My mum first found Flame when he was a year and a half old. She said she laid a hand on him and she “just knew†that he was the one.
Flame was the first horse we ever rode, and my sister spent many hours sleeping in a car seat in the corner of Flame’s stable while mum groomed him and mucked him out.
We moved to our home in 1997, and my mum’s requirements for house searches were that she could see the horses from her bedroom window (yes, horses by that point, because Flame started something we haven’t been able to finish).
There has always been something kind and gentle about him, even as a youngster, and he has always watched over us, almost like a godfather. He watched us grow from horse mad kids to horse mad adults, he taught so many of our friends to ride and spent his years exploring until he retired in his early twenties.
Then he became that spoiled horse who had free rein on the yard and we would make apologies (which we never really meant) when he would go up to clients and ‘kiss’ them.
Flame was with us until he was 32. When you have loved a horse for 30 years, they become your heart and soul and losing them is unbearable. Every memory we had was somehow entwined with him, we owe him everything we have. We never would have had our best family friends if it weren’t for Flame, and those friends found us our house. So we never would have had the home we still cherish without our boy and we wouldn’t be training horses to this day.
When you lose something so precious, it’s like a light goes out in the world and you can’t bear the thought of the world being without them. Being able to carry Flame around with us each day is so beautiful, it feels like he’s still watching over us and the world is never truly without him.
People say “you’re never really dressed without a smileâ€, well I feel like I’m never really dressed without my Flame necklace.
