The Near Side: This Week in Horses — September 25, 2015

Hello and happy Friday, everyone! Here’s what’s been happening in the horse world this week.

• Scarcely a week goes by without another story about a horse that paints, but somehow, this shtick never gets old. This week, meet Nick, a draft cross who pulled a carriage on Michigan’s famous Mackinac Island and later was a drill team mount before his retirement into the world of fine art.
• Keep an eye out for these two horses. Fancy, a black Arabian, and Silver, a black Quarter Horse, were stolen out of their Michigan pasture earlier this week.
• This story of Lisa Beech, a horse owner who has entered hospice care after a very long battle with cancer, has been everywhere this week. Beech’s daughter, Amanda Sturgill, brought the family’s Appaloosa, Jake, out for a visit, and the touching moment was captured on video. Jake and Sturgill have appeared as models in Horse Illustrated in the past, and our hearts go out to the whole family.
• Here’s a similar story out of England, where a lifelong equestrian named Pat West was cheered up by a visit from her granddaughter and a horse named Puzzle. West is in hospice care due to motor neuron disease.
• Can you stand another? Mary Jane Swarthout is not in hospice care, but she is 91 years old. On Tuesday, she had her wish to ride a horse one more time granted by the Maine Health Care Association’s Live Your Dreams program.




• And finally, Chronicle of the Horse and Breyer Animal Creations this week announced that they would be selling talking George Morris dolls action figures as a fundraiser for various equine charities. I hope that they are also planning on releasing their own haunted-doll horror movie to go with it. Instead of being murderous like Chuckie or Talky Tina, George will appear in your kitchen and shame you for coming in to binge on leftover Halloween candy in the middle of the night.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy the first weekend of fall!

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Leslie Potter is Sr. Associate Web Editor of horseillustrated.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LeslieInLex.