Sweet sweet Shade on Monday. It was obviously time to let her go but she was not showing a lot of distress. Core of steel all the way.
I made a memorial slideshow set to part of Rod Stewart "Forever Young" song. https://youtu.be/Ifq7WlwulNc
Shade earned the nickname Steel Magnolia at a ride in WY over 10 years ago. It was my first year entering the 50 on that ride and about 18 miles into the 25 mile first loop after going too slow over some nice two-track and then having to go slow over a lot of rock we came to a nice looking stretch that was actually a meadow infested with gophers. Sure enough I had just started to canter and Shade hit a soft patch. She was always so careful not to hurt me, she managed to not go on her side and get my leg but we both had scraped faces and she had a bit of scraped knees but trotted sound so we went on to the vet check and she was sound for the check so we continued on loop2, still sound, finished loop 3 and got the completion. Back home she stiffened up and I ended up giving her a couple months off.
I miss her so much and will always treasure the ride adventures I was able to experience thanks to her grit. I always kept the speed down because she had the offset legs which put her at high risk to develop arthritis and she had 10 years between LDs and 50s.
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