RIP 1995—February 18th, 2011
Sunner & Betsy 2003
She was the most intelligent horse in the barn. Sunner was a grade AQHA mare by Eternal Jigger, out of a quarter horse mare with lost papers named “Missy.” She was 15hh and a beautiful liver chestnut with a white star.
We bought Sunner as a 2 yr old in 1997 for my mom’s ex-husband. Sunner had issues with refusing to move (she would literally just stand there, even with a crop). You couldn’t put spurs of any size on this girl, or she’d turn into the world’s best bronc.
Betsy took over Sunner’s training in 1998 and worked with Gilles Dupuis to get her moving forward. This was Betsy’s first full-sized horse and she was incredibly impressed with her ability to get Sunbun to do what nobody could. Sunbun only responded to Betsy— if anyone tried to ride her, Sunner would just stand there.
Betsy rode Sunner for her pre-teen and teenage life. She turned her into one of the best Western Pleasure horses in Eastern Ontario and was only beat 3 times from 2000 to 2006. I remember both that did it— Leslie Uens got her at Centerville and Shannonville Fairs, and a little Arab horse got her under an Arab judge at Belleville Fair.
Sunbun, to this day, was absolutely brilliant. She was exceptionally trained in Western Pleasure, Horsemanship, Showmanship. She would have been a fabulous hunter under saddle horse, except that she HATED contact– her mouth was fine, she just hated to have short reins. This was why Betsy was able to ride her so well on a draped rein that was almost likely to trip the horse. In showmanship, you could go out in the field, hold your hands up, and she’d walk, trot, spin, back up, and set up with you.
She has more awards and wins than I can remember or count. She probably has lifetime earnings of around $10,000 (pretty impressive for a grade quarter horse who only showed clubs and fairs). We tried really hard to track down her dam and dam’s papers so that we could get Sunner registered, but nobody could remember where “Missy” had come from in the States.
Sunbun was sold out from under us and when we bought her back, she had acute laminitis. We were able to help her and she recovered, but around the time that we moved to Deseronto, she began having signs of digestive upset. It was intermittent and she kept showing. But around 2003, it started getting worse. In 2004 the excessive water drinking started and she began losing some of her weight, but not drastically. It peaked in 2005 and she was retired due to this increasingly worse state. We launched into trying to help her and had been consulting the vet(s) all along. They were stumped. We had improvements from digestive supplements and discussed her problem with Marc-Andre Blouin and Gabriella Sutton. I took ownership of her in 2007 and made it my one goal to do everything I could to solve the problem and have “my” horse return to a healthy state.
I thought we almost had her back in 2008, and she did make a temporary come-back to the show ring. But she went downhill again. Almost everything we tried would have either no result, or work for a little while, then crash two months later. When I was Kemptville for school, I started working with Corlena Patterson. Corlena’s ideas and her infamous “Horse Crack” prebiotic mix have had the best results for Sunner that we’ve ever seen. Horse Crack put more weight on her in one month and actually had the horse producing normal manure for the first time in years. Sunner actually had an almost normal weight in December 2009, but when the prebiotic regime finished, she went downhill again.
In 2009 after 3 weeks of Horse Crack:
The last year has been a struggle, both financially and emotionally. I was saving money to get her the supplements that could help her and I was planning to treat her for cecal acidosis, which can cause all of the symptoms we’ve been seeing for years. I was finally able to get everything at the end of January. Sunner’s weight was very bad, even though she was eating constantly. She showed some improvement when she was started on Equishure, and we just added Horse Crack on Monday. Last time, Horse Crack literally 180′d the situation within 3 days.
But this time, it seems that whatever was going on in there was more severe than we thought. Mom said she even appeared to be losing weight, in spite of the Equishure and Horse Crack, even though she was eating. She went down on the morning of February 18th and was not able to get up again. My stepdad said it was clear that she was not her usual bright self. Mom said that Sunner tried to rally her strength when mom got there, but just couldn’t. They made her as comfortable as they could but the vet could do nothing and it was clear that Sunner couldn’t fight her body anymore. The vet thinks she had “Leaky Gut Syndrome” that was severe enough that nothing could’ve helped, in her weakened state.
Sunner was euthanized February 18th, 2011 morning at 11:46 a.m. The vet was Dr Phil from St. Lawrence, a very nice and kind man (cute too).
Even at her worst, she always looked happy, perky and obnoxious. She always had more energy when she was turned out than any other horse we own, even the babies. She had her own language of snorts and was capable of trickery. It took me four years to learn how to ride her because she wanted any rider to EARN the right of her obedience by using the lightest pressures possible. She rode bridleless and loved to work, even when her health was bad. She had the perfect conformation and movement for western pleasure, and was a total natural.
We’ll miss you forever Sunbun. <3
