Sam stands: Painting of a Thoroughbred started today

This is a new one I have just started....based on Sam, a beautiful sweet natured horse I loaned about 13 years ago.


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He was such a handsome fella, a 16 hand Chestnut Thoroughbred, a retired racehorse who was a little out of condition when I began riding him, but soon much too fit for the relative novice that I was. 

I adored Sam, until such time as I broke my arm jumping off him at a gallop. Then I still adored him but was in no fit state to ride even a bicycle for more than a year after. He passed a few years after our short dalliance.

I have no photos of him....not one. I guess I was too busy riding him to think of a camera, after all, no phone cameras back in the days! Although I don't have a picture, I do in my head, and having leafed through my books I found his horsey doppelganger and set to work adding some background in keeping with the Mugdock surroundings that I associate with the lovely Sam...

To Sam, you handsome big horse. I hope I can do you some justice with this one when I finish.....and I forgive you your love of the grass under your toes.x

Living the dream

I had a brief period of living the dream in my twenties.

I took a half lease in a former racehorse horse called Sam who frankly was rather beyond my riding ability. I came a cropper when he went for a gallop in a much too small field one day, suffering a nasty break to my arm. It scared me off for a good 15 years.

I recall going to the stables to collect my belongings, arm in cast, and everyone sharing their tales of broken legs, arms, toes, fractured collar bones and concussions and thinking "Are you all completely mad? Why do you still ride?"

Fifteen years on, I know the answer.....I ride because I must. Despite the risks, there is nothing quite like being around horses, the exhilaration, the bond and the trust that you have to build each time you ride. The nerves that kick in when the bar is raised a notch higher than you feel comfortable jumping and the rush when you clear that jump.

I would still love to live that dream again, although I might sense check my love of a thoroughbred!