*Help!* A Christmas Surprise

I've been giving lessons on and off to a girl (13 years old) for the past several months. She's as busy or busier than I was at her, but LOVES horses so her parents got her one for Christmas to be a surprise.

I always fostered this dream as a kid. To be asked to help make it come true for someone else makes up for never living the dream myself. I get to live vicariously through her in the process of things.

I helped to find available horses for the girl's mom and dad; another friend and owner of a Friesian sporthorse facility in town helped in the assessment of potential horses as well as the wheeling and dealing. It's been a whirlwind of activity in the last two weeks!

So far the chosen horse - a gelding - sounds as if he's a pretty solid guy, but I'll assess for certain on Sunday and update you all! He's a B&W tobiano paint, registered, 11 years old and will be kept where I keep my horses.

He arrives today.

The way its going to go is as follows: He'll stay at Dee's in a separate corral for a few days. Her parents are going to tell her on Christmas Eve that since she always gets one gift that night, they've planned a surprise lesson with me. They'll then drive her over (they actually are neighbors so she'll have him in her backyard!) and surprise her with her horse.

If my Christmas Eve day goes in a timely manner, I hope to be able to go over and clean him up for her so he's not a muddy mess. I doubt I'm going to get to watch the surprise though since I have family plans of my own. (Though I'm trying my damndest to get them to film it!)

I wanted to pick up some little horse things for her, nothing expensive, that her parents may not have gotten. She's basically starting completely fresh. Her mom once had horses but hasn't in years. She's only started riding lately and doesn't have much of ANYTHING needed to ride in, groom with, train with, etc. My mind overwhelmed me with ideas, but I couldn't decide and then became conflicted over some things. I thought I'd inquire to the horse blogging community for more ideas!

What I wanted to ask of you all was the following:

As an experienced, long-time horse owner/rider, what (beyond the obvious brushes, halter, lead, saddle, pad) would you recommend she have to get started with her horse? 

Do you have anything extra (but usable!) lying around that you'd be willing to send for her and this new horse?

This is totally a shot in the dark, but I wanted to try. I recognize that if anyone sent anything, it wouldn't be here by Xmas Eve, but at least it would help her out.

Please comment with your ideas! Please! If you do have something you'd be willing to mail, email me at estout18 (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank you, everyone, in advance for all of your ideas! I'll be certain to update about this story and the surprise next week!!