Lance suddenly left this world a few days ago, on the very night I was set to begin his portrait. I had been planning, really, to get out to the barn on a sunny afternoon (if we could get one where it wasn't also 0 degrees out, lately) and take some good photos of him ... and then, just like that, he was gone.
I didn't know Lance and I wish I had. By all accounts he was technically, in the put-a-monetary-value-on-him-for-insurance sense, not at all an unusual or remarkable horse. Not a champion show horse, or of spectacular breeding, or any of that. What he was, was much better: he was the horse who helped people learn to ride, or learn to ride again. The patient, kind-hearted guy you could put anyone on for lessons or therapy, the one who everyone loved. He was worth more than truckloads of ribbons or trophies.
Here's to Lancelot, and all the other very remarkable, unremarkable horses out there.
No wonder you were all chocked up. Was he an old man horse? His eyes look like a very patient old man.
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