Mission Statement
Additional Information
I'm Ellen Rose Parker and I'm here to tell you that dreams really can come true. They might look a little different than you imagined, and most importantly they will take a ton of hard work and daily steps, but they really can come true.
So let me tell you a story. This is a true story of tiny miracles, luck. partnership, courage, and devotion.
I didn't grow up with horses; I grew up with the dream of horses. My family didn't have a lot of money, we were pretty blue collar and everybody worked, so there wasn't money even for horse camp like other horse crazy girls went to, much less actual horses on a regular basis. Every time I got to be around horses, it was like magic for me. I wanted that life so bad it hurt my little girl heart.
I did luck out in that I had an aunt with horses and I got to ride her childhood Welsh pony cross, Smokey, from time to time. He was the good pony that every horse kid needs, stubborn and reliable, and the naughtiest thing he ever did was try to eat grass all the time when we rode. I also read a lot about horse sports I wanted to do and settled on endurance riding. I read a book about the longest US endurance ride and that was the first time I was introduced to the Icelandic Horse. They were imported occasionally from Iceland in the days of that race, 1975, and while they didn't win the race, they were the only horses to make the whole trip, from New York to California, without a single day of lameness.
That impressed me and so I started doing research and realized there was a lady not 2 hours from me who was breeding Icelandic horses. Her name was Deb Cook, and little did I know that reaching out to her would start me on a long and winding path to where I am now. She welcomed me to her farm and let me ride a lovely grey mare named Gulbra, who gave many people in her long life their first ride on an Icelandic. I went back to her house a few months later and rented a horse for a weekend clinic with an Icelandic trainer they brought in and I was really hooked, then. I was a young adult, in college with zero money. I also took some lessons here and there until I came off a horse pretty hard in a lesson and cracked my tailbone. If that ever happened to you, you'll know it hurts like the dickens and takes a long time to heal.
I spent the next 20 years not riding at all, starting a career and a family with the love of my life, Eric. We moved around some and every time he had to move my old saddle into a new house, he never said a word about it, just understood that it was something special to me; some part of a dream that was an ember in my heart waiting to be fed to life again. Then when I turned 40, I went to the Minnesota Horse Expo and went straight to the the stalls with the Icelandic horses in them. I felt like such a 'wannabe' and I honestly didn't even dare to dream or think very far down the path I was edging on to. But I walked up to Deb Cook after 20 years, reintroduced myself, and she remembered me. I had 5000 available to me in savings, even then an astonishing sum, with 2 little kids, and a dream that I just could not ignore any longer.
Meeting Mysla was love at first sight, it's true. But it also scared the heck out of me; buying a horse. What if she got sick, or hurt, or I lost my job, or I got hurt, or my kids needed something, or any one of a million things that crowded my brain. So I called Deb back and told her that I wasn't ready to buy a horse yet. A couple weeks passed and I was talking to my same aunt I used to ride with as a kid, about meeting this great horse, and my aunt invited me to board my horse with them. It was minimal monthly fee, I could help with chores, and I could bring my young kids with me since boarding facilities are not often great places for little kids. I thought about it for about 30 seconds and called Deb back and asked if Mysla was still there. Thankfully, she was, and my aunt and I trailered down there to look at her again and buy her. It was a daze for me I was so happy and scared at the same time. When we left Deb's house, I started to cry. My aunt asked me what was wrong and I said, "I just never thought I would ever be leaving with my horse in the trailer. "
With Mysla's help, I dared to dream bigger and bigger. I struggled through learning about gaits and cues for gaits and how to move my body with hers, unfortunately mostly without very much training in those first few years. Mysla was a fairly green horse, too, and I only fell off a time or two, but I did do a lot of scared riding. But for me, there just came a time when I had to put my big girl panties on and ride alone, trailer alone, seek out trainers, go to other boarding options closer to me, stumble through learning, not knowing, making mistakes, taking criticism about my riding, my weird little 'pony' and lots of other things that took all my courage. What I found out was that when something is your dream, you're going to have to leave the nest; going to have to get way out into the unknown and go forward as best you can.
After about 4 years of trail riding, gait practice, my first clumsy attempts at showing in the tiny Icelandic world, and lots of other misadventures, I was ready to purchase a second mare, and get serious about the longer term goal of buidling a breeding operation. I went back to my mentor, Deb Cook, again to have her help me pick out a really solid foundation mare for my program. She introduced me to professional trainer and breeder, Heidi Benson. She had an amazing mare for sale with outstanding bloodlines and tons of training. I flew out to meet Hugrun and bought her almost immediately. She was one of the most beautiful mares I had even seen, super proud, highly trained, and very much a proud queen. my family and I were able to move out of Saint Paul, Minnesota to Ellsworth, Wisconsin. We bought a 20 acre farm with pretty basic horse setup and got started mending fences and getting settled.
