Arop Luter x Arop Theunes
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| Editing by Lucy Edmonton |
It was the end of 2016, and I had just had a great year competing on a beautiful Nooitgedachter mare owned by an elderly gentleman who had been breeding some of the best Nooities in the world for near forty years at that point. Arop Nianell remains one of the best horses I've ever sat on, and we came 5th in Gauteng during the young horse series that year despite me woeful lack of education and the fact that she was the only horse in the class that was neither a warmblood nor a Friesian.
Of course, it wasn't long before Nell attracted the attention of a lovely lady looking for a perfect equine friend for her daughter. Nell went off to the most wonderful forever home - I still get regular pictures, years later - and went on to have a brilliant dressage career up to the mid-levels.
I, of course, was gutted to lose the ride. It felt like my little dressage world was crumbling around my ears, and my angsty young self promptly decided that giving up would be an excellent idea. This was while Thunder was working in the riding school and Arwen and I were failing repeatedly in the dressage arena, and I was just feeling so defeated.
Then the dear gentleman running Arop Stud approached me with a dazzling offer: I could come into his field of two-year-olds and pick one. Any one.
It was like a fairytale. I went into a field of beautiful grey fillies, all of them completely unhandled, and one of them came up and let me rub her nose. Her name was Arop Amelia; I called her Rainbow.
We never brought her home again. Rainbow had tetanus, and I had to let her go a few days later, knowing that she had been one in a million. I will always be honored by the few days that the Lord gave me to spend with one of the best horses He had ever created.
Of course, losing Rainbow felt devastating. I was absolutely crushed that she had been snuffed out so quickly, and even more ready to give up than before. It was a time in my life and my walk with Christ when I had lost myself very deeply in my own depravity, and had forgotten how much rejoicing there really is in the Lord; dressage was the only thing I'd permitted myself to keep just because I enjoyed it, and I came very close in that moment to giving it up, too. That might have been the end of horses for me entirely.
God had other ideas - and so did the lovely previous owner of Nell and Rainbow. He was gutted to hear that I'd lost my Rainbow too, and even though he was a struggling Afrikaans farmer just like most of us, he told me that I needed to come and pick out another filly.
How can I ever thank everyone who has stopped me from giving up? There have been so many. My dad, chief among them, drove me over to the farm just a few days after Rainbow passed, and I picked out a beautiful two-year-old filly who moved like fairy light among her stocky friends.
Right from the start, it was evident that Lumè was absolutely nothing like Rainbow had been. This mare knew what she wanted, and it defintiely wasn't to hang out with some puny little human. It took me days to get her to nibble some treats out of my hand. I sat in the field with her for hours, reading aloud or just sitting there. Some days she'd let me touch her; some days she wouldn't. But finally a day came when I could brush all the tangles out of her glorious mane - and after that, we never looked back. I named her Faith.
Faith spend 2017 growing up, something that took a while. She has grown into a breathtaking mare, but she was hands down one of the ugliest two-year-olds I have ever seen in my life. She had an appalling stringy little neck and a massively long back with this scrawny, tucked-up look no matter how much I fed her. I had no idea that she would mature into the beauty she has become.
That November I started some gentle lungeing work after she turned three. She was wildly opinionated at times but always had that full-hearted generosity that I love so much about the Nooitgedachter. Once we had come to an arrangement, wherein she would do what I asked as long as I asked tactfully, I slipped up onto her back. She was one of the easiest, most forward youngsters I ever started, and an absolute pleasure.
In 2018 she competed at her first Horse of the Year Show, just in hand for some exposure. As I recall, she was the only mare in her class. She was fiery as always but well behaved with Arwen as her role model.
We did a lot of hacking and little bits of working riding, with some not-so-serious schooling thrown in. I was struggling to keep up with all my horses, but no matter how many breaks Faith had or how erratic her schedule was, she was always a pleasure. She was one of very few three-year-olds I would ever have mounted straight after a week or more's rest without a qualm.
That spring, I started taking her to a few more excursions. We did a little jumping show just for the exposure, which she was adorable at.
Then, the November that she turned four, we went to a showing show in preparation for HOY 2019. Faith's canter was still a little all over the place, but her behaviour couldn't possibly have been any better. She was a little looky in the show riding, but won her working riding, which put her through to the championship class - in which she came second.
She was still a funny-looking little thing then, and didn't place well in the in-hand at HOY 2019, but the ridden classes were just as good. She came second in her show riding class. I had a silly tumble off her in the working riding, in which she had been behaving perfectly right up until that moment, which was mostly my own fault.
The winter of 2019, I turned her out again to grow up until she turned five. She had done so well as a four-year-old and was still looking awfully growthy and awkward. It was a good choice. Faith absolutely blossomed. She suddenly began to grow a topline; the greyhound-like look vanished, a beautiful neck came in, and suddenly, at HOY 2020, I looked at my horse and it actually looked like a horse.
The judges agreed. Even though Faith wasn't in work just before HOY - I was preparing a string of Arabians and showing Thunder at the same time - and was showing in the senior in-hand class for the first time, she placed third in a big, strong class of mares. She was certainly the tallest mare in the class.
At the show, the owner of a prestigious stud approached me asking if she was for sale - offering a good price. Honestly, I did consider it. I had two lovely geldings to ride and not enough time for everything, and even though, being a Nooitie, Faith cost me next to nothing to keep, it was a tempting offer.
I couldn't do it. She's my gift from Heaven, through the hands of a very kind person who did so much for me. I couldn't sell her. I turned the offer down, and the owner suggested an alternative - he wanted a foal from her, by his drop-dead-gorgeous stallion, Wilgerus Dakota.
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| Photo by Opus Proprium |
Faith was put in foal to him - not without, as always, some opinions until she decided he was worthy of being her boyfriend - in December 2020. We expect her first foal this November, and needless to say, the owner and I are both extremely excited. At 15.2hh, she will breed some of the biggest and most athletic Nooitie foals in the breed.
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| Photo by Opus Proprium |
In May 2021, Faith was presented to the Nooitgedachter society for inspection. She earned perfect 9s for general impression, forequarters, and temperament, her final score bringing her to within a single point of earning Merit.
I might not spend as much time with Faith as I would like, but she is an absolute treasure to me and her incredible beauty brings me so much joy. She is such an extravagant gift from the God who owes me nothing, through the hands of her wonderful breeder. I'm so honoured to have such an incredible horse in the yard and I look forward to many strong, athletic babies sharing her height, presence, temperament and correctness to improve this amazing breed.
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