At about the same time, my instructor’s daughter brought Lancelot back from Virginia.  In my eyes, he was nothing less than magnificent.  Lance was a tall, leggy, seal-bay thoroughbred who was as hot as they came.  He’d been off the racetrack for almost five years, but apparently he hadn’t gotten that memo.  At 17, I fancied myself brave enough to tackle him (I would eat a lot of arena sand in the coming weeks).  My mom agreed to buy him because he was “so pretty” and because I’d kept her in the dark about his temperament.  We had gotten $1500 for Beau, but Lance was twice that amount – no small sum for a horse back then.  We put Beau’s money down and paid the balance (with interest) in monthly installments of $100.  About the end of my freshman year at UGA, Lance, who had come with me to Athens, was finally actually my horse.

Lance never did really “settle down,” but proved himself a very talented animal.  Someone had put some substantial dressage work on him, and my only real regret from our years together was that I was too uneducated and young to really tap into it until we were both much older.  But back then I didn’t care; he’d jump anything I had the nerve to face him with.  He led me to many competitive successes, his ability and athleticism limited only by mine. 

Lance was overall mannerly and didn’t have a mean bone in his body, but he had his quirks -- an unwavering mistrust of electric clippers or anything in an aerosol can – yet he still carried himself through life with a grace and nobility I’d not seen in any horse before or since.  It was an honor to share so much of my life with him.  He was my constant and my best friend through both my college careers and the string of jobs, heartbreaks, “salad days,” and all the other crises that came between.  Often, financial and time constraints would have made it much easier to give him up, but that was never an option.  Before his retirement, in all our years together, rarely did a week go by where we didn’t find the time to go for at least a couple rides.

My husband and I bought the farm where we now live shortly after we married.  Odd that Lance and I had been together for over ten years at that point, but this was the first time we actually got to “live together.”  Lance started showing his age shortly thereafter, and by then I was in a position to have other riding horses and could let Lance “semi-retire.”  I’d occasionally let gamier riding students of mine saddle him up for a lesson – many somewhat amused by my concerns for their safety on a horse well into his twenties – but all made believers after a rather brisk trip around the cross-country course.  

Lance went into full retirement about five years ago, but still worked (usually to his displeasure) as a babysitter for the weanlings and yearlings often on the farm.  This morning, the seventh anniversary of my father’s death, I came home from early morning mass and glanced into the pasture, making the horse owners’ compulsive, subconscious headcount -- all present and accounted for, including Lance, grazing contentedly.  I went in the house to change clothes and came back out to throw lunch hay.  The two yearlings were pacing anxiously, and my two-year-old gelding was standing protectively over Lance, who was lying down, seizing, probably in mid-stroke.  Eddie Tomlinson, the best vet in the world, was at my farm in minutes, not to save Lance, but to help him die peacefully and with the dignity befitting such a spirit.  Lance was just over two months shy of his 32nd birthday; we’d been together for over 24 years. 

My father was quite the horseman in his day, but arthritis forced him to retire from riding long before I bought Lance, so he’d never gotten to take him for a spin.  Well, here he comes, Dad.  Hold on; you’re in for one hell of a ride.