Damascus

We are featuring another horse from Back of Beyond Farm in Huntsville, Ontario owned by Cathy Foyston and Bill Statten. Damascus is a 5 year old bay, 16.3 hand registered Canadian Warmblood Thoroughbred/ Hanoverian cross.

Hello everyone. My name is Damascus. I am one of the 4 big bay geldings that live and play together in the north pasture at Back of Beyond Farm in Huntsville. Well, I should say I used to live there. I am vacationing in New Liskeard for a few months this summer and am helping a young rider, named Amanda, get her coaching levels.

I find the living in New Liskeard pretty good (lots of tasty grass and fun friends). I also really love the humans that look after me there. They know how to make me feel calm using Natural Horsemanship and give me lots of carrots (as well as good scratches in all those hard to reach places). I have fun when Amanda rides me in the ring and we go over the jumps. I try to do my best for her when we jump and pick up my feet really high so those long pole things do not fall off their posts.

Sometimes Amanda and I just wander off down one of the trails in the bush. We can go for hours and hours. Let me tell you about how brave I really am. The first time I went out on the New Liskeard trails we came to this circle of shiny stuff in the middle of the path. I was all set to high tail it out of there and head for the barn, where I knew we would be safe - but would you believe it, Amanda said "No Damascus". Well, I took a closer look at the shiny thing and saw a horse reflected in it. He was big and bay with a teardrop star and one white foot, just like me. I decided that if he could go in there so could I, and besides, I trust Amanda. So, in I went and the horse disappeared (that was funny) and my feet were only just covered up by wet stuff as I went through. Now, I don't worry about the shiny stuff anymore (Amanda calls them puddles) and I splash through them all the time. They are actually quite fun, cool down my legs beautifully and are good to drink.

I am looking forward to a lot more good times with Amanda this summer before I go back to Huntsville in the fall.

Congratulations to Damascus for being our August 4^th, 2008 Horse of the Week!