Goodbye old friend

I want to celebrate the life of a friend. I only knew him for about 10 years, but I saw him nearly every day, twice a day during that time. Timmy was quite a guy and had an interesting life with many acquaintances and a few close friends. I think Heather was his BFF and partner as they had been together for 25 years. For those who say you can't buy happiness I call bullshit. Heather bought Timmy when she was about thirteen and he was five. She may have had a bit of financial help from her parents, but you never know and I have never asked her.

Even at that young age Timmy came with some scars. His shoulder was marked up from an earlier incident with barbed wire. Why anyone uses barbed wire to keep horses from wandering is beyond me, but I know it still happens. He was a bit of a putz when it came to self injury, though. He would sometimes show up at feeding time with a new ding, small cut, a swollen something, or an occasional limp. Who knows what he would get into when no one was looking. The worst looking one was when he somehow got his nostril torn on the inside (how the hell did he do that?) and kept shaking his head because of the funny feeling of blood running out of his nose. Of course with the head shaking and walking around his stall while bleeding, there was blood splattered everywhere. A call to the vet and a little patience, along with Heather's attention, the bleeding stopped, but the scene was like something out of a slaughterhouse from a hundred years ago. We got most of it cleaned up eventually.

Heather and Timmy learned dressage when they were young. Mostly their rides that I saw were pretty low key and just for fun, but I saw what he had when we would have a small, local competition. We called it the Timex Three Event Day. This is not to be confused with the Rolex Three Day Event or any other eventing competition. When Heather and Timmy presented for the event they were a sight to behold. How this tall, appendix-looking quarter horse converted himself into a warmblood was a sight to behold. He was taller, prouder, and had so much presence and seriousness I was just amazed. Considering he was at least ten years older than the other competitors he did very well. I do believe he came in second overall in one of the competitions and blew away the judges (me and the Cooker) with his performance. When he saw Heather's parents watching the cross country event he stopped and posed so they could take his picture. I am not kidding! It was times like this that I would remember his registered name was Intimidating Class.

Timmy had a number of pasture mates during the time we had him. They were all geldings because of his eye for the ladies. He would claim them and protect them in no uncertain terms. I am pretty sure he would have been violent if we would have let him have a girlfriend. He was protective of his last pasture mate, Frisky the pony. Frisky was often in charge of the two of them, but if there was another horse mixed in with them it was usually Timmy who led the way.

That's him on the right keeping an eye on two of the girls.


He and Frisky were pretty good buddies even though they had only been together for a few years. Being about the same age they had a lot in common. Been there, done that. During the summer they even looked a lot alike. Once they shed their winter coats they looked a lot like brothers only Timmy was about three times Frisky's size. They even had a similar blaze on their faces. They had a secret place in the trees that we referred to as "Camp Timmy". It was cleared of debris, shady, and away from most of the bugs. They often spent a long afternoon there on hot summer days. They had done all the work themselves.

The two of them always came in for their specially prepared breakfast and dinner consisting of a good quality equine senior feed and beet pulp that had been soaked in water for easy chewing and digesting. Plus it tasted good. I could feed them in their feeders in the pasture or I could open their gate and they would walk or trot calmly up the little rise, into the barn, and into their adjoining stalls.

Timmy had his good days and bad days, but was always easy to be around. His bad days kept coming more frequently and last Sunday, at the age of thirty, he was gently euthanized and buried in the middle of his pasture. I'll never forget him.