It all started about three years ago, when my uncle passed away. My aunt and uncle lived in Coral Springs Florida. My aunt and uncle were the only ones who lived down there out of my family. The rest of us live in Melbourne, Florida. So when my uncle passed away it left my aunt all by herself in Coral Springs. So a couple months after my uncles death my aunt decided to move to Melbourne to be with the rest of us. When she finally found a house she liked she moved up here. When she moved up here she brought along her horse Jessie. At her new house she built Jessie a barn to live in, in her backyard. Even with my aunt living on the property, Jessie still got lonely. He had been with other horses all his life. He started to become depressed. So my aunt went through the decision process of either to get a goat or another horse. My aunt made the decision to get another horse. Throughout the decision process of what horse to buy I tagged along to help her decide what horse to buy. I would test ride each horse and see if it was a good candidate to buy. But, one day my aunt went and looked at a horse without me. We were supposed to go the next day to look at a couple of different horses. But when I showed up the next day, I went out to see Jessie in the barn to hello to him but there wasn’t just one horse but there were two horses standing around the barn. My aunt had bought a horse without me. I wasn’t too happy with her but I soon became happy with her again. Not knowing it the first time I saw him but I soon came to realize that I had just met my new best friend, and his name was Simon.

Simon was a beautiful bay American quarter horse gelding. He had a brown body with a black mane and tail. He was 15 hands tall. Simon and I had become bonded almost immediately. Simon had the personality of a thousand pound puppy dog. Whenever I would show up at my aunt’s house he would be the first one to greet me at the fence. Simon taught me everything I know. We learned how to do things together. When I rode Simon I was never afraid of him. I could sense his ever move. I could tell when he was going to spook or try to take advantage and take control. Simon became best friends.

Almost every weekend my aunt and her friend would go on trail rides. Simon was not the perfect bombproof horse. He would occasionally spook at a bird flying up out of the trees, or at a deer down the trail. My aunt wasn’t in the best of shape so sometimes my aunt would fall off when Simon would spook or side step. This continued for a couple of months. My aunt finally got tired of following off, so she told me she was going to sell Simon but she never went through with that. But the last time my aunt rode Simon was her breaking point. She fell off and broke three of her ribs. So the next day my aunt put Simon up for sale on craigslist. A couple of months went by with no interest in Simon. But finally after four months of being on craigslist he finally gained interest. The first person to become interested in Simon was a lady who had a teenage son who was ready to upgrade from his current horse. So when they came out to look at Simon the boy got on Simon and was a little bit afraid of him. So that match didn’t work out. So the next person to come out and look at Simon was a cowboy. He rode Simon and though he needed more work than he had time for. So finally the last person to come and look at Simon was a mother and her daughter and the daughter’s boyfriend. Once they saw Simon they fell in love with him. Once the rode him the ell even more in love with him.

So they came the following Tuesday to get him with the trailer. Come to find out the trailer had a ramp on it. Simon didn’t like ramps. But we tried to load him anyways. So we got him half way into the trailer and he backed out. So we tried again but instead of going in he ran off and drug my aunt down the street with him. We went and caught him. So my aunt decided to give up. My aunt told the woman that she would deliver him the next day. That was the last time I have seen Simon and that was the day when my friendship with him ended.