By: Audrey Pavia

The first time I ever touched her was on a damp winter night. She had just been ridden in her fourth jumping lesson that day, and the teenaged girl who had gotten off of her had handed the reins to me at the trainer’s request.

The mare stood completely still, but I as I reach out to pet her spotted coat, I could feel the taughtness of her neck muscles, and could see the anxiety in her eyes. This horse, who had been given the name Rosie because of her rose-colored mottled coat, had a hard life. She had been a part of the boarding stable for seven years, having come from a feed lot where the killers picked out horses for slaughter. Though she had been spared the slaughterhouse, her new life as a lesson horse was difficult for her. She worked many hours a day, seven days a week, jumping fences, bending poles, little children jerking on her mouth all the while. She had been twitched and hobbled by stable hands who did not have the patience to talk her through her profound fear of clippers. She’d been relegated to the smallest, cheapest paddock in the stable, because, after all, she was a just lesson horse.

But as I looked at her that night, I saw something more. She was an Appaloosa through and through, from her white sclera to her mottled muzzle to her striped hooves. Her conformation reminded me of the illustration of the ideal Appaloosa I’d seen in ApHC publications since I was a kid. When I looked at her, I saw royalty. So I bought her.

In the beginning, she didn’t pay much attention to me. When I would come to get her out of her stall, she would just stand there, a dull look in her eye. She didn’t acknowledge me in any way as I slipped the halter over her head. I was just one more stranger, just one more person who had come to rent her by the hour.

There were times when I wondered what I had done. I’d wanted an Appaloosa my whole life. I had waited 25 years for this horse. But she didn’t seem to be there, mentally. She dutifully performed all the tasks asked of her, but there were no emotions. She was like a robot.

Then one day, six months later, as she was tied in front of my tack shed, I noticed a change. I had walked away to get something, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her watching me. For the first time, she seemed to notice that I was there.

After that, everything began to change. When I came to her stall, her head would go up, her ears would shoot forward. There were times when she even walked toward me as I approached her stall. It wasn’t long before I saw a light come on in her eyes. And then one day, she put her head against my chest as I stood next to her, and I could feel her give her heart to me.

Our bond seemed to deepen with every passing day. The anxiety she’d had under saddle vanished, and she became quiet and happy. After several months of patient work, she learned not to be afraid of the clippers. She’d stand quietly as I trimmed the hairs on her muzzle and bridle path, and then would politely ask for a carrot as her expected reward.

Throughout our first two years together, Rosie had bouts with various maladies, little hints of what was to come. While these were isolated incidents, one problem kept recurring: corneal ulcers. Little did I know that a year later, she would lose one eye, then the other to a mysterious eye infection that baffled my veterinarians and eventually robbed her of her sight.

The day she lost her remaining eye and stood blind in her stall, it was nearly three years to the day that I had bought her. She’d been through three surgeries and five trips to the hospital, and had been subsequently diagnosed with a serious auto-immune disorder that had contributed to the loss of her eyes. On her last day on Earth, I cried and hugged her, knowing that I couldn’t ask her to live in a world of darkness, filled with prodding needles and terrifying trips to the hospital. She had suffered enough.

Now that she is gone, I have to live my life without this gentle creature at my side, without hearing her soft nicker and feeling her tender muzzle against my hand. It feels as though my heart went with her on that bleak January day that she left me. People tell me I’ll get over it, that time heals all wounds. But no matter what anyone says, I know that there is a part of my heart