So long Sugar!

Just like the donkey that carried the Blessed Mother to Bethlehem, and the  horse Bucephalus that carried Alexander the Great, as well as the 4 white stallion horses that carried Ben Hur on his famous chariot race against Messala, the horse that once carried me, is no more. Named Sugar, the mare was 30 years old, and she was 15 when I rode her at the Clark’s Quarterhorse Ranch, owned by  Jim and Colleen Clark of Mount Vernon, Oregon. Sugar was of course very gentle, as she was chosen from among around 100 horses they owned back in 2005, to carry me for a brief stroll on their property. 

As her owners told me, "It's always sad to lose a beloved animal, whether it is a horse, a dog, or a cat.  She had a good life here roaming around on the pasture and hillside. Now she’s in horse Heaven along with so many others that we have lost." The day I rode her I was given a grey hat, since the one that I had bought was black. I figured it will match my black outfit, but my parishioners started to laugh when I showed them my new cowboy hat one day during Mass. I asked them why they were laughing, and the collective response was ‘only the bad guys wear black hats!’ There and then I decided to start learning about cowboys and horses and ranches. And I ended up with 13 years of classical equine and ranching education, which I cherish to this very day.