Living the dream

Mary Boisvert had just graduated high school when she got her first horse. After years of wanting one, she waited for her parents to go out of town for summer vacation, gathered all the money she had from graduation gifts, and bought an unregistered few-spot Appaloosa mare that became her pride and joy.

She had no place to keep the mare, but Mary didn’t let that stand in the way of her dream. Instead, she got busy building a fence and made her dream a reality. Thirty years later, Mary still loves Appaloosas. She and her husband, Jay, operate a small but growing Appaloosa breeding program in Frederic, Wisconsin. And Mary is still chasing her colorful, Appaloosa-filled dreams.

Colorful beginnings

Mary owned and loved her first horse for 15 years, and the mare taught her to appreciate the breed’s intelligence, disposition and color. One thing led to another, as they often do with horses, and Mary bought her first registered mare, Phantom Panties. “That’s when we started breeding,” she explains.

Although she didn’t show on the Appaloosa circuit, Mary always enjoyed trail riding and competing in local dressage shows. She bought a leopard mare named Kendra Kisses around 10 years ago. “She was my dream horse, and she still knows it,” Mary says about the mare. “She stood around 16 hands and was the leopard I always wanted, just the picture of the perfect Appaloosa.”

Full-text version printed in the December 2009 issue of Appaloosa Journal.
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