by Cara Conway, age 24

I bought Tatters when I was three years old and he was two.  After owning him for nearly a decade, I sold him to Foxfield before I moved to the East Coast.  Not a week has gone by without thinking about him since then.  He brought so much joy to me and from what I hear, ho continues to bring joy to Foxfield riders everyday.

Tatters had the smoothest gait and could jump up to four feet!

I know a lot about his past, at least his first 12 years of life.  I found Tatters in a stable called Stoney Point in Chatsworth, CA.  He was a backyard pony said to be part Arabian and part Welsh.  Regardless of what he was, the only thing he WAS NOT, was trained.  Together Tatters and I learned how to ride and developed such a tight bond through that process.  By the time I sold him to Foxfield he was wonderfully trained with a few championships to his name.  the one thing that remained the same, however, was his gentle and affectionate nature.

Tatters has the best heart.  Two stories come to mind.  The first was when a pony named Surprise was born, as her name suggests, unexpectedly in the same pasture that Tatters lived in.  Tatters, being one of the leaders in the pasture, took Surprise under his wing and became a surrogate father.  He always made sure Surprise got her portion of hay and protected the little ting from other toughies in the pasture.  Whenever I would take him out for a ride, Surprise would desparately try to follow us and become extremely upset when she was left beind.  They shared such a strong bond.

Another time that Tatters'  great, but at times jealous, heart shined through was when he was severely injured in an accident.  One day I found him lying in his pasture with his leg dangerously entab=ngled in barbed wire.  He was so seriously injured that the vet said he would have died if the wound were a quarter of an inch to the left.  Luckily Tatters survived, but he was lame for many months.  During this time I continued to take lessons on barn horses at Foxfield.  One day he saw me ride by on another horse and became so jealous that hebegan bucking and kicking, trying to jump over the pasture gate.  I quickly had to get off the other horse to calm him down so he would not re-injure himself.  I was so flattered by how much Tatters cared for me and thought his jealously showed quite the unique spirit.  Even Susit Postel, who was teaching the lesson I was in at the time, said that she had never seen a horse show such an extreme outpouring of attachment to a human before.

I'm sure that big heart continues to bring joy to other riders at Foxfield and I would love to hear some of their stories!  

October, 2004