Summer (1996 – 2021)
Summer was my first horse and my companion for seventeen years. She became mine in 2004 when she was eight, though that was before full passports were a legal requirement for horses and I never knew her ‘real’ age or her birthday. She was an Irish Draught cross, standing 15.2hh.
Summer looked after me through my teenage years an beyond, and I can only hope I did justice looking after her. She had one daughter, named Lan Garth Morgan Le Fay (Summer x Lan Garth Triple) born in July 2008. We were separated when I moved to Oxford from the Isle of Man in 2014, eventually re-uniting in 2018 (though obviously I’d visit home as often as I could). Summer ‘retired’ for all of six months before deciding that retirement was boring – and we went to Loxwood Joust in August 2019!
Summer enjoyed TREC, Liberty, Jousting/Skill at Arms, and a whole load of other activities. She managed to fracture her pedal bone in early 2022 (I’ve still no idea how, neither did she) and was wholly retired following a 6-8 week recovery. Summer wore heart-bar shoes and was living pain free with her herd who stood by her in her ‘box rest’ paddock for her recovery. Or aided her occasional escape.
I made the difficult choice that all horse owners have to face, in September 2021, that Summer was starting to show low-level discomfort from her arthritis and that her fracture was grumbling. Summer had seasonal asthma/pollen allergies so to push through another Winter and ‘wait for Spring’ would have been unfair, risking injury in field.
Summer left this world on 22 October 2021
All photos by White Cat Photography