This is the very first horse I rode in lessons – and I have the photo to prove it! *laugh*

Roman was the old trooper of the barn. He was 26 when I started taking lessons, probably 28 when we left; they told me he was an Appaloosa, although I don’t recall them ever specifying his color. (Looking at the photos… I’m going to take a wild guess and say his base coat was a chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail, maybe? With a blaze… and probably a varnish Appy at that, given the indeterminate color…) I never did learn his registered OR show names.

They let him roam loose around the barn and paddocks – he was often found back in the back near the pasture where the babies were – and he’d reliably turn up in his stall for his grain. He was a terrible chow hound, and apparently had an iron stomach; I heard, although I can’t verify, that he got into and ate most of a 10-lb bag of “wormer feed” (feed-though deworming, I’m guessing) and was perfectly fine. I know he was always up for apples, carrots, pretzels, and anything else us kids could think to feed to him.

Five or six years after we’d left that barn, we heard through the grapevine that he’d been retired to “the farm” (somewhere in south Texas) finally. I hope he ended his life well; he was a sweet old horse.