Lori took this photo of my best boy just as we were going out for a ride this weekend. He “lit up” like a race horse going to the gate, when I pulled his saddle out of the barn, he knew we were doing “our” ride and he clearly let me know he has some gas left in his tank at age 20 now.
I’ve had Masquerade for 16 years and for those of you who’ve been following our ride adventures over the years, Masquerade is my boy who I started endurance with and his story goes way back to Al-Marah Arabians and my friend Bazy Tankersley who brought me to her ranch in 2006, and told me “I’ve got someone you need to meet” and that was that and we’ve been together now ever since. In 2015, he was diagnosed with Cushing’s and then over the next few years, we did a few more 50’s and a couple of 30’s and now we just ride our neighborhood trails and enjoy our time together and our memories and boy do we have some memories and stories to tell.
We lost him once in McDowell Park for a few days during an endurance race and eventually (after posting a $10,000 reward, getting 3 helicopters, two newspaper articles and multiple articles on the evening news and 100’s of riders hunting for him) we found him and since then Masquerade has repaid the favor many times over and specifically in two search and rescue endeavors he was credited with the “find” in that same park. Once he found a hiker who was lost and disoriented and suffering from heat exhaustion. The search team had been looking for this hiker for six hours and it was June and 110 degrees and as we were riding along the Pemberton we stumbled upon him laying under a cactus. As we were trotting along, Masquerade stopped and looked off to the left and wouldn’t let me move forward and as I squinted thru the sweat, there he was laying down under a cactus. I called the search and rescue team and Masquerade carried him back to the trail head and we delivered him to Rand the Park Manager.
In a second case, Masquerade on this same trail, was alerted by some banging and loud noises across the north fence and pointed me at a house whereupon we discovered a wild horse who was trapped in a house that was adjacent to the park. The owners were in Chicago for the summer and this wild horse had somehow become entrapped along the fence line and then later in the structure of the home. This was an amazing story and one that I’d need to spend some time explaining, but suffice it to say, in both cases, within less than one mile of where we found Masquerade when he was lost, he in turn, alerted me as we were riding that same trail to this person and this horse and was credited with the find in both cases.
He’s my boy and he is an amazing ride partner, just the best and again, he still has some “get up and go” in him. He was so proud when Lori took this picture and of this ride I did with him this weekend as his Dad chose him to ride on his Dad’s special weekend. These horses will save our lives, have a great Father’s Day weekend and enjoy the ride.