Flag's story begins, Late October 1980

This is about the most excited I have been since I got involved with horses about 6 years earlier. I had been searching for months for a stud prospect to breed to my appaloosa mares, and some outside ones. I had decided I wanted a Bright Eyes Brother bred horse with a nice blanket and enough white to provide some flash. I had finally located a weanling in Yelm Washington that had the distinctive blood line look I wanted, he was sorrel with a blanket over his hips, 4 white socks and nice blaze, one blue eye. My friend Bob was riding with me to make the 300 mile trip to Yelm to pick him up, and I just hoped he was anywhere near as nice as his pictures, his name was Flags Bright Finale and I had no idea how much the rest of my life would be changed.
At first sight I was sure I made the right choice, he was pretty well halter broke, led and tied OK, had never been loaded in a trailer. The gal I bought him from led him up to the back of my 4 horse stock type trailer without much trouble, when Bob and I got on each side and pretty much just set him in, guess he thought it was sort of like a stall cause he didn't fight it. In order to give him a chance to settle down and get used to these surroundings we tied him in and went to the house to complete the paperwork. 20 minutes later we were on our way, 300 miles back to Springfield.
The trip home wasn't exactly event free, about 80 miles to go, well into the night now, a rear tire on the drivers side of the trailer blew. Had no idea until the flat came off of the rim dropping the steel wheel on the concreate road bed of I5, sending up a very impressive show of sparks. Didn't have a spare that fit the trailer so wound up using a come along to pull the wheel up and hold it up, than drove on home without further incident. Flag only fussed a little and the light show didn't even upset him. When arrived home I turned him out in my small arena, he ran around and hollered for a bit, than settled down and started eating, took a drink. It was quite late so I went to the house and turned in but don't think I slept a wink, our life togeather had began.