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.


Copyright EquineArtPortraitscom


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

Getting my Big Break

I thought I would share the story of my big break......It was a spiral fracture of the left humerus. That's the big bone the that joins your elbow to your shoulder for the not so medical amongst you, and I can tell you there is nothing humorous about breaking in two.

The unusual aspect of my own particular horse riding injury is that it was entirely self inflicted. There was no fall...I didn't come off.....no, I jumped.

At a flat out gallop, and I might mention on a 16-something hand former racehorse. What madness, you ask???



It is a strange one, as I have never, before or since, felt a need to leap of a moving horse...think Indiana Jones leaping off the horse onto a train, only with a little less panache, and landing with a stomach sickening thud onto the frozen field at the near to the yard and staggering up to emit the kind of scream for help that instantly makes your throat feel raw.

A moment earlier I had come into  the small  field on a gloriously sunny day, shut the gate over behind and thought 'lets have a little canter'. He understood things differently and it was as if the starting gate had opened, walk to gallop in an instant. Once going at a gallop, a sharp tug in on the reins meant 'slow down a bit, you need to save yourself for the last stretch'.

He wouldn't pull up and there was no room to turn at the speed he was travelling.

In a split second I had a vision of myself coming off badly, foot caught in the stirrup iron - no safety in those days - on the concrete yard very soon and fearing what felt inevitable I undertook what I now know to be called the 'emergency dismount'

Right or wrong thing to do, there is no way to know, but when instinct kicks in, you do what you must.

I was lucky not to get pinned but it took a year to heal. Time is a good healer psychologically, but I still suffer from the hacking jitters and have a love hate relationship with open green spaces.

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!