Well… we’re announcing a name change. Again. For the third time. 
Last month at auction, one of our new horses was a 21-ish year old black horse—super friendly, a little underweight, and sold in the ring as a mare. Shortly after “her” arrival, someone reached out thinking they recognized her as one of their old horses and told us her name was Alice. We were thrilled—one of the hardest parts of auction is not knowing the name a horse has known their whole life, so when we can reconnect that, it really matters to us.
We shared her name… and then realized the next day that Alice was definitely not a mare. Just a very sweet gelding who happened to look like someone’s old horse. (And yes, we even had another kind man stop by thinking he was Alice too, so we got to break that news twice.)
So… we renamed him Sid.
As he started shedding out, we noticed a brand on his hip that we hadn’t seen before. We traced it back to Dupree, South Dakota and reached out, not expecting much but hoping maybe we’d get lucky. They replied and explained the brand had been inherited when their mother passed in 2015, so it wasn’t one they had personally used—but after a few minutes, they realized they did recognize him. They knew exactly who he was, and even found an old photo of one of them riding him years ago.
That gave us his real name, his confirmed age—21—and pieces of his story. He was a fun riding horse who liked to go all the way to the far corner of the pasture and run back, had been roped off of and dragged calves to branding, and had been, in every sense, a really good old boy. They also shared that if they had known he was for sale, they would have taken him in, and that their mother would be happy knowing he was safe.
Of course, knowing a name and proving a name are two different things. After a couple days of him making us work to catch him and mostly ignoring “Sid,” we tried his real name—and he stopped. Last night, when we came in to feed and called him by that name, he whinnied.
So of course… we’re giving it back.
Everyone, meet Tom.
Tom is looking for a new home, and if you’re interested in him, you can learn more