Nightingale, Annie, and Me

Nightingale is my last horse. She was born here as was her mother, Jessie Anne. One by one Jessie Anne and her mother Polly grew old and crossed the Rainbow Bridge. My beloved gelding, Mr. Smith, was the last one left with Nightingale. Then in 2022, he, too, passed on. Nightingale was devastated. She cried and cried but there was no one to answer her. It was heartbreaking. No matter how much attention I gave her, it was not enough. She called and called. But then... 

Nightingale found Annie, our livestock guardian dog. And decided, near as we can figure, that Annie was her foal. They became inseparable. If Annie escaped the field, which she loved to do, Nightingale went out with her and they explored the neighborhood together. We learned to be very careful keeping gates securely shut.

 

Gradually, Nightingale stopped searching for her former herd mates. She has never stopped keeping track of her surrogate "foal" Annie.

  This year, 2025, Nightingale is 21 years old and still as firmly bonded to Annie as ever. I am 79 now and not as agile as I used to be, when I rode horses daily. In the dressage world, special attention is given to horse and rider combinations when their joint age is 100 or more. I have only reached that milestone with Mr. Smith... until now. 

This year Nightingale and I have a combined age of 100. Although I have not ridden for a couple years thanks to a wonky hip, I decided to see a few days ago if I could still get on tall Nightingale. I thought it might be easier bareback than with the added width of a saddle, so I tried mounting from the mounting block. That didn't work as the block is not tall enough for me to swing my leg over her back. So I climbed on the fence and that got me high enough to throw a leg over without dislocating my hip. It wasn't pretty, but I made it. 

 

Perhaps you can see the black and white thing beyond Nightingale... that's Annie

 

Here they are together a few days ago with Annie taking a nap and Nightingale wondering why I'm staring at her without taking her out or at least petting her. 

I would love to ride her out of the arena but Annie would have to come with and as soon as Annie is not in a well fenced area, she takes off to explore. Nightingale would be right after her and I'm not up for that much excitement. So we will do our century rides in confined spaces. I'll try a saddle next time to see if I can lower the stirrup far enough to step in it and still be able to swing my arthritic leg over this tall Morgan. Where there's a will, surely there's a way.