Having extricated myself from Facebook, I often start the day, while waiting for the kettle to boil, by checking The Chronicle Of The Horse website. On Thursdays there is a segment called Throwback Thursday, with highlights from the past. In the middle of this long, cold January came a warm surprise that included my own past…
Casey Jones was one of the many horses in my own past, one of the valuable equine teachers I have had. He came into our life soon after Harry and I were married, in the fall of 1985. We were looking for a huntsman’s horse, and went to see Kenny Burgdorfer, a locally legendary jumper rider and horse dealer, who would become a friend. He owned more horses than he could count, and we found two of them that Kenny was sure would foxhunt. One was a chestnut prospect, called Jim, that Kenny claimed was “related to Calypso”, Melanie Smith Taylor’s mount; the other was a seasoned buckskin and white Open Jumper, who had been ridden by Kenny’s friend, Linda. Casey was ready for a change of job, they said. And there was nothing he couldn’t jump. Add to that, we could take the horses and try them, so we took them home to the hunt club.
Jim was green, but quiet and sensible, and quite suitable. Casey was the huntsman’s horse of a lifetime. The first time he met hounds, he acted as though he had been around them all his life. When we approached a coop, or a post and rail, Casey pricked his ears and jumped with ease. Hunt jumps were nothing for him! But beyond the jumping, which was not a surprise, there was no terrain too rough, no hill too steep, nowhere that Casey wouldn’t go following hounds. Within a month, he was my main mount, hunting twice weekly. He wasn’t all that fast, but he never wavered, and could go anywhere. The only time Casey ever stopped was in the woods, if we stepped into downed wire that we hadn’t seen. He would stand like a statue to be extricated, if he heard the sound of wire!
But if wire was up, say, around the pasture, and Casey wanted to get to the other side, he quite happily jumped it. After seeing this done a few times (Casey never went anywhere, since the other horses never followed) I knew I had a horse that could do the most daring thing in fox hunting – jumping wire. I never had to do it in our own country, but on a visiting hunt I was confident to follow the huntsman at The Cornwall Hunt when she jumped wire, and very grateful to Casey for making me look brave.
Casey and the Bridlespur Hounds at The Blessing of the hounds…
Fear of embarrassment has always been a defining characteristic for me (and for Harry). We jumped obstacles out hunting that were terrifying, looking cool and professional. Afterwards, we would confess our fear to one another and say prayers of thanks for Casey and Willi. We were both mounted on horses of our lifetimes, and we knew it.
When hunt season was over, Casey and Willi then went to work as show jumpers, as did all our horses in those days. Casey taught anyone to jump obstacles of any size, even though he turned out to be a bit older than Kenny had implied when we bought him. Here is is with Jane hopping over a 5′ oxer when he was in his late teens…
And here, doing Junior Jumpers with young Tina, who helped in the kennel-
And even the occasional hunter class (here with Harry)…
I hunted hounds off Casey for five seasons, and when I left Bridlespur it broke my heart to leave him behind. But, as luck would have it, my successor didn’t love Casey, and he returned to me to live out his days on our farm in Bowling Green, Missouri. He and Willi are both buried there but live on in our hearts.
