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“At age 32, Brighton Heartbreak Run, a Welsh/Thoroughbred pony owned by the Holik family, loves her life of leisure in Aiken. Katie Cardalico Bailey, who cares for the pony at her farm, Silver Bluff Equestrian, has known “Louise” since she was a youngster just starting a show career.
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“We love having him here. Shammy is just the most polite horse,” Gretchen says. “A lot of really great horses are quirky, but not him. He stands in the crossties, is easy to clip, and just has perfect manners.” He prefers to be turned out alone and loves just hanging out in the paddock. But Gretchen smiles as she notes that he hates to get wet and pouts if made to come
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“Graham did everything with Raven. He evented, did dressage and hunted with Aiken Hounds,” she says, adding, “She especially loved the children’s drag hunt because she got to be out in front.” In the mid-1990s, Graham rode Raven to the Children’s Championship at the Aiken Horse Show.
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“What was so funny about Bernie is that at home he was so slow and quiet, he looked like he could have shown in Western pleasure, but when you took him someplace, he’d light up like a Christmas tree. The horse you had at home was not the horse you were going to ride at the show or hunt,”
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“She’s just the world’s best pony!” Ida Sankey says of 27-year-old Gracie, a registered Welsh Pony. “All three of my kids started on her and have just grown up with Gracie. They have done about everything there is to do with her.”
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Tonya Amato has some very nice horses in her barn in Aiken, but none is more special to her than Bear Necessity, a 25-year-old mare that meanders around the farm. Tonya smiles as she recounts their history together.
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“QP is a really smart pony,” Nicole says. “He knows who is riding him and totally knows whose buttons he can press. He’s been known to try them when one of the volunteers is schooling him, but we can put a 4-year-old child on him and when they whisper ‘Whoa’ in the tiniest voice, he’ll stop immediately with all four feet square.”
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“Knowing even just part of what this horse went through, I was determined to give her the ‘happily ever after’ that she deserved,” says Eileen Wilkinson, the owner of Firefly, also known as Can’t Stop the Fire. At 24, the bright chestnut Thoroughbred mare is now living a life of leisure in Aiken County, but that wasn’t the case for most of her life.
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It is something of a rarity for anyone to know a horse from the day it is born through maturity and into its senior years. That is the case with Hannah and Bijou, although there are some missing pieces in their history. Bijou is now living in retirement at Hannah’s farm in Aiken, but it took some detective work to get her there.
Secret Lives of Horses tells the story of a senior horse living in Aiken. This issue we feature Cherokee Chance, a 31-year-old Tennessee Walking Horse gelding.
