Q: How're you doing?

A: Rough day yesterday. Our elderly horse Snowdancer (who my wife had named with her normal screenname way back when, so there's a thing), passed away. My wife says she was 28, but I swear she's being saying that for five years. In any case, for a Belgian draft horse that's pretty old.

Snowdancer had originally been a logging horse. Basically the intent was that she would be brought to areas where they were harvesting trees that the terrain was too rough for heavy machinery, in order to pull the logs down to where the tractors and the like could reach. I'm not sure it actually happened, as tech was catching up and the logging company got a hold of small portable engines that could be anchored to other trees or boulders to do the same thing without risk to an animal. But she had been trained to do that.

Then she was bought by a lady who basically put her out to pasture. She was small for a Belgian, more European blood than the normal American blood lines, so she didn't fit with any of the draft teams that exist in this area. In any case, that lady reached a point that she couldn't take care of her anymore, and Snowdancer (who was named 'Lilly' at this point) went up for auction. I think she was about 7 at this point.

Enter my wife, before she became my wife. In fact at this point I had just asked her out on a date for the first time. In any case, when a horse goes up for auction there are two things that could happen: If they are a former racing horse or police horse they go for high prices to people who want to 'rescue' them. Otherwise, you're going to be bidding against a dog food company. Literally. $700 later, my future wife has a horse.

My wife's a big lady, and she (and I) were part of an acting troupe called 'The Seattle Knights'. It still exists, but we've retired from it now though we're still good friends with many of the members. My wife wanted a horse capable of carrying her while jousting. Yes, running at another horseman covered in armour, with a lance. People do still do that. So, a long training period started. Several years, in fact.

Turns out Snowdancer wasn't really suitable for jousting. She didn't like running directly at another horse, which isn't unusual. In fact, most jousters have to go through training several horses in order to find one that doesn't mind doing that. Oh well. She was still great for riding and eventing. Her long stride meant she could cover more ground in a few steps so for really short sprints she outpaced a lot of Thoroughbreds at western games. And despite her size, she was very agile, and could turn *very* fast, regularly making 90 degree turns in a single stride. That threw several people who tried to ride her. Again, literally. She had no patience for people who pretended they knew how to ride, and those pretenders would find themselves sailing along without a horse under them as they signaled a turn, and she'd just... turn out from under them. We were offered $50,000 for her from a Western eventer. Not a stupid amount of money relative to what horses *could* go for, but considerably more than the $700 that my wife had paid for her.

She really liked children, interestingly enough. She'd let kids climb all over her, and had infinite patience with them, moving under them so they wouldn't fall. So, she became an award-winning Vaulting horse. With kids doing gymnastics on her back as she kept a steady pace in a circle around my wife. Many kids grew up while Snowdancer helped them through competitions and the like.

Eventually, though, she started to develop arthritis. There were drugs that could be used to keep her 'in service', but we didn't think that was fair to her. We did help her with painkillers and joint supplements, but we didn't put her through heavy effort anymore. She was retired. This was some eight-nine years ago.

Yesterday she laid down in her stall, and didn't quite have enough strength to stand back up again. She was struggling, and in serious distress. We tried to get her up, to see if it was just a passing thing, but it wasn't. The vet recommended, and we made the decision.

Goodbye Snowdancer. You were the best big girl.