05/08/2026
Fancy wasn’t supposed to come home with us.
She was bred by friends of ours from the Mounted Shooting world and had been sold to Fleetwood Farms. We were there to pick up a filly we’d already bought at the Fleetwood Estate Sale, and every time we stepped outside the house, this little yearling mare would whinny at us from her pen.
Every single time.
I kept catching Dale standing with her, stroking her face and neck, talking quietly to her while the rest of us carried on with business. After a while I remember thinking, “Oh boy…”
I pretty much knew then she was coming home too.
Fancy has never been the biggest mare in the herd, but she carries herself like she owns the place. She’s our sentry. When another mare foals, Fancy stands watch. She keeps the younger horses back, moves cows out of the way, and patrols like it’s her personal responsibility to keep everyone safe.
And somehow, they all listen to her.
In 2023, during the Eagle Creek Complex Wildfire, we saw a side of her I’ll never forget.
The day evacuation orders came in, Fancy decided it was time to have her very first foal.
At two in the afternoon, while smoke and uncertainty hung over everything, she went into labor.
Dale and I had already made the difficult decision that we probably weren’t evacuating. We had too many horses, too many cows, and nowhere truly safe to go. Northern Alberta was burning everywhere you looked, or sitting under extreme risk. There simply wasn’t a good option.
Then Fancy foaled.
And suddenly the decision was final.
We now had a newborn c**t only an hour old and far too weak to travel. Whether it was wise or not, we were staying put.
Fancy sealed the deal for us.
That’s who she is. Quiet bravery. Steady nerves. The kind that doesn’t make a scene or ask for recognition.
Ironically, unless there’s a water crossing involved.
Then all that courage disappears in a hurry.
This year, by April, I was convinced she wasn’t in foal. Fancy is usually enormous by then, and she just didn’t look like herself. But recently I went back and looked at this photo from October 2025, only five months after she’d had her grulla c**t.
And honestly?
Her belly now is definitely bigger than it was in this picture.
So maybe Fancy has fooled me once again.
If she has, we may still be expecting a late spring or summer foal by Jager after all.
