{"id":1976,"date":"2013-10-23T08:12:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T14:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1976"},"modified":"2013-10-28T00:35:54","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T06:35:54","slug":"brief-note-ii-illusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1976","title":{"rendered":"Brief Note II: Illusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illusion, out of Silver Enchantress\u00a0 (half Pryor mountain mustang, half unknown)\u00a0 by Incantator (Trakehner) was bred, imprinted, raised and trained by my friend Kathleen, who died of cancer almost exactly 13 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the last phase of her own illness,\u00a0 she left him to me,\u00a0 trusting me to care for him the rest of his life.\u00a0 And yesterday,\u00a0 Illusion’s life ended.\u00a0\u00a0 He was 14 when Kathleen died,\u00a0 27 when I called the vet and asked for an emergency visit.<\/p>\n

\"resized_tight-crop_rt-lead-canter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That picture is from 2003,\u00a0 when Illusion had been with me about 2\u00a0 1\/2 years and I was riding him regularly.\u00a0\u00a0 Kathleen had trained him to a high level in dressage, though he was not talented for it, and she rode much better than I did.\u00a0 But when I took him over, he had a solid foundation right up to Grand Prix (though extreme collection was very difficult for him and he’d had to have his hocks injected.\u00a0\u00a0 He was big and stout, but hocks and knees weren’t quite up to his size)\u00a0\u00a0 He taught me a lot.<\/p>\n

For a look at the younger Illusion,\u00a0 from his life at Singing Hill,\u00a0 I have a few of Kathleen giving our son Michael a lesson on him back in 1998–Michael’s first time to ride a trot and canter, but I can’t find the right folder this morning (it’s on an external hard drive backup storage) so here’s a link to the same <\/a>on my main website.\u00a0\u00a0 There are some others of Illusion there as well.\u00a0\u00a0 A picture I don’t have and wish I did\u00a0 is from the last or next to last show Kathleen rode him in–a Prix St. George test, in an outdoor setting.\u00a0 I was acting as her groom that day, so didn’t have a camera with me.\u00a0\u00a0 A storm had passed by; the ring surface was wet and dark (actually muddy and puddle-y at one end) and the thundercloud loomed dark behind them…but a ray of sun came under the cloud and spotlighted the golden horse\u00a0 as he did a careful passage through the mud.<\/p>\n

All horses are individuals, with personalities and quirks.\u00a0 Illusion was extraordinary among horses–one of the two really brilliant horses I’ve known (the other was also a gelding and a crossbred.\u00a0 That was my first horse, Ky.) \u00a0 He showed flashes of human-type thinking, as did Ky. \u00a0 \u00a0 He had a strong, quirky personality (mischievous, too…he liked to tease people.\u00a0\u00a0 For instance, by grabbing the brim of your hat as you walked away so that you walked out from under it.)\u00a0\u00a0 Illusion spent half his life on the farm where he was born, a breeding and showing establishment for dressage horses, with Kathleen as his person.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The other half he spent here.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was honored by Kathleen’s trust.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m sorry it’s over.\u00a0 But I’m glad we were able to ease his ending for him.<\/p>\n

[Edited to correct his dam’s name to Silver Enchantress and his age to 27.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Illusion, out of Silver Enchantress\u00a0 (half Pryor mountain mustang, half unknown)\u00a0 by Incantator (Trakehner) was bred, imprinted, raised and trained by my friend Kathleen, who died of cancer almost exactly 13 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the last phase of her own illness,\u00a0 she left him to me,\u00a0 trusting me to care for him the rest of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-1976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1976"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1979,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions\/1979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}