Our Mission

Liz and I thought long and hard about what to call our stables, but settled on Happy Horse. It's simple and sums up what we're about.

Our mission is to improve horse welfare in South Korea through education.  We will do this through mounted and unmounted horsemanship, horse management, equine psychology, and fun horse related activities.

Just as we believe in getting horses out of the barn, we believe in getting riders out of the ring. We have a very large round pen, a paddock and are adding trail park elements. We have already started construction on a small network of on property trails so riders and horses are better educated to various situations. 

Lessons

Riding/ Lessons will be available late spring of  2019

Meet Our Horses

Thorington (Thor)
Age: 4
Breed: Thoroughbred
Height: 16.2 hands (165 cm)

He is the third member of our equine family. He retired from racing in March 218. He raced three times, but won nothing. Our feed man sent us his picture and told us he was big, but we initially turned him down because it was so cold, we had to warm the water for the horses to drink... a pot, a wood fire and buckets of water carried from the pond.   A few weeks later the weather warmed up and we asked about him. The company who owned him wanted to run him one more time (his third race) so we almost didn't get him. But lucky for us, he was a complete failure on the track.

His favorite things include watching us with a puzzled expression, dropping his dingle-berry when you pet or rub him, and people.

Thunder (Thunder Girl)
Age: 4
Breed: Thoroughbred
Height: 16.2 hands (165 cm)

She was the second horse to join family. She was retired from racing in early December of 2017. Her race owner paid equivalent of $80,000 USD when she was a yearling and had high hopes for her. Fortunately for us,  refused to go faster than a trot in her two starts. Her owner was so mad, she was sold to a training stables who didn't do much with her.  In the beginning she had a death stare anytime you asked her to do anything she didn't want to do, but now she only grumps a little.  

Her favorite things include napping, drinking water, baths, face scratches and blocking the road. Lead her away so a truck or excavator can come in, and she returns to stand in front of it, lol.

Super (Superman)
Age: 7
Height: 15.3 hands (156 cm)

He is the first member of our equine family. He raced 12 times, 9 of which he won. But when they tried to move him up a class, he wasn't fast enough. So he was sold to a man who sent him to be trained in at the stables in Bongwha. At the time, the stables the training was quite rough on horses... they changed a lot by watching me so the horses aren't tied down to be saddled anymore, but we don't know how rough Super's training was.  We do know that he was traded back to the training stables because he was too spooky. The trainers then tried teaching him to jump, but Super is a coward at heart and the fences got too high too fast. He crashed, one of the boys riding ended up in the hospital and Super's stifle was injured. You wouldn't know it today, and though he can walk , trot, canter and even do a bit of jumping, we he has limits so we don't push him past those. He will defend us from things he thinks might threaten us, particularly Gabe. He is still a coward, but one that will defend his humans. 

His favorite pastimes include ear scratches, napping and rolling.