by Lori Chapman
The Northernlights
Mandy was bought as a ganglly 3year old out of a field in Selby North yorkshire in 1977, at that time she was known as stroller & had had very little contact with humans, she spent her days in a field with a herd of cattle that had eaten her tail! She was bascially rounded up & herded into the wating horse trailer, on her coming home, she was a wild thing to say the least, she was more like a bronco than a riding horse, but time patience & a bit of T.l.C. soon had her back to her normal self.
Mandy became my Mom's Small Hack, & togeather they went all over the Country competing, even qulaifying for Stoneleigh Winter Championship Show. It was there that Mandy did her first Musical Hack class, also if my memory serves me correctly also her last, hahaha, not something that they exceled in.
Mandy also had a multitude of tricks, letting other horses out of there stable's if the kick bolts were fastened on the doors & counting, she was very good at counting, if she wanted a mint, she would nudge you nod her head then count to five, even ten if she was in that kinda mood. She also could buck like a rodeo horse when you were on her as well if the need arose, which sometimes it did, not always in the right place, but that didn't matter to Mandy if she wanted to buck she'd buck & no-one was going to get in her way. She was once accused of being a Quater Horse by a woman at a show & she wouldn't take it that she was in fact a throughbred/welsh, & that her father was an ex-racehorse, she would insist that she was imported from the United States, couldn't somehow see Mandy living over there, she hated the heat & as for flies lets not even go there thank-you very much, she could spot a fly at 10miles away, O & Donkeys, they were on list of hates as well, along with water, jumping, or hills, which was a bad thing really as were we lived was very hilly, but hills, no thank-you, what do you think I'am, I'm a lady with class, if you don't mind, can we go the long way round!
As for character she had a lot of it, she would entice the other horses into doing something that she knew to be wrong, then stand back & say 'want me Mom, nope not me, I never did it' but you knew she'd put them up to it, she had that look in her eye of pure mischeviouness.
Sadly when she was 24yrs old she was diafnosed as having Cancer of the windpipe, Mom said that they could of operated on her, like they do with racehorses, but at that age, she felt that she had had her life & was best to allow her cross the bridge.
Theres not a day that dosn't go by without you thinking of her, a photo, a memory, shes never far from our thoughts. But all I want to say is R.I.P. Northernlights & see you one day, were we will all be together. Miss you so much each & everyday, time to us does not heal, time to us brings us one step closer to you. Love you for etenity & then some. XxxxxxxX