Our First Horse Oniros

When covid hit we decided we were ready as a family to have our first horse. We had been in the equestrian world for around seven years and felt ready, so along came Dimitris Bagasas. An ex race horse around eleven years old who had been retired. I fell in love just from a picture of him. He was sound but had been unworked for a while so we knew that this would be a challenge. A challenge that we overcame with the help of our trainer, and my daughters and I began to ride him.

An absolutely gorgeous horse. Seal black with red highlights in his mane and tail. Very tall which was fun for me as I am not tall at all. I have fond memories of standing in a food bowl to brush his back and mane.

We changed his name to Oniros which means dream in Greek and yes he was a dream. A short lived dream. I guess it just wasn't meant to be. Life is like this sometimes... we had something beautiful for a very short time. I don't really want to get into the gory details of it as it's still raw and hurts even though its been almost four years since we lost him to a stroke. One day he was fine and the next he was dying in my arms.

It took us time as family to piece ourselves together after his loss. After all we were with him pretty much every day, but because of him and the lessons we learned we became better horse owners? I don't like the word owner...umm caretakers? I'm not quite sure what fits best because I don't feel like I own Ermis and Whisper they are family members and you don't own family members. I feel the same way about my cats and dogs. Yup I have those too!

Anyway three months after the loss of Oni, Whisper came into our lives. I'll save that for the next post. Take care x