by Embergleam » Mon Jan 16, 2023 5:56 pm
Username: Embergleam
Show Name: RRS Eclipse on a Dark Dawn
Barn Name: Eclipse
Gender: Stallion
Height: 13.3 hh
Halter Color: Artist's choice
Prompt:
Eclipse's original owners are fond of saying he was born under a star of ill omen.
No one's quite sure whether they mean that literally, metaphorically, or both.
Born during a lunar eclipse- the inspiration for his admittedly high-flown name- the richly-marked colt's beginning was auspicious enough. His pedigree was jam-packed with champions on both sides of the family tree. His father had made quite the splash at Le Lion-d'Angers some years previous. His mother was as famed for her 'pocket pony' personality as she was for her impeccable competition record. Hopes were high that their foal would capture hearts and trophies alike.
Those hopes were dashed almost immediately. Eclipse, as he was swiftly named, fell ill mere hours after his birth. Vets diagnosed him with aspirational pneumonia. It took him weeks to conquer the resulting infection, and months to catch up to his agemates in size.
Through it all he stayed as sweet and loving as his dam- a fact that gave his beleaguered owners some small modicum of hope.
For a time that star hid its baleful light. While never as hale or as hearty as his herdmates, Eclipse nevertheless grew into the lanky promise of his youth. At age four he was started under saddle, and soon proved himself a worthy inheritor of his parents' illustrious legacy. Half-halts, lengthenings, extensions, and all the other minutiae of dressage came to Eclipse as naturally as breathing. Paired with his sweet temperament and Range Trotter-standard eagerness to please, he seemed everything his breeders had hoped he would be.
Bad luck struck on the eve of Eclipse's first ranked competition. Some time during the night an electrical short sparked a fire in the facility's feed room. Quick action (and a healthy dose of luck) saved the horses, but there was no salvaging the stable itself. Faced with massive debt and trauma of their own, Eclipse's breeders made the heartbreaking decision to sell off their youngstock, Eclipse among them. Better, they said, to focus on the horses they already had in competition than try to bring up a new competitor from scratch.
His next owners- family friends of his breeders, and noted dressage competitors in their own right- shrugged off such misfortune as just that. Barn fires were tragic, but they were hardly unheard-of, and one farm's misfortune was their lucky break. Eclipse went back into active training with a new rider and trainer.
They reconsidered their stance somewhat when said rider wound up hospitalized following a bad fall off a different horse. Eclipse hadn't been involved, but with the barn fire so fresh in everyone's mind, no one wanted to risk another disaster. Off he went again to a third owner, who successfully competed with him up to the mid-levels of their discipline.
Strike three was more insidious: digital flexor tendon issues reared their ugly head, forcing Eclipse out of the ring for long periods at a stretch. For an equine athlete trying to rise through the ranks, such a diagnosis verged on career-ending. His owners grit their teeth and carried on, not yet willing to give up on their rising star. Put back into work, Eclipse tried again- and found shows cancelled over and over again. Everything from bad footing to washed-out roads and, in one memorable occasion, a landslide hours before a competition kept him out of the dressage ring.
Once is bad luck, twice is happenstance, anything more is a pattern. Eclipse's third set of owners bowed to the inevitable and 'made him someone else's problem'.
And so it went, on and on for years. Some brave soul would buy the jaguar-spotted stallion and try their luck. Sooner or later some catastrophic misfortune would befall them. Primed as they were with tales of Eclipse's status as a 'bad luck horse', they inevitably found a way to blame him. Then he was sent off to the sale barn all over again to begin the cycle anew.
The final blow came at the height of Eclipse's competitive career. Bad reputation and intermittent health issues aside, he'd managed to scrabble up the rankings enough to attract the attention of an Olympic medalist rider. Hopes were high that this time, just this once, he'd finally escape the black cloud that followed him.
Three days before he was set to jet off across the world a scandal erupted in his stable. Eclipse's rider had been caught laying the groundwork for future bribes. His reputation in tatters, the disgraced ex-Olympian withdrew his entry. No other rider on the American team would touch Eclipse with a ten-foot pole. His trip overseas was cancelled just before it began.
Eclipse's latest set of owners chose a different path than their predecessors. Rather than trying to recoup their losses, they contacted friends. Raven Ridge had proven themselves remarkably resilient in the past. Perhaps they could handle a hurricane of bad luck in horse form? The stable's owners talked it over and, perhaps pitying a horse who'd turned into a reluctant nomad, decided to take him in.
Eclipse arrived at Raven Ridge with no expectations of competitive excellence and no money changing hands. His job, as the stable owners termed it, was simply to be a horse.
That small change has apparently made all the difference.
In the years since Eclipse's 'promotion to hay burner', not one misfortune has befallen him or Raven Ridge. His few excursions to local shows have all ended unremarkably. For once in his life, absolutely nothing has shaken up his routine. He's free to simply be, and he's enjoying every second of it.
And if his owner still braids white hydrangeas into his tail, well, they are considered symbols of good fortune and innocence. What better lucky charm for a horse with a good heart and the world's worst luck?
