Tears were running down the barn manager’s cheeks when I walked in. “We buried Bella yesterday in the back field, if you want to put up a marker.”
I was working in New York when the call came through. “We’ve done everything to keep her comfortable, and she’s in great pain now. Do we have your permission to put her down?” Yes. It was a long day, after that.
Eight years before, I had given away a “mistake horse” – looked great, well-priced, totally unmanageable. When a notice went up – 16 hand thoroughbred mare for sale, I ignored it as those were three things I didn’t want: a large horse, a mare, and a thoroughbred. Bella had been used as a brood mare, had delivered three foals who became race horses, and was now barren and for sale.
She was skinny, unattractive, and covered with a heavy winter coat, but I grudgingly said I’d try her. From then on, we worked on liking each other, and at the end of six months, we were a team. Bella and I rode into the fields, out on the trails, into the show ring a few times. Everyone at the barn loved her as well, and several envious riders asked how I had acquired such a great horse. I smiled mysteriously.
When she became ill, I was grief-stricken. I authorized a lengthy and expensive operation – the only kind of operations there are for horses. She rallied, then began to fail again. I had to leave her in Connecticut because I was due back at work.
I used a wood-burning stylus to write on the wooden post, and hammered it into the ground behind the barn. - Pretty Bella, 1991 – 2013
Loved by Sally Haver
Bella By Sally Haver