Norwegian Dancer

We got Norwegian Dancer, aka Weegie, not long after moving to Itchy Dog Farm.  Standing tall at 16.2 hands, Weeg was a dark bay Thoroughbred previously owned by Craig's friend Audrey, a professional horsewoman in Ocala.  She had taken a job with a stable that required summers in Pennsylvania and she could no longer afford to move Weegie back and forth twice a year.

I had originally hoped for a couple of horses we could ride together, maybe plodders retired from the trail. Weegie was 29 years old and although it was clear he was game to work, the idea of riding him seemed mean.  But Craig said he was the best horse ever and we had to take him, so we took him.

Turned out, Weegie was the best horse ever.  He did this little nibble-nuzzle with his lips that tickled you into a laugh.  You could groom him forever without a halter.  He stood for the farrier, only getting agitated if requested to lift a leg out of turn.  And he had the most gorgeous gait.  Our neighbors own and board astonishingly expensive horses and I never saw one of them move as beautifully as our Weeg.

As it happens, I somehow believed a lot of misinformation about him.  I thought he was born in the UK and had a successful racing career overseas before coming to the States to be retrained as a competitive dressage horse.  In my research after his death, I found he was born in Kentucky in 1982.  His sire was Nobel Dancer from Great Britain, his dam Patriotic Petunia out of Floral Park by National. As a 3-year-old he was unplaced in 12 starts, which means he did not win, place or show in the twelve races he was entered in.  The New Jersey Register for October 30, 1985 lists his odds as 8:1 in the first heat at the Meadowlands, $7,500 prize.

In 1988 he was sold by consignor Dancer's Hill Farm to an R. D. Brady for $1200.  I do not know how he came to to be used for dressage or how he came to be owned by Audrey.  I can't find anything about his dressage career.  I did find an article published in 2015 about his sire, Noble Dancer, that states:

Noble Dancer went on to sire some magnificent stakes winners: Explosive Dancer, Noble Fury, Island Sun, Noble Cookie, Norwegian Dancer and Noble Ringer are just a few of his outstanding offspring.

So he was an outstanding offspring, I'm just not sure at what. 

No matter, we loved that horse.  If he had any downside at all, it was how he hated to be alone in the pasture. It was not an easy job finding pasture pals for him.  First we tried in succession a couple of younger Arabs whose owners were only too happy to give them away.  Weegie is submissive about his food, and we had to rehome one Arab after another when they gobbled up his fodder.  Next we got Pebbles, a sweet blond mini horse, from a nearby equine rescue.  She had horrible health issues from the start, but Weegie adored her and would not leave her side.  After her death we briefly suffered the Donkey From Hell who would not let Weegie eat at all.  Finally we found a pony named Chavez. Weegie's mini-me, Chavez was a little copy of Weege and they loved each other like nothing I've seen before.  They could not be more than a few feet apart, and neither would let the other be taken away.  The farrier and the equine vet quickly learned they could could only treat one horse if the other was standing beside.

BFF

Chavez has laminitis from grazing  on our rich pasture grass, and I always thought he was the one to worry about.  But a week ago Friday, just a few weeks before Weegie's 33rd birthday, I found him swaying like a drunkard, shifting his weight from one front foot to another.  Both feet were so painful he could not stand on either.  I made an appointment with the vet and plied him with Bute to ease the pain.  When she came the following Monday, she confirmed he had foundered and his coffin bone was pushing through the hoof.  There was nothing to do but put him down.

I have been imagining Weegie crossing the Rainbow Bridge.  He might have just walked across with his typical confidant dignity.  Or maybe he galloped across like the 3-year-old racehorse he once was.  Or he could have trotted lightly, head up and tail flowing in the best dressage style.  But I like best to think that he cantered across that bridge with his effortless, big-horse loping gait that we watched so often in the pasture, when suddenly he would throw back his head and run for no reason I could see except the love of running.  He runs and runs, and his feet don't hurt and his muscles are long and hard, and he runs and runs and his head is high and he doesn't even care that there is a world of fat sweet grass waiting on the other side.