Joy Smith
A Miracle of Love and Hope…And a Horse Named Logan
Scout and LoganOur dear friend Scout (Vicki) Valentine can breathe thanks to a miracle. The miracle that skilled surgeons, with God’s help, can take the working, useful lungs from a person who has left this life and place them in a person whose work on this earth is not done. The further miracle that the timing of the donor’s passing coincided with the hour of Scout’s greatest need.
Scout received her new lungs in the very early hours of June 8, 2013. The journey to that day began nearly two years earlier when Scout developed a nasty cough. It was diagnosed as pneumonia and treated as such. It seemingly was on its way to resolution until several months later when it became apparent there were some lingering symptoms.
Over the next several months diagnostic tests were run and Scout fluctuated between feeling normal and feeling just a bit off. The “off” didn’t stop her from being active. She continued to run several days a week and take riding lessons which she had begun in 2010. She had made her debut in the hunt field in early 2011 at a Red Rock Hounds joint meet in Santa Ynez and had become quite hooked on riding.
Tally Slo! The Leisure Field Debuts at Red Rock
Joy Smith leads the Leisure Field on Kindred. By A.P. Indy, Kindred sold at Keeneland in 2006 for one million dollars, but has since found more satisfying employment. / Shawn Lloyd photoGreat ideas are sometimes borne of desperation.
I was desperate to get back on a horse after a lumbar fracture at the beginning of the hunting season. Having already sat out much of the season. I just couldn’t resist riding at the annual joint meet in Ridgecrest, California. Hounds and members of Red Rock Hounds (NV), Kingsbury Harriers, Santa Ynez Valley Hounds (CA), Grand Canyon Hounds (AZ), Paradise Valley Beagles (AZ), as well as members of several eastern hunts all come together for three days of hunting, eating, drinking, and mingling with great friends and fantastic animals.
Riding was definitely not on my list of “can do” activities, but give me a quiet horse and a promise to only walk then no harm can be done, right?
