EQUINE
everything equine
If you ever loved a horse... A Tribute to Sundance ‘Sunny’
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| AUG 2021 | OCALAMAGAZINE.COM
es could be sent instantly to you, so up to this point, the horse was sight unseen. After a short greeting, he was bridled and I rode him out in a field. It was getting dark, and until that moment I didn’t even know what a gaited horse felt like. He was so comfortable, even bareback. I was quite impressed. The woman who owned the boarding stables looked quite concerned as I zipped over logs, loving every moment. The next day, I returned to complete the purchase and take Sundance “Sunny” home with me.
Over the course of the next almost 30 years, I rode Sunny all over the place. We trail rode thousands of miles, going on eighthour adventure rides together and camping trips in the wild and anywhere we could go, often with my daughter sitting behind or in front, laughing and loving the thrill of the fast pace Sunny always had. In 2000, I moved to Ocala, “the Horse Capital of the World,” and there we rode more and more. We found new adventures on the beautiful Greenway trails and final-
Photos courtesy of Louisa Barton
A
s a horse rider who grew up in England, I had never seen a Western saddle, or for that matter a Tennessee Walker. In 1992, as I drove out to the boarding farm where the horse I was looking at as a potential trail horse for me, I wondered if I would like him. There were six horses in the barn that evening, and it was getting dark. They all looked over their stable doors. As I locked eyes with one particular horse, I hoped it was him. It was back before photos of potential purchas-
BY LOUISA BARTON
