106 SIDELINES FEBRUARY 2013
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
A family photo of the Spencers.
Photo by Cookie Serletic
Confetti hard at work at the grocery store.
Photo by Cookie Serletic
was already missing her and she wasn’t even gone,” Cheryl
said.
A New Beginning
Luckily for Cheryl, fate had something in store for her - something
that would change her life.
When Cheryl fnally came around to letting Chris read her the
magazine article, she had hope that a miniature guide horse just
might work out. So, Cheryl and Chris headed to The Guide Horse
Foundation in North Carolina and Cheryl fell in love.
There, she got to work with a miniature horse named Rosie.
Rosie guided her around town and they even went to Wal-Mart
together. It was the perfect situation. Miniature guide horses
live much longer than dogs so a guide horse would be just what
Cheryl needed.
She had her heart set on coming back to get a guide horse of
her own when The Guide Horse Foundation dropped the bomb.
They said that Cheryl was 74th on the list. “They were training two
a year so divide 74 by two and the numbers work out that Cheryl’s
dead before they give her a horse,” Chris said.
But Cheryl and Chris weren’t going to let that stop them.
A Long Struggle
Chris asked if there were any alternatives and the Guide
Horse Foundation told them if they could fnd a professional
horse trainer then they could get a horse.
Cheryl and Chris set out to fnd a trainer. “I was just about to
give up,” Cheryl said. “I had all but just forgotten the whole idea
and then I get a call one day and Chris says ‘I found the trainer’
and I about fell out of my chair.”
The trainer was a co-worker’s daughter’s instructor who
happened to be looking for a community service project. So
Cheryl and Chris sent out an email inquiring about miniature
horses 26” or smaller and they found Confetti who was 27” tall.
Cheryl didn’t have a problem with that. She ran around the house
screaming “what’s an inch, what’s an inch.”
After a long search, they were fnally connected to Gail Ray.
Gail agreed to train Confetti - although it would mostly be
remotely. So the Spencers would work with Confetti and should
they have a question or a problem Gail would walk them through
it.
“We basically had to take a course in horse 101 real quick so
we could take care of her,” Chris said. They even read “Horses
for Dummies.”
A Happy Ending
To see them today, you would think the Spencers had always
been horse people.
Confetti goes everywhere with them and is a hit everywhere she
goes. When she goes to new places, she gets to explore frst and
guide second. Sometimes, she’s even a little too confdent.
For example, at frst Confetti wouldn’t leave a store without
going through the checkout. “When we went to the store we
usually would be buying something so we would go to the register
and leave and that’s the pattern she got used to,” Cheryl said. “So
one day we didn’t buy anything and I could not get that horse to
go to the door to save my life.”
Now, Confetti has her checkout urge under control.
The Spencers also had to experiment with letting her interact
with people, to see how it would affect her job. Confetti is now
always welcome to visit people (most of whom can’t get enough
of her) as long as it doesn’t affect her job. “We have learned that
people have an ingrained love of horses that probably goes back
to beginning of time,” Cheryl said. “Horses are magical beings that
bring out the best in everybody.”
Confetti now leads Cheryl everywhere (happy to receive
various treats along the way), lives and sleeps in the house and
has become the joy of the Spencer’s life.
About the writer: Dani Moritz is a senior at William Woods
University and is a writer/producer and creative director
for RateMyRiding.com. She is also the 2012 American Horse
Publications Student Award Winner and is a staff writer for
Sidelines Magazine.