Student Page
Attention Students and Parents! This event is postponed until ....
We are looking for volunteers to attend the VIP party at the premiere of Hope's Legacy, which was partially shot at Fairwinds! JoAnn and Sydney both appear in the film. Volunteers may be 13 years old and up. Duties will include handing out gift bags, greeting people, and helping with merchandise sales. Volunteers will need to be at the Senator Theatre (see link below) by 5pm and will attend the movie for free. Anyone accompanying the volunteer will be asked to buy a ticket. Please e-mail to apply, or let Sydney know you are interested.
More info on attire, etc... will be given at the time you are selected. Thank you !
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hopes-legacy-premiere-screening-tickets-73598624467
Also, we have a collection of nice riding clothes - shirts, breeches, jackets, boots and gloves in the gift shop right now! Mostly small sizes. Call or text JoAnn 302-540-1852 if you want to stop in and take a look!
Our hearts are very heavy this morning as we report the passing of one of our favorite horses. HH Count DSilver, affectionately known to all as Max, had to be put down due to a severe case of laminitis in his left front hoof along with multiple abscesses which we had been doing everything in our power to treat for months. When we were told the management methods we would have to put in place to make him even mildly comfortable, we realized he would be miserable and we made the painful decision to put him down.
Max was first seen by us at the horse auction in 2012, where he stood, head down, mane tangled, ribs showing through his dirty coat. I gazed at him, trying to determine his age, when I was approached by a man who asked “are you interested in my horse?” “Mmm,” I murmured hesitantly. “How old is he?”
“He’s twelve,” he answered. “Twelve?” I asked incredulously. I would’ve guessed at least twenty. And that could be the case at an auction, where is seems every horse is “twelve.”
“Look, here’s his papers,” he said, thrusting them at me. “My wife used him in a lesson program but she lost all her students and he’s just been standing out in a field.”
I looked at the papers. It turns out Max was a Crabbet Blunt Arabian, a special faction developed when two people in England imported a few Arabians and began breeding them for more height in a breed which is normally around 14 hands. I looked at his date of birth: 7/15/2000. Sure enough, he was twelve.
“Hmm, I don’t know,” I said. Arabians normally aren’t the best school horses due to their rather intense and high strung nature, and I really hesitated to try this one. “How much do you want for him?”
“Well, I know you’ll give him a good home, so I’ll take two hundred.” I couldn’t refuse at that price, and I felt sorry for the horse. I handed over the cash and brought Max home.
Immediately, Sydney Ennis, our student at the time, and now our instructor, fell in love with Max. She groomed him, bathed him, and pulled his mane until he looked like a real horse again. We fed him up and she worked with him patiently until he was ready for our more advanced students.
Over the years Max calmed down to the point where we could actually use him for confident beginners, even in day camp. I rode him many times as a trail guide, where he was always alert for any perceived dangers, as Arabs are. As a lesson horse, Max’s beauty, intelligence, and affectionately quirky personality made many of our students fall in love with him as I did.
I like to imagine Max now, pain gone, galloping over the hot sands of Arabia, snorting joyfully, head high and mane and tail blowing in the wind.
HH Count DSilver, we will miss you.
