My amazing Amy

A remarkable mare taught me that sometimes you need to take up the reins and sometimes you need to let go.

We liked Amy from the start. She was an all-black Peruvian Paso, and the minute you met her you knew she was different. She had a special presence, a gravitas that set her apart from other horses. When I tell people about her, I often say that she was a spirit of the universe who, for a time, just happened to take on the form of a horse.

Amy, whose proper name was Amigable, first came to us as a boarder, one of three horses a friend brought to our ranch to live with our own two horses and six other boarders. We had lots of grass at the time. Amy happened to be in foal. As the story goes, she’d succeeded in opening a number of gates and had found herself a nice Standardbred stallion.

From the beginning we knew Amy was special. But the event that caused us to really open our hearts to her occurred after our beloved house cat, Mr. Blue, went missing. As it turned out, he had wandered off into the cattle hay barn and sequestered himself deep in the hay. He returned after a few days, but while he was gone, my wife, Anna, and I were very upset. One morning while Mr. Blue was gone, Anna started crying as she was feeding the horses. Amy left her hay, walked over to Anna and actually wrapped her neck around my wife in a hug. The mare’s intent was quite clear.

In due course, Amy had her foal. We were very disappointed, however, when just 10 days later her owner decided to move Amy and the filly to another farm. We didn’t want to see Amy go. Anna offered unreasonable amounts of money to buy the mare as soon as the foal was weaned, but no deal. We sadly said goodbye to Amy.

In the meantime, my own riding mare became ill and had to be put down. I felt I really didn’t want another horse unless it was Amy.

Then, six months after Amy left, Anna got a call from the mare’s owner offering to sell her for a reasonable price. This arrangement was consummated in secret, and on my birthday, as I was looking out the window, Amy was led by with a big ribbon around her neck. Wow! What an incredible surprise!

Amy settled quickly into life at the ranch. She took over my late mare’s alpha position in the herd and became a very effective leader. She rarely needed to be physically aggressive. A simple, subtle shift in posture or flick of an ear PARTNERS: Bill Trabucco and his mare Amy enjoyed everything from trail rides to sorting cattle to poker rides together.