Adventure of an Equine lifetime...

September 17, 2012

I found a sorry looking apple in my fruit basket and set it aside to give to Fancy tonight... then I crumpled into tears.

After agonizing for months about what might be best for our whole family during this crazy season of our lives, I made a decision about how best to utilize my horses over the next 3 years (you know, once my kids are all walking and "hopefully" potty trained). I offered to loan Fancy to Take The Reins, an amazing therapeutic riding program in Thompson's Station, TN. They came out to meet her 2 weeks ago and loved her (I would tell you, "what's not to love?"). She will be a part of their program for up to 3 years, at which point she will be retired and returned home to this very happy family, or reevaluated for additional time. What an opportunity for a special horse to touch the lives of so many who might need her...

So, hence the tears and apple scenario from earlier. I am honored that my horse would be considered for this program, but I will miss her every single day, with a vengeance. I must focus my energy on Devany, who inherited all the best qualities of her mother. I am excited to take this very talented, raw equine and train her the things I taught Fancy... and then pray that she will live up to the standard of a particularly great horse I know.

I have included a bit of a "picture gallery" of Fancy's life alongside my own over the past 16 years. I look forward to adding more photos when my boys start learning to ride on her!

She was a part of my life in Arizona (where she was born), then Virginia Beach, then off to college in Tennessee, and next to Maryland when George and I got married, then Austin Texas, where we lived for 7 years (and where she had her first foal, Caspian), and then finally to Nashville where she had her second foal, Devany and where I had my first 2 kids (+ 1 on the way). We have shared so much of life together! I apologize that the photo quality on some of these is horrible...