tucker, whom I met when I was 13 and she was 16 - from a classified ad in the back of Just About Horses, Breyer's then every-other-month full-color publication, and Teresa Fedak, whom I met when moving back to Colorado in '99, and many others).
The hobby has occupied me when my husband was overseas for two years on an aircraft carrier. My oldest son (his brother wasn't born yet) used to come to shows with me, and everyone loved him, even though most of them couldn't stand kids. He even had his own collection for a short period of time, but Pokemon stole him away. I did my time serving as a volunteer for the North American Model Horse Shows Association, as a regional representative for Region 3. I've held many shows, from small specialty shows to huge two-days shows with my friend Teresa, where we flew judges in from around the country, to in the early 2010s, several for the Stone Horses company.
My first stable name was Huron Valley Stables. We had a house on Central Ave in Dexter, four houses from the Huron River, in the Huron Valley. After a while, I decided to focus on SM scale horses, so I changed my name to Zeeb Minis. Zeeb Road was nearby, and my father had bought a piece of land that he eventually hoped to build a house on. As it turned out, it was really hard to get the land to perk, and building a house would be too difficult (expensive) and not worth it, so he sold it after several years. We wound up moving to Colorado in 1987 when I was in high school, and the horses were on the back burner. I spent time with friends, and outside, and had no time or desire for the hobby. When I was basically tricked into marrying my first husband (ha, long story), I found out after the fact that that meant moving to Washington D.C., as he was in the Army. I had zero idea how all that worked, so never knew what I was up against, and left my beloved Colorado. While in Maryland, I looked up the hobby. There was quite a great local hobby presence. I renamed my stable Amaranth Mountain Stables, as a nod to the Rockies. While there, I became friends with Terri Glaser (Regal Stables) and Melinda Arnold. I was friendly with many others, and really loved the community, but those two I was closest with, and I spent the most time with them. After four years, and after leaving my oldest son's dad, I moved back to Colorado. There, I tried "Kokopelli Ranch" on for size, and started "Kokopelli Collectibles" and sold Lakeshore horses for a while. I also did prepping for a short time (Kokopelli Prep), and really enjoyed it, and the great feedback received, but my job became too demanding and I had to give up the prepping. I settled after a while on Redline Ranch. Seemed appropriate, since whenever I got re-involved, I was always hammer down, and then life would take me in a different direction, so I was always ebbing and flowing in the hobby, but when I was in, I was full-speed.
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