My name is Amy and I am Kathy’s daughter.  This is the story about my horse “Ima Darn Cool Layne”.  His nickname was “Kid”.

Kid wasn’t a planned buy.  I was on vacation visiting my mom and a friend down the street had a nice colt for sell.  Ted Darnell’s colt also had an incredible bloodline.  If I wanted the colt he would give me a good deal on him.  The drama started: “I am going to buy him” and then five minutes later…”I am not going to buy him”.  This went on for a few days.  Once I handed Ted the check it was a done deal.  I decided to buy and then sell for a profit.  If I showed the colt a few times maybe that will help me to get a little more money back…or break even.      

In November 2007, Kid had his first horse show.  Staying with the original plan I made up a sales page for Kid.  At the show I found a place to hang the sales sheet, but I got nauseous.  This wasn’t show nerves….it was dread.  The thought of Kid not being in my life made me sick.  The sales page never went up.  Kid was my horse!                        

Kid behaved very well in his first class!  He stood there like he had been doing it for years.  Oh, he looked like a show horse!   It was a small horse show that was for any breed.  Kid won Grand Champion Stallion.  He even beat a few aged stallions which made me proud of him. 

Kid was shown one more time as a weanling and two more times as a yearling gelding.  These other shows were AQHA and he did ok.  We didn’t get last, but didn’t get another championship.  The other horses were older, bigger, and most of them were headed for the World.   My dream was that maybe someday Kid would be one of them.  I knew that he wasn’t a future World Champion but maybe someday he would be in that ring! 

Due to an accident in May 2008, I could not show Kid for a few months.   My goal was to take him to the 2009 Houston Livestock Show.   Kid was growing up and every day I would study him.  Is he taller, are his muscles bigger, are there new muscles, are his legs still straight, etc?  What is he going to look like full grown?  At this point I knew Kid wasn’t going to have the super halter horse body, but he didn’t look western pleasure.  If all else failed then with his attitude we could have some dirt road trail riding adventures together.    

Kid loved to play with toys, but his favorite was his plastic trash can.  He would push that plastic can all over the place.   I thought about taking the can away because he would get so sweaty and hot.  In October 2008 I decided to get out there and take some pictures of him playing.   

The following month, Kid got a deep puncture wound in his front hoof.  It happened while he was turned out in his pen.  He was seen by two different vets and had x-rays.  Kid was supposed to be fine.  One night I took him out so he could eat grass.  Kid was walking better and seemed happy.  The next morning he was dead.  It is suspected that he threw a clot.  There wasn't anything that could have been done.  Just one of those things that happens.  That morning I lost my horse, goals, and dreams that were tied to him.