Back in 1999, recently divorced, recently starting over in the horse business and with two horse crazy kids, I purchased what was a “nice” watch for then (okay, not super nice but nice by my standards).  It was called the WHOA watch and was sold at a saddle shop.

Certainly, that was enough to get my attention but it also came with a leather band, a stainless steel face, and was quite water proof.  Exactly, what I needed for my new life with horses, water hoses and water buckets.  I would not have to take it off every time I wanted to clean a bucket or bathe a horse.

It also had a little light up dial feature.  Perfect for me in the middle of the night when I wanted to know what time it was.

Well, I loved the WHOA watch, cleverly saying whoa instead of stop in a little stop sign in the center of the watch.  It was to be a saving grace for me as well.

I was working a thoroughbred for some friends and without much warning or notice got bucked off over the arena fence, landing indelicately in the stands.  I was hurt bad enough for an ambulance to come and me to spend several days in the hospital. But my WHOA watch had saved me from a bad injury as well.

As I had bounded over the fence, my wrist had caught on the wire fence, cutting deeply into the soft flesh.  It bled,  a lot.  In the ambulance, they wanted to throw away my watch which was covered in blood.  I insisted on keeping it.  It would be awhile until I examined my clothing and belongings from that day.

When I did, and I cleaned up the WHOA watch, I found the stainless steel face had a deep pit cut into the stainless and across the glass.  Had the wire cut through my wrist at the same depth and strength I would have had quite an issue with bleeding. As it was the WHOA watch let me get by with just a few stitches instead.

All this time, I casually looked for another WHOA watch.  I never could find one, but kept a search active on eBay.  Well, look at what I got (and for an amazing price-okay it is 20 years old -I call that a vintage find!). I am thrilled to have my watch back and hope I don’t need it’s super powers ever again.

Thanks for riding along!