Never forget your friends. I hope you like these tributes by myself, or my friends.

Vickie Lavender. The Kelpie. My girl since 1994. Constant companion and partner. You will notice her as a constant presence in the majority of photographs I'm in. Learning to live without her is the hardest thing.

Chippie, Kelpie-X & "Best Dog" since 1993. He had a troubled start till the Swan Animal Haven rescued him. They let me persuade them I had to have him, half recovered from disease & covered in ticks & fleas. He proved to be the kind of dog people often offered to take, "should you ever not want him anymore" ...As if! I was sadly parted from Chip for several years through circumstances beyond our control, but when I let him go, I trusted he would be ok, and was not mine to keep or own. Within 5 years he returned to me. I am forever grateful, and felt both blessed & rewarded. I value that I got to spend the rest of his life with him. RIP.

Muffin. My first pony. Spectacular jumper, if only I'd know it was through fear, claustrophobia that we were successful in competitions! Of course I loved him with all my heart as a 14 year old, and had to let him go when I returned to Australia in 1996. The fact that we found him such loving people to spend the subsequent years with, until his death in 2000, was our greatest success.

Billy Eves. Fun-loving & devoted to Tass. Tragically taken as a result of a snake bite... In Tass's words; "Billy was a wonderful soul and my faithful companion. He taught me a lot about the real, and important things in life. He is sadly missed."

Pearl Finn-Kelcey. Beautiful & sensitive. She learnt to trust again, and I too.

Alfie Austin. "It was this wonderful horse that took me on an incredible journey. His life was tragically cut short by a reaction to an anaesthetic at 4.00pm on the 20th December 2005, after an operation to remove an abscess deep in his neck.

I am still devastated at the loss of my beautiful boy who was just 10 years old, and I had the pleasure of his companionship from a 5month old foal.   The journey was filled with so many emotions, heart ache , trauma , lots of soul searching, stress, sweat and tears, he truly was a challenge, but was made this way by my initial lack of knowledge of youngsters, improper training from so called ‘professionals’ and general misunderstanding.  He was not bad, just scared, sensitive and misunderstood.  The journey of horsemanship really started when I was at my wits end and was advised to either have him shot, or sell him or he ‘would kill me’ by a so called ‘trainer’.  A long story, but things went from bad to worse until I met Heather Seems who I owe SO much, she lead me onto this road of discovery where I had nothing to loose. Heather introduced me to Jayne and I've since met many other fabulous horse people who have helped me so much along the way.

I think Alfie touched everyone’s lives that he met, he was a stunning looking horse who had such presence and character yet under this exterior was a  very scared, very sensitive boy.  Alfie and my ex racer Charlie were the best of buddies and I still shed a tear for Charlie who I am sure misses him too….

I leant so much from Alfie and I  have met some fantastic lifelong friends through the journey that he took me on and this is still on going with my present horses. However I still haven’t quite  got back ‘into it’ after losing him and things will never be the same again. It affected us all, my family and close friends and all those who knew him, however I have to move on to let the horses I have now benefit from what I learnt from him.

I have this picture in my mind of him galloping in the sun across grassy fields with his other friends who have also passed on in the last two years…Hopefully one day I will get my chance to be with him again… Vicki xx"

Goldie Stopher. Gentleman & scholar.

Starlight Roberts.  Paula Cox writes of Starlight; she was one in a million, it was an honour and privilege to have known and ridden her. We had some fantastic times & she was & still is the best horse I’ve ever ridden. Her canter was incredible. In fact I remember the clinic where we each had to canter a circle and Amanda was the envy of everyone there for having the slowest canter.

Amanda, Starlights human, says, "Starlight was a classy lady who left me with so many happy memories and is sorely missed.  My most favourite memory, which still make me laugh now, was one day when we were playing at liberty and the livery yard owner decided to climb on the stable roof to fix some tiles Starlight spotted him ran over to me put her head over my shoulder plucked me off my feet and ran with me to the other end of the field.  It was definitely a video recorder moment as everyone who was watching just creased up laughing and said it was just like a comedy sketch."

Ali Maitland. A spectacular mare who flaunted her potential!

Lolly Eves. Strong and loving. Small of stature, lion-hearted. 

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©2007 Estelle Jayne Lavender