She was the Best of the Best

Trying to write a story about Stori is like trying to write an abbreviated paragraph about the Book of Kells.

Despite her diminutive size, barely weighing 100 pounds, at 5’5”, she was a force of nature whose extraordinary smile and joie de vivre made her someone you just wanted to be with. 

She knew everyone, across the spectrum, never judging who or where people came from.  She started any new acquaintance by liking him or her.  She was an accomplished tennis player, who also played pickle ball and paddle tennis.  For such a seemingly delicate looking woman, she managed to let out resonating grunts when she hit the ball.  The first time I heard her, I stopped and looked at her and said “ You are joking, Right?”  But no, that was the competitor in her.

She played golf, claimed she didn’t love the game, but would join her husband and friends on the course on occasional Sunday summer afternoons.  During the winter months, Stori gathered friends for Sunday afternoon lunches, reserving a table in the bar by the fireplace.  Sometime 8, sometime 10, sometime 4 showed up for an afternoon of laughter and good wine.

Inheriting her mother’s love of the arts, Stori made beautiful needlepoint belts and pillows, was an accomplished knitter, and taught decoupage classes.  She taught art to young children.

More than her artistic skills and her social gatherings, she was a dedicated friend.   She volunteered to take me to my radiation treatments, every day, five days a week for ten weeks.

Who does this?   She did and never complained.   She took me to the hospital for an additional procedure that was supposed to take an hour, but instead kept us in the pre-op waiting room twelve hours. Having no patience for this, I tried to leave the hospital after about 5 hours, and she literally forced me back onto the hospital bed.

Everyone has stories about her because she was so much fun to be with and always game for new adventures.

Our journey to owning a horse together began about a year ago.  My horse had passed away in the summer and I was at a point where I was unsure if I wanted to take on a new horse.  Stori broached the subject of us sharing a horse.  I said I thought she was crazy because she was not supposed to ride because of her complicated health issues. Never one to let grass grow under her feet, her retort was that it was “her life and she could do what she damn well wanted”.

Having grown up with horses, and having owned one years before, she would not allow the subject to pass.

 Finally, we decide to go horse shopping, no, not shopping, just looking. That was the deal.

With her best friend, Lisa, we drive to Connecticut to see horses at a horse dealer barn.  Yes, we should have known better but there you are.

It was a long dark barn with 25+ horses, and they brought horses out, one at a time, into the aisle for us to look over.  This is ridiculous I am thinking because we are saying things like,  “Isn’t his handsome” and “Nice mane”.   How were we to judge these horses that are bought at auctions in Kentucky and West Virginia the week before, shipped to this barn and then sold.

 With Lisa’s considerable equine knowledge, we pick three horses, take them, one at a time, out to the round pen where the young staff girl rides the horse in a round pen, walk, trot, canter in both directions.  Then Lisa gets on the horse and repeats the walk, trot, canter trial.   Then I get on and see what each horse felt like. (I liked a horse if it stopped when I said Whoa).  

Now, get this, Stori does not get on.    I am like “What?  Why did we drive 3 1/2 hours to this barn if you are not even going to sit on them”.  We finally get her to at least sit and walk around on horse #3.

We agree that we like horse #3 whom we named Bodie and that we want to take him for a three-week trial.  What we did not read clearly in the papers we signed is that we paid for the horse, the horse trader would ship him to us but, if it did not work out, we did not get our money back.  We  got to try another horse until we found one that we liked.     Big Mistake….

We get Bodie shipped, and we are all over him like a blanket in the barn.  Treats, grooming and so on.  We ask Lisa if she will take him out for the first week or two to make sure he is safe and okay on the trail. Buying a horse from a horse dealer who buys at auctions means you know nothing about their background, what they have done, how they have been treated, what their quirks are.  Nothing.

The first few days seem to go okay.  On the third day, this horse rears up while walking along the trail.  Not once, but again, and then again.  Lisa has to get off and hand walk him back to the barn.  “That’s it,” she says to us.  “ I am not putting either one of you on a horse that rears. He is going back.”

What have we done?  We are stuck, buying a horse from a dealer who knows nothing about the horses’ backgrounds.  We decide to wait until spring this year to start looking again. Beginning in April,  Stori is on this dealer’s sight first thing Monday and Tuesday when new horses are shipped in.

Back and forth we go every day, looking, calling, then finding the horses we like are sold.   Discouraged, we are ready to give up.  Friends are calling us with horses they know locally, but we cannot justify losing the money we paid to the horse trader.

Then we find this new boy, and Stori says we need to go down there to see him.  I argue that it doesn’t do us any good to go there again, as we are not skilled enough to know how to critically assess the horse.  We agree to have him shipped for a three-week trial.   “Cold Brew” turns out to be a great horse, who seems to like his new home in Ipswich and for whom Stori is besotted.

She is so much braver than me, going out with Lisa or Linda or Anne at the barn.  She hangs out at the barn, goes out riding this summer at 5:30AM before it gets too hot.  She is so happy.  She calls me every time she rides, each time saying how much she loves our boy.  I tease her that she gets to ride him more than me as she is closer to the barn and so much younger than me.  I tell her that she will have him for years after I kick the bucket. 

These past five months, Stori was so happy with her ability to ride out on the trail.  She loved “Cold Brew”, she loved being around him and out on him. She helped with feeding and turnout, she mucked stalls, and she faithfully applied cream to his hooves to prevent cracking. 

The last weekend she had two great rides, one long one on Saturday and then a lovely hour plus ride Sunday.  As every horse does occasionally, Brew spooked at something in the woods.  He did not leave her but stayed after her fall.  She got up and walked back to the barn with Linda and the two horses. 

At the moment, it is hard to be in the barn but I know she would want me to continue to ride and not give up on our boy. Somehow I feel that she will be on my shoulder each time I go for a ride.

I miss her so very much.  With much love and affection to my dear friend.

Claudia