Dartanon is the name as it
appears on his Coggins and Susan Paulton is the name of the person who
sold the horse. I call him Dar or D'Artagon (after the French knight)
When I first saw Dar, he was
a stallion stabled in a stall with a paddock. He seemed more nervous
than the other horses at the Paulton ranch in South Dakota, however that
could be explained by his view of the herd of mares coming up occasionally
near his paddock. There was a vacant stall and paddock next to him
with a stallion on the other side. Next to this other stallion was
another stallion and then a stallion on the other side of him.
Dar's right front hoof was longer than his other front hoof and had an
extra growth on it, but his gaits were better than the other horses and
he did not limp. Susan explained that he had an injury as a young
colt and that was why his one hoof grew that way. I was doing some
work for Susan to earn a horse credit so I could buy a horse from her.
As Dar was in
shadow when I fed him, I didn't pay that much attention. Susan said
he was about 4 or 5 years old, the same age as two other stallions in her
barn. That was the spring of 1995. I left South Dakota around
June of the same year after purchasing a young foal with my horse credit
of ~$2100. After the foal was weaned, I began paying Susan a monthly
pasture board for him until I could find another place to board him and
work with him.
Around 1997 the Paultons
moved to another ranch in South Dakota and I was told my horse had been
gelded because there was no room for him. As I wanted a stallion
for dressage, I told Susan I did not want him as he had been gelded so
young and for her to sell him and apply my horse credit to another.
Susan told me that she would do this and I would not lose either my horse
credit or the money I had paid for his board.
A few years later Susan offered
me another horse who had been sold to someone in Wisconsin and had not
worked out for them. Susan was going to have to pick up this horse
and she offered him as he was nearer to me than my getting a horse from
SD. As this horse showed Paso gaits, and I did not really have a
place for him at that time, I declined. I was rapidly finding out
that Kentucky was a very difficult place to try to board a horse.
Susan indicated after she retrieved
the horse, that the people in Wisconsin had this horse, Ceilo, for about
7 years and had apparently never ridden him as he was quite green.
She also stated that these people had purchased more than one black horse
from her, but had not paid for Ceilo. Ceilo was 9 when Susan took
him back, she told me.
In 2003 Susan again called
me about a horse. In July of that year Dar had been sold to a man
who was a friend of a person Susan had leased the Wisconsin horse to for
training in Dressage. The Wisconsin horse was all black and pretty,
but still showed Paso gaits.
Wes, the person leasing Ceilo,
told Susan that his son was riding Dar Western style and doing rollbacks
with him and Dar , whom Susan sold to Wes' friend, was doing great as was
Ceilo in his dressage training. Wes lived in New Mexico and was trailering
Ceilo to Houston, Texas for dressage lessons from a French Master in dressage.
Dar was stabled with Wes. A few months later, Dar then turned up
in a killer sale 3 miles north of Houston, Texas, and no one knew why.
I received this information from Susan Paulton and I ended up with Dar..
Because of Susan's misrepresentation
of the horse she called Dartanon to me in pushing me to rescue this horse,
I can not recommend doing business with Susan Paulton and this is the reason
I removed the web site featuring her horses.
For more photos, details about
the transaction and the rest of the tale left click here
"The Rail" is a great way to
surf the web.
This "Rail" will take you
on the Animal Train
