I came back to Paulina in the evening, which made me really happy, but she still looked sad. In the next few days I came to the horse market again and because I wasn't sold, I came back to Paulina every evening.

Some time had passed until one day everything changed. When the hanger flap opened, I no longer saw Paulina's yard, but another large stable building. There were no paddock boxes in front of them and young horses looked at me curiously. Most of them were my age. I was led into the yard by a blonde woman. We passed a large paddock and I was taken into the stable. There were various horses in there not just one particular breed, but none were much older than me. I came into the stalls next to me were a black and bay Warmblood and a Falabella. They greeted me kindly, but I still missed Dalia. Later in the afternoon we were given concentrated feed to eat and care was taken not to run out of our hay supply. It was a nice, big, spacious stall, yet I felt strangely alien.

There must have been 20 horses in the entire stable, either chatting or curiously looking out into the yard to see if anything interesting was happening. I wondered what kind of farm it was. It certainly wasn't a breeding farm, as we were all far too young to have foals. But I couldn't imagine that I was back at the slaughterhouse.Paulina would certainly not have allowed that. Or would she? No, she was much too nice for that.

"What kind of yard is this?" I finally asked my stall neighbour. "We stay here until we are broken in, then we are sold on," Falabella told me. Breaking in, was that what the saddle was for? Slowly I grew tired and dozed off.

The days in my new home were actually always the same. In the morning we were fed, at noon we were taken to the pasture and played together until late in the afternoon. Then several people came to us and put us back in the box. There we got concentrated feed again and stayed there the whole night. I couldn't complain, because life wasn't bad there, but I found it a pity that I couldn't form a bond with a human.

I also quickly made new friends. The Falabella standing next to me was called Felix and was a chestnut pinto. He was not here to be broken in because he was too small and belonged to the owner's daughter, whose name was Apollonia. I didn't get on quite as well with my other stall neighbour, but I still found him nice. There was also Fenja, a relatively large brown Icelandic mare with light shades. I also liked playing with Andvari. He was a mousy grey KWPN. I liked both of them very much and I slowly got used to my new stable day.

Eventually it got warmer and the afternoon sun shone brightly on our backs most of the time. We were now not only groomed, but also rubbed down after going to the paddock. My friends and I also grew a little taller and our manes longer. The people from the stable also started to do lead training with us every now and then and took us along as hand horses on their rides. Many of them also had private horses on another part of the farm that I hadn't seen yet.

When we arrived back home, I was groomed again and my hooves checked. Afterwards I came into the stable where the others had already been fed. I had enjoyed the ride, but I was now also a bit exhausted and glad to be able to rest in my box. A tasty mix of oats and dried fruit was emptied into my feed trough before I got my ration of hay for the night. I lay down in the cosy bedding. It wasn't straw, though, like in the boxes I used to stand in, but shavings with rubber mats underneath. The boxes had to be mucked out while we were standing in the paddock. I looked over at Felix, but he was just standing there, dozing quietly. So I decided to sleep too and lay down on the ground.