sarah aldridge videos
Click this button to watch Sarah and her horse Bourbon at the Barrington, IL farm
filmed by Sarah's grandfather Malcolm Little circa 1971-72
(Watch closely for brief glimpses of Florence Mason Little, Jane Little Marshall, and Liz, Susan, and Ted Marshall)
filmed by Sarah's grandfather Malcolm Little circa 1971-72
(Watch closely for brief glimpses of Florence Mason Little, Jane Little Marshall, and Liz, Susan, and Ted Marshall)
This home movie has no audio.
Sarah's recollections about Bourbon and Billy (June, 2014):
I saved up all my earnings from baby sitting and birthdays to buy a horse when I was 14. Bourbon was a 15-hand buckskin, previously used as a schooling horse at a nearby stable. The girl I bought him from actually rode him over on bareback to deliver him.
Because I could only get out to the barn twice a week, Uncle Dave [David Mason, Sarah's great uncle] fed Bourbon and Tawny in my absence. He didn’t mind. I think it brought back memories of horses he had known in his early days.
Later we bought a second horse so friends could ride with me. Billy was a jet black quarter horse who had been a lead pony at Arlington Racetrack. He and Bourbon became instant pasture pals, plotting many an escape that sent my dad out with a can of oats trying to coax them back.
One time I drove out, only to find Billy standing stock still in a newly fenced off pasture that my dad had put up to the left of the barn. When I drove up I instantly knew something was wrong as I could see that Billy had tried to jump the barbed wire and had not made it. One strand was up against his thighs, so he knew not to move. I knocked on the door at the house and your friend Neil came out with some wire cutters and helped me free Billy. No harm done. Whew!
Another time a friend of mine from church/bell choir drove out with me on a weeknight to cut Billy's tail. Beryl Currie was a Scottish sword dancer and needed black horse hair for her sporran, that thing that hangs down from the kilt that has black and white hair. So I groomed Billy, then took some scissors to cut his tail straight across probably about 6 inches from the tip. The minute he heard that scissors cut, he kicked out with both back legs, barely missing me! I guess I could have used Great Uncle Horace's horse-taming skills. ;)
To this day I still value the opportunity Uncle Dave gave me to experience the joys of horse ownership and all the hours of fun we had brushing, tacking, riding and even mucking stalls.
In response to his question about who the other riders in the video were, Sarah told Russ Mason this: "The girl riding the dappled grey thoroughbred was a boarder that Joann (?), a coworker of your mom at Bell Telephone, invited. Joann also built more stalls. Turns out, along with her two horses, she had 2-3 boarders she was charging rent for! When your father found out, he was livid and kicked them all out! At one point, there were Bourbon, Billy, Tawny, Joann's 2, and 2 other horses -- 7 by my count, which was WAY too many for the small L-shaped pasture surrounding the barn."