19th April 2008

 

Dear Hony

 

I lived in SA until two years ago, and kept my horse, Basking Saint (Saint to his friends), in a lovely small yard in Linbro Park. Saint used to be a B-grade show jumper in his day, and belonged to a man called Kirsty Viljoen, who unfortunately was killed in a car accident a while back. Kirsty had an A-grade jumper who he was riding competitively and so sold Saint on to a junior who wanted a push-button jumper. Saint was good, but the junior was nervous and she and Saint both lost their nerve.

 

I bought Saint as a hack at about 11 years old, and the two of us were the best partnership ever. I never competed on him, but he loved doing little jumps on our hacks and I am sure could have been brought back to the show-ring, but not at the level he was originally. He has the most fantastic character and sense of humour and is so beautiful that total strangers used to stop us on the street to compliment him! He’s about 18/19 now, and still very beautiful.

 

When I came to the UK, I could not bring him with me – apart from his age, the quarantine and costs, he would have looked at the rich, green grass and gone quite mad! He is now with a friend of mine in Pretoria, and doing really well, I believe. I saw him in August, and he was really happy and relaxed.

 

I have had to drown my sorrows here by working with the ponies belonging to Riding for the Disabled. They are the most fantastic animals – so steady and understanding! I do the whole thing from mucking-out, grooming, and then the rides – all on a voluntary basis. I get lots of kisses from the ponies though, and they all know that I always have pockets full of mints. All the horses and ponies here eat polo mints, and yet when I took some back to SA, none of the horses were interested. They also put mint into the feed that they give the horses here.

 

I would be interested to find out if there is anyone out there who knew Saint in the ‘olden-days’ with Kirsty – probably in the mid 80’s. Kirsty had promised to show me photos of him in his glory days, but I never had the chance to meet with him and see them.

 

I love your website, as it keeps me in touch with all the goings-on in SA. I hope that now the cooler weather is upon you, that the AHS is calming down, and that you manage to get the Lipizzaners sorted. We are getting into summer here with the associated problem of laminitis and sweet-itch. Some horses also get very bad infestations of mites in their ears, which makes them very anxious about having their heads touched. The mites disappear as soon as summer sets in and it starts to get hotter.

 

I hope that this little potted biography is interesting, and that maybe  if anyone know Kirsty and Saint, they will get in touch with me. I look forward to getting your next newsletter.

 

Kind regards

Nicky