I first met Solitaire when she exploded off the lorry in 1999 at the yard I was working at as a Saturday Girl. I was 14 and she was a very green 9 year old with lots of mane and forelock and a huge belly. She leapt off the lorry and ran round her new stable for hours. I thought she looked like a real carthorse (that was a bit nuts) but my mum saw something special in her from the start.
In the beginning my opinion of her was not improved. The only word you could describe her was savage, a typical moody mare that bared her teeth forst and asked questions later. Her stable was always the one I dreaded having to muck out.
What was true, is that with a neatly pulled mane, fully clipped and hunting fit she looked absolutely amazing. Fortunately for me hunting turned out not to be her thing. It totally blew her brains so my boss decided to sell her. In 2000 she had to have a period of box rest after sustaining a shoulder injury falling in a river - I looked after her through that time and then we bought her.
It turned out that her moodiness was exacerbated by being looked after by lots of different people. She was definately a one family horse (I can't say one person horse as she always loved my mum) but once she was ours and we kept her on DIY livery she mellowed and became a really lovely horse.
We had 5 years together competing and hacking and riding everyday and she became my best friend. In 2005 my circumstances changed and the decision was made to sell her. It was the worst thing I ever did and regretted the descision from the day she left. I felt that I had let her down but I had promised her that, one day, we would be together again. I wasn't in a position to change anything at the time and just had to hope that she had found someone who loved her like we had. It didn't stop me trailing the pages of all the horse magazines and websites in the hope that she might reappear though.
Now it turns into a real life Black Beauty story......
I had put her details on a tracing equines site - and knew that if anyone tapped her showname into google, my search for her would come up.
In 2015 I got a message to say that if I was still looking for her she was alive and well and living in Stoke on Trent! At first I was skeptical as she would have been 25 by then, you don't hear of many 16.2hh horses reaching that age, could it really be her??
I asked the woman that had contacted me a million questions and the next weekend made the 3 hour journey to visit her. It was her, she was ok, an old lady by that time but still her. Not in the condition I would have her in but doing ok. The lady who owned her then refused to part with her at first (it was of course the first thing I asked) but 18 months later I got the call.....she couldnt keep her anymore and could I have her back? It was terrifying and exciting all at once. Would she make the long journey? She wasn't in the best state by that stage after living out full time.
Mum knew that she had been found but at first I didn't tell her she was coming home. after the most nervous 3 and a half hours we got her home. After she had survived a fortnight I finally plucked up the courage and showed mum a photo of her (it took her a while to realise it was a picture taken in our stable but her reaction was the best ever when she did).
Solitaire had 7 months back with us, she gained strength and condition and looked anything but her age in the end. We lost our lady 8 weeks ago. She laid down in the field and couldn't get up. I got to sit in the spring sunshine with her head in my lap and say goodbye. She was happy and knew she was loved and I knew she had ended her days safe and contented.
And thanks to Tail End Jewellery both my mum and I will have a piece of her with us forever, thank you so much.
Samantha, June 2017
