Arabian Gelding, The Sorcerer, Zory

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about a wonderful horse I owned back in the late 1980's, his registered name was The Sorcerer, but for short we called him Zory.  I had sold him and the last I had heard was that he had been sold again and his new owner was not particularly good to him, showing him so much that he was looking very unhappy in the ring.  I wrote about this in my blog post and assumed that was the end of the story.

Myself on The Sorcerer, I think he was 4 years old in this picture.

Then, just last year (December 2014) I got a comment on that blog post.  It seems that a lady, Elain, who had purchased him (presumably from the owner I had heard about) just had a feeling to do a search for her horse;s online and found the blog.  She bought him when he was 8 years old and had owned him ever since, actually retiring him from the show ring with a proper ceremony when he was 19 years old.  He was now 31 (a good age for a horse).  She invited me to see him.

Years later as owned by Elain

 It was the middle of winter and although where he was stabled was only about an hour from my home, I decided to wait until spring.  She had told me that he had arthritis (typical of older horses, especially those that had been used in English pleasure), but was otherwise in pretty good shape.

She sent me photos of him which showed his progressive steps into going gray (this is normal for horses with a gray gene).  He looked beautiful and happy!  She told me that when she got him he was scared and not a real happy horse at all, but that she was able to bring him around to being his former self.   She told me she had often heard about how much I loved him.  I looked forward to seeing him, and meeting her, in the spring.

Sadly only three weeks after our initial talk she sent me a shocking e-mail.  It would appear that one evening he had suffered a heart attack.  She raced to the barn to be with him and although he did struggle to get up, he was unable to, and did pass away.

At that point I was able to drive up and meet with her, we shared our tears and talked about the life The Sorcerer had and she showed me her other horses.

Years later and playing with his friend "Mover"

Elain impressed me a lot with her love for Zory, especially as she did not own the farm where he was kept and actually paid board for him there.  Not too many people are willing to pay board fees for an old horse they cannot even ride, but she said he had more than earned it.

Although I am obviously sad that I did not make it up to see Zory when he was alive I was thrilled to know that in the end he did find a wonderful owner and did have a great life.