Fearoch
In Memory of and Appreciation for Fearoch 'Freddie', Dutch Warmblood gelding, and my friend and teacher.
About 5 years ago I was sidelined from active dressage training, nursing my rising young star back to hoped-for health after emergency colic surgery. Health never came, but the repeated nightmares did. I would dream I was a quadriplegic sitting in a wheelchair looking at my barn, desperately wanting to be able to be there riding. My trainer at that time, Sue Kolstad, correctly diagnosed that I felt paralyzed in my hope of achieving some level of proficiency in dressage. She urged me to get another horse if I could. Since I was staring at turning 50, I just didn't have the heart to start over for the third time at training level. Sue urged me to find a schoolmaster to teach me. We started a nationwide search and found Freddie in Florida. It took about 30 seconds to know he was the one, and plans were made for Freddie to come to Indiana. Freddie had successfully competed at 4th level and I had never made it out of Training Level. I had never experienced his big gaits and it took a long time before I could sit his trot. We struggled through 1st level and progress ground to a halt in Second. Being so highly trained and very willing and responsive, we had quite a time getting together...he had far more buttons than I could have imagined, much less understood, and I was always getting a response I had asked for, however unwittingly, but didn't want.
One day my daughter, Ariel and I were sitting in front of our horses' stalls at a large dressage show, lamenting not having a trainer "like all the other riders had." Sitting directly across from us were Dawn Andrus (see Rider's page) and Pam May (now Cameron), see Riding Instruction. They couldn't help but hear, and started up a conversation. The next week they visited Serenity Farms, Vychegda came to live with us, and Pam became our trainer. Pam set to work reforming Freddie's training again and obviously my riding. As we gradually learned to work together under Pam's guidance and amazing patience at repeating the same teaching point hundreds of times, Freddie and I made it through Second Level the next year and began work on Third. We got our first Third Level qualifying score for the USDF Bronze Medal early in the show season, with Freddie winning almost all his classes as well as being named Second and Third Level Champion for the show. Later in the season, our hopes were dashed by a whistle blow at the July show, with the judge having us removed for lameness. An old injury to the right hind fetlock had become too severe, and beyond the ability of the many vets subsequently consulted. Freddie was retired, I had reconstructive knee surgery in August of '06, and our Bronze Medal dreams were dashed. Dawn kindly offered the use of her mare Vychegda in the October show, should my knee allow me to ride. I took Dawn up on the offer, and succeeded in getting my last Bronze Medal qualifying ride.
My precious Freddie got me there, but we couldn't finish the race together. Meanwhile the Cushings that he had been diagnosed with a couple years earlier and for which he had been under treatment increased dramatically in virulence. His health declined so rapidly that by the end of November I was facing a final good-bye to my friend and teacher. With our wonderful vet, Angela Blackwell, trainer Pam, and daughters gathered around, I got the longed for chance to sit one last time astride my Freddie. I wanted pictures of Freddie with the Bronze Medal for the USDF magazine. Ken Levy was kind enough to loan me his Bronze Medal, for there was not time to wait for the receipt of my medal. A long time friend and photographer, Rochelle Butler, came to immortalize the event.
Angela made sure that Freddie was totally pain free during his last photoshoot and I got to thrill one last time at his glorious trot. As painful as the goodbye was, watching a painful decline was worse. After the ride I read to Freddie a passage from John Neihardt's Twilight of the Sioux that gives a vision of the other world, featuring horses. I wanted to think of Freddie as on his way there, with the hope of one day seeing him again:
To hear a recording of the following selection, click here.
. . . eyes have never seen
The green with which that breathing land was green,
The day that made the sunlight of our days
Like moonlight when the bitten moon delays
And shadows are afraid. It did not fall
From heaven, blinding; but it glowed from all
the living things together. Every blade
Of grass was holy with the light it made,
And trees breathed day and blooms were little suns.
And through that land the Ever-Living Ones
were marching now , a host of many hosts,
So brightly living, we it is are ghosts
Who haunt these shodows feeding on tomorrows
. Like robes of starlight, their forgotten sorrows
Clung beautiful about the newly dead;
And eyes, late darkened with the tears they shed,
Were wide with sudden morning. It was spring
Forever, and all birds began to sing
Above them, marching in a cloud that glowed
With every color. All the bison lowed
Along the holy pastures, unafraid;
And horses, never to be numbered, neighed
Like thunders laughing. Down the blooming plains,
A river-thaw of tossing tails and manes,
They pranced and reared rejoicing in their might
And swiftness.
Looking back from a distance of 6 months, I am overwhelmed with gratitude that this stoic, kind, talented horse was brought into my life. I'll never forget his kind eye and occasional nuzzle. And those gaits...those gaits!
Thank you, Freddie. You were my teacher and my best friend, absorbing the tears of life's frustrations into your mane and sharing in the moments of triumph. I'll see you another day, my comrade.
