Sally Sails Home Again
Lark Home Run’s dam comes from a long line of great moms. Sail Home Again, aka Sally, was one of the last fillies bred in Kentucky from the Halo bloodline.
“They weren't ever known for being particularly excellent race horses, but the mares were famous for being phenomenal broodmares with maternal instincts,” said Sally’s current owner, Wendy Powell.
Wendy said her mare loves going out in the morning and getting everyone moving. “She likes to lead the morning exercise, you know? She runs a couple of loops around the hay bale feeder and she rears and strikes and tries to get everyone moving around. Then, she's the first one to stop and decide to go eat. So it's kind of fun to watch. She splashes in the mud. She winks at all of the geldings on the outside. And then, when someone comes out, she's the first one to run away from the fence. Like, ‘Oh, I wasn't talking to them. I was eating.’ She knows when she's stirring the pot and then she's quick to make her getaway.”
Wendy had known Sally as a foal, when she was then named “Lucky.” But Lucky wasn’t that lucky. Seven days after she was born, her dam died from colic and the filly was motherless. That’s where Wendy stepped in. She had a job working at the breeding farm when Lucky was born and was tasked with bottle feeding the orphan foal. The two formed a deep bond, but later Lucky was sold and Wendy moved on. Then, one day years later Wendy started wondering what had happened to the chestnut filly called Lucky. She tracked her down in Amarillo, Texas, and made arrangements to have the mare live with her in Michigan. When they finally reunited, Lucky hadn’t forgotten her old friend.
“I had certain whistles that I did when she was little because the farm she was on was built and designed to be a Thoroughbred horse farm,” Wendy said. “The turnouts were very, very narrow, maybe only 40 feet wide, but they were several hundred yards long. And there were hills that were intentionally constructed to encourage their stamina. And so, I used whistles to be able to call her from such a distance to get her to come in every night. And I thought, ‘I wonder how good her memory is.’ I started to go through the set of different whistles and she picked her head up from grazing right away. She turned and let out a little knicker. She still remembered. And then I lost it. I just brushed her and combed her hair and reconnected. We’ve just been best friends ever since.”
Wendy renamed her Sally and now she lives her days out in the field and as a riding horse. “I just wanted her to enjoy her life and for us to find something that we could do together,” Wendy said. “And we are both happy walking, trotting, cantering, and doing circles and serpentines in the arena.” Smooth and simple-to-ride, Sally is basically bomb-proof – in the arena. “I can do anything in the arena all day long that you would want to do. She's kind of a dream boat in there. She does not like trails. She can't handle being by herself very well. She loves to have a herd and she loves to have her friends with her.”
Wendy never had the chance to watch Sally with any of her own foals, but she’s been able to observe her mothering instincts with other weanlings and yearlings as she comes alongside them and serves as a buffer between them and the other horses in the field. “She’s quick on those days that those weanlings get out of control or too rowdy playing with each other,” Wendy said. “Sally stops grazing and trots over there with her ears back and puts herself in between them as if to say, ‘You know, you guys need to simmer down or somebody’s going to get hurt over here.’ She teaches them how to be a horse and how to figure out their community and their little order. Her mothering instinct is unreal. She is a very family-minded mare. And it just kind of seems that that might be something that she's done a good job of passing on, because I hear good things about Homer and how well he gets along with so many of his friends and his buddies.”
Because of the mother/son relationships between Sally and Homer, Wendy has also become friends with Homer’s owner, Elizabeth “Beth” Stauber-Johnson, “It was great to be able to meet her,” Wendy said. “She came to visit this past fall on her way down South, and I was so just honored to be able to pass on some keepsakes that I had taken with me from the barn [where Sally was a weanling] when everything was being liquidated. I managed to find a lead rope and a halter that were Sally's grandmothers’ [Sailing Pockette 82], and I was just so incredibly privileged to be able to pass those on to the next generation.”
Wendy picks Sally’s feet every day and applies hoof polish and scrubs her white socks. When the temperature changes, Wendy rushes out to blanket her with one of a full wardrobe of blankets. And then there are treats. “She loves these minty muffins,” Wendy said. “Beth got us hooked on those. She was very picky about wanting any types of treats. She'll eat carrots and apples if I slice them up for her, but that's all she ever wanted. She absolutely loves the muffins to the point where she expects them when I come out. It's like she won't even hold still for me to pet her or for grooming. She's just checking all of my pockets. Like, ‘Cookies, cookies first. Right? You brought cookies. Surely there's a cookie here somewhere for me.’ And so that just warms my heart.
“It's to the point now where she has let go of a lot of things and recognizes that she is in a safe place and doesn't have to keep her guard up. She doesn't have to be that brassy chestnut mare anymore. She can rest and she can enjoy her rest. It’s been within the last two years that she trusts me enough to let me scratch her ears. She'll put her head on my shoulders and I just massage her ears and she closes her eyes and I feel like we're back where we started. This story really has come full circle, hasn't it? Quite literally for both of us. We all need to go out in the world and test our wings and try our own adventures and see what has been planned for us.”
Wendy is happy to allow Sally to live the rest of her days with her in Michigan. “I wish she could live forever,” she sighed. “She's a sweetheart.”