Poppy's Tail...

Poppy was a beautiful and talented, cremello mare, who belonged to Jill, a good friend of mine. She was bought for Jill's son, Martin to compete and do pony club with and in my long and continuing career as a pony club instructor, she gave me many happy memories and one or two heart stopping ones as well. (Sit back Martin and PULL!!!) Above all else Poppy was a real character.

On the morning Poppy had to go to the rainbow bridge, I was teaching at Jill's yard. It was clear Poppy wasn't well, showing all the symptoms of a bad colic. Jill's husband, a equine vet was called and within two hours, the grim decision was made and Poppy was gone, leaving us all reeling with shock.

I had been designing beaded jewellery for some time and something made me say “Give me some of Poppy's tail and I'll try to do something with it.” Maybe Poppy had a plan. Who knows?

I returned home with the tail hair, scratched my head a bit, thought a lot, raided my own horses tails and practised like mad. Eventually, I produced two braided bracelets from poppy's hair with blue stones in the clasps, to match her blue eyes and little poppy charms attached.

Jill and Lottie, who had Poppy on loan at the time, were thrilled with the bracelets and word began to spread around the local horsey community. It was approaching Christmas  and orders flooded in. My kitchen was soon festooned with bunches of drying horse hair and I developed other, more complicated braiding styles. The rest, as they say, is history.

So thank you Poppy, You started a whole new business venture, which will give pleasure and happy memories to so many people.  You'll never be forgotten.