The Story of Winston

   It wasn't until the many boxes of old photos spanning fifty years of breeding Morgan horses were placed into albums that Chris finally realized what I had been talking about since Rapidan Fleetwing's passing the previous summer. For the first time in half a century R'surene Morgan Farm was without a resident stallion. Sure, there was semen transport, but the spirit of the breeding farm was gone.
   After Fleetwing's death on July 15, 2007, I knew that something was wrong; the heart of the breeding farm was missing. I mourned, the mares looked at me, and the stallion pasture was cold and silent. By August I couldn't take it anymore. "The signature of a breeding farm lies in its stallion" my father used to say; that's probably because we always had at least one stallion in residence. If R'surene Morgan Farm was going to continue then a stallion needed to be found.
   In October 2007 the search began. Having been in the breeding business for a long time gave us perspective into what we wanted to breed for the next fifty years. Chris and I started with The Morgan Connection. There we found several long yearlings that piqued our interest. We travelled to Florida and wrote to breeding farms in Indiana, Vermont, California, Texas, and Ohio asking for pedigrees and videos. Although the colts were beautiful, they weren't the signature.
   Just as we were about to give up the search until 2008, a small ad came out in the magazine. Chris came running down the stairs, handed me the magazine, and said "Here is Fleetwing!" I couldn't believe my eyes, before me was an eight year old reincarnation of my beloved Rapidan Fleetwing.
   The call was made to Ohio and an Amish man returned my call late on a Saturday evening. Yes, the stallion had not been sold but he had received a lot of interest; no, he did not have a video of the horse but was hoping to get one soon. Was it possible to drive up and see the horse, I asked? Since we both work, it had to be tomorrow, a Sunday. The man answered that he did not do any business on Sunday. Could I still see the horse, I repeated? Mr. Bowman sensed the desperation in my voice and told me that if I wanted to come visit I would be welcome. Chris and I drove to northeast Ohio the next day. We drove 680 miles (one way), saw the black horse for ten minutes, and then drove back home. The trip lasted more than twenty hours and we were quiet most of the way back to Knoxville. Each of us were thinking of the past stallions we had owned and the wonder that we had found this signature horse virtually in the middle of nowhere in an Amish barn. We hadn't done anything that crazy since 1986 when we went to pick up the UVM Flash son Canequin's Flashback in New Mexico.
   What made us drive that distance? Some people call it fate, some call it destiny, I call it wise. We were wise enough to follow our instincts and wise enough to consider a stallion outside the normal setting for such a find. We were wise enough to realize that this was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity, to own a piece of history and make it our own.
    We now have a stallion in residence. This close relative of Rapidan Fleetwing rules over the stallion pasture. I am now at peace with the reassurance that the spirit of the farm will go on.

R'surene Ganymede

Shown at one month