Oh fun!! Here’s my best old man, my once in a lifetime, back during our show days.
Here he is these day. Handsome as ever at 31
Here’s my Lulu girl. Unfortunately I don’t have any pro show photos of her but here is my favorite non-pro
And my favorite candids with her
that would make a beautiful painting.
I have been blessed to have two heart horses in my life
When jumpers just don’t hold that adrenaline kick.
That fence was brand new that year. We were the first to jump it. During the long gallop up to it my reptilian brain kept saying “PULL UP! PULL UP!”. My frontal cortex was going “Shut the fuck up.”
This is fun to see everyone’s posts! It’s bittersweet to be the one posting. but it’s all a journey, right?
First one is the mare I’ve been riding while I’ve been horseless the past year, Lucy - she is amazing.
The second one is the mare I had to retire due to a hind suspensory injury. She had so much talent, but she has a good life still with her breeder (and her sibling!) down in FL.
The third is my CalPal - she was the most fun, but she broke her hind splint bone. She did make a full recovery, but I decided to sell her to a good local trainer who uses her as a lower level horse now.
I’m so glad that I’m able to keep in touch with all of my former horse’s connections to check in on them!
The size of some of the sticks y’all jump make me feel inadequate; I’m looking at you, RAyers…
I’m sure I’ll screw up adding captions to each. The gray was a lease and that was the most fun year and a half ever. Pic from my first, and so far only, AQHA World Show.
The sorrel is the one horse who will never be for sale. I guess my “heart horse” though the term turns my stomach. The first pic from our first derby. Didn’t make it back for the handy and boy have I come a ways since that show. But it was still so much fun, showing in the Olympic arena in Conyers. The second pic from the NSBA World Show a few years back, where we were Reserve World Champions in the Amateur Working hunter. We are working on a come back, after a few years away due to career and school constraints.
I have a couple.
This is the picture of Moo (Mogul III) that I usually show people (its is Difficult Run at Frying Pan Park, some time in the 1980s. He was only 14h 3". and AngloArab x Trak.
This is my favorite picture of Spy (Spy Illusion, a TB quite closely related to JJ Babu). He has good form, but that was about the highest he jumped comforatbly. That is not me riding, it is the teenager I leased him to.
This is Music, my TB x QH I had from a long yearling to 34 years old (she is also the one who turned a bounce into an oxer). This is either Waredaca or Foxcroft.
This is Belle (Morning Glory’s Belle Fille), TB x Connemara, show jumping at HITS Culpeper. (I have another picture of her, eventing, in my wallet that I usually show people, but I am having dificulty finding it.
Found it! Morven Park HT. She is now 28 and semi retired.
Hopefully I’ll get my current horse out to some shows this year to get nice pictures, but here are a couple of my favorites of my late WB.
Finished my first Horse Trial on our dressage score and this chicken adult ammy hunter rider survived my first competitive XC experience.
One of my favorite summer show days. Blurred my face because a) some semblance of privacy and b) I have a knack for having the world’s dumbest expressions on my face in otherwise lovely riding photos. 
Most recent favorite. Thermal in January. Grady, the horse I once thought might never be flat sound again.
One of my all-time favorites. Jive in about 1990.
Proof that TBs can do dressage. Cool in 1995.
With Troy, the first of many bay geldings, at Crummer Field in Malibu in the late 1960s.
My Appaloosa from years ago. My first love and heart horse. I’ve forgotten the photographer’s name now, but I had permission to copy it after the horse passed so would think this is ok…
My beloved TB at one of the few shows we got to do. He is who taught me to love again after losing the one above.
My current incredible, amazing boy. When I lost the chestnut, I thought there was no way I’d find a third one that special. Happily, I was wrong
No lie… I took that top picture! I can’t remember if it was 2012 or 2013, but it is one of my favorites I have ever taken!
This is my favorite photo from the past couple of years with one of my TB mares. Lake Placid ‘22, my friend gets photo credit. There is so much wrong with it: her green bean front end, the ticked front rail, lol, and the fact that the entire show was a complete disaster. She was totally overfaced and I retired after three jumps because her brain was starting to melt out of her ears. But we tried! And my friend caught this iconic shot with Whiteface in the background. And we’ll try again at some point soon.
And no harm, no foul. Here she is a few weeks later, back in her comfort zone boppin’ around the .85s. 
Alex Zhang is the photographer.
Wow. Thanks everyone for sharing your great pictures of your wonderful horses
Every now & then we need a thread like this.
To remind us we’re all just softhearted(headed?) moosh when it comes to horses - our own & everyone’s
& That we had Dreams.
Some played out IRL, some in our hearts, all The.Best!
Still one of my most favorite photos from NAYRC a looooong time ago (sorry for the bad crop on the photographers signature, I did purchase it!)…how I miss this horse so very much. I learned so much…got him as he was just turned 5. He made it to schooling GP but never competed that level due to an injury. He got to live out a great retirement with me until cushing’s related founder took him at age 27.
The bay is Turtle. We ventured a couple times into jumper land and his scope and power were undeniable. I was barely able to contain it–hence the too short release! But this photo captures his joy in his job and his body–so much charisma and power. Sadly he is retired now at age ten due to bad trigeminal neuralgia.
The chestnut is my new young guy who is a quiet hunter type who has a worried mind but I have built a relationship with him and rode him bridleless last fall for the first time! I was ecstatic in the trust we had in each other. He has a lovely face and eye–so expressive.
First photo credit Sarah Black
Second photo KMK Photos LLC
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