We lost Lullahby Lily today

We lost Lullahby Lily today. She was a racehorse, brood mare, trail horse, hunter jumper and dressage horse. She was a good mother and a great friend.

Lily was foaled on April 26, 1992 at Thornmar Farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. By Horatius out of Bantullah (Fleet Nasrullah), She raced mainly in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Her favorite distance was 6 furlongs, but she won at a mile as well. In 28 lifetime starts, she had five wins and finished in the money 13 times. Her best year was as a three year old, when she had 11 starts, 4 wins and finished in the money 5 other times.

As a brood mare, her best baby was Sarah Creek, who was still racing and winning as a nine year old.

We rescued Lily from a one way trip to “The Auction” in March 2005. Some of my favorite memories of her go back to when we had her at a farm in Powhatan, Virginia. I never owned a horse before and was constantly astonished at her unique personality.

Haley and Lily at the Deep Run Hunter Trials

One day, we were trail riding with a group of about six or eight other people. Running along a wide grassy path with Kim behind me, the trail curved to the right. As Lily moved into the bend, I slipped slightly off balance on her left side. To Kim’s amazement, as I slid, Lily actually dropped her body down and shifted to her left to get back underneath me and save me from falling off.

She took good care of me, but had a spooky streak. On a solo trail ride one day, we were trotting through a field along a hedgerow. Something in the brush scared Lily and she launched her body straight up into the air. When she reached the apex of her hop, I kept going up and came right out of the saddle. 

As her four feet hit the earth, she jumped sideways to escape the killer rabbit or whatever it was lurking in the bushes. When I came down, there was no horse under me.  I landed on my feet, Lily was 10 feet away, munching grass, looking at me and wondering why I got off. She was very kind and (mostly) tolerated my sketchy riding.

Back in the Powhatan days, I was a new rider and a little hesitant to ask Lily to really run. But I wanted badly to see how fast she would go. She was a racehorse after all. In a great big field one day, Kim and I switched horses. While Kim sat on Lily, the rest of us rode off about 100 yards, turned and waited for them. Damn she was fast. What a thrill! A beautiful girl on a beautiful horse tearing across the field, mane and tail flying to catch up.

I will miss the way she would come up behind me and rest her chin on my shoulder. It kills me that these wonderful animals come with expiration dates. Lily’s was up today. She had been colicing off and on for a week. We thought she was out of the woods, but we were wrong and today we had to do her that last great favor. RIP, baby.