SUN WHISPER

He was born around Cinco de Mayo, a great strapping baby the color of a doe.  He was unusually large, standing 46 inches at the shoulder.  He was so sweet I thought for a couple of years that he was mentally retarded from the difficult delivery, you know, being deprived of oxygen for too long in the birth canal.

When I took him and his mother in to the vets’ the next day to get her stitched up, the vet walking down the hall said, “What the heck is that?  He is going to be 17 hands for sure!”  He never made it; he was 16.3 but impressive with gorgeous straight legs and a wonderful wide chest.

He was one of the best horses a person could ever find, and my best friend for half of my life.  I am 54 years old and Sun Whisper “Sunny” was 27 when he died.   Sunny survived several boyfriends, a husband and more adventures than most folks can tell about.

He fox hunted, evented through Preliminary, did dressage through international level, worked cattle all over California, and hauled my sorry ass everywhere I asked him to go.  He did exhibitions several times and didn’t mind the crowds and the chaos; in fact I think he thrived on it.  He loved nothing more than to have lots of children grabbing all his legs, and parents taking pictures.  He was a ham.  I would dress him up every Halloween with baggy pants or spiked hair and we would do musical freestyles and pas de deux for our annual Halloween show.  But more than anything else, he loved to gallop!  I think his trade-off for jumping the huge fences at Preliminary level eventing was getting to run in between the jumps….he just loved that.

His impressive list of wins and awards is too long for the page.  My hallway was decorated with his blue ribbons until there was no more room for them.

At the age of 16 or so, he broke his fragile coffin bone, and had to rehab for about a year.  After he seemed sound, I thought I would try to give him an easy ride, so I slipped on him bareback and did a short walk and trot around the arena.  Everything seemed fine, he was finally sound, so just in a halter and no saddle, I asked him for a couple of tempi changes, and sure enough, he gave them to me perfectly as if I had been schooling him the day before.  What a good boy!

I could go on and on about our adventures, like the time we got caught up in the high country in the snow, but it would take way too long to remember all the great stories.  I miss him terribly and feel like there is a hole in my soul.  He was the best friend a person could ever want.

Sun Whisper, 1981 - 2007

Connie & Sunny, 1989, Murieta Horse Trials, Preliminary level.

11/2007