Summer Williams has loved, ridden and trained horses for dressage on her parents’ small farm in Moorbel since she was a little girl.
“I remember when I’d arrive home on the school bus and go straight on a horse,” she says.
And that’s what she planned when she bought Julia, a beautiful young chestnut Andalusan mare to train her up for dressage and then sell her. But Julia has proved to be such a “beautiful, clever, gentle and enjoyable” steed that Summer now can’t imagine breaking the bond of mutual affection they share and passing her on to someone else.
“She’s become my good mate,” she says. And Julia has an unusual soul-mate in the
backyard stable of Summer’s house in Rodd Street – a young palamino miniature gelding named Jeffrey, brought in to keep her company.
The two are inseparable, whether gallop- ing and grazing on land behind the stable, or in an empty paddock next to my garden, or, as they did recently, pushing my dilapidated garden fence down to devour most of my prized sweet corn.
I remonstrated with them. Both flatly de- nied it. And my own growing love for this beautiful, affectionate mare and her little pal, who I call “Noddy,” means I’ll be grow- ing corn for them in the future.
By Derek Maitland