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In loving memory of my beautiful and beloved Stallion...
Timotheus
Born May 13, 1999
~ Died August 09, 2010
Tylord Farm ~
Benson, Vermont
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Tribute to Tim...
“Timotheus... You were a once in a lifetime stallion that will never be
forgotten. A tremendous loss to the breed and to all
that had the pleasure of knowing and loving you... May you
rest in peaceful pastures until we meet again"...
Tim has
been gone for four weeks today. Coming to grips with
the loss of my beautiful boy has been incredibly difficult, as he was at
his prime when his life was
suddenly cut short from what we believe to be the result of an aneurism. One of
my fondest and last memories of Tim was
this past May when I watched my talented stallion be ridden by his trainer,
Katie Brown. After he was done, I took him back to his stall so I could
remove all his tack like I had done many times in his life. Tim
was always anxious to get his tack off because he couldn't wait to do the thing he loved
most - roll over and over again in his freshly bedded stall
before getting his bath. While bathing him, I remember looking into his warm, expressive
"Timotheus eyes" and thinking, "I wish there was a way I could
afford to bring you home", but unfortunately, I was no longer in a
financial position to care for him. So, with this thought in mind, I
kissed him good-bye and sadly returned to California the next day.
Once home, I thought long and hard before offering my stallion to breeder, Joe Pimentel. I
wanted to make sure that Tim’s new owner would, number one, take care of
him for the rest of his life, and two, that my well-deserving stallion would
be given every opportunity to produce more
beautiful foals. In addition, I wanted his new owner to keep him in
training and present him to other registries
for approval. So, when Joe and I finally decided this was going to be a
perfect situation and an excellent match is when the reality of
letting Tim go became more real. In fact, I recall Joe saying over and over, “I
can’t believe Tim is going to actually be mine".
July 15th is the day when
Joe could actually call Timotheus his. I remember that day well,
because I received a call from Joe telling me in his soft spoken voice how
he felt when he saw Tim in person for the first time. He
told me when he watched Tim walk down the ramp of the transporter he
couldn't believe what a "magnificent looking stallion with incredible presence
and breed type he had". He went on to say, "he walked into the stallion barn
like a champ and
settled in like a pro”. I knew all along that Joe would be extremely pleased with
my boy, but he had to see Tim with own eyes. Sadly, Joe
only owned Tim for three weeks but in those 3 short weeks, Joe told me that "Tim had one of the best characters of any stallion he
had ever
known"...
As Timotheus' breeder, my relationship with him started 12 years prior to Joe's.
It began the day I saw
a little “black dot” on his dams ultra sound. This was truly a very
exciting day for me because I had been storing his sires frozen semen
since 1996 after returning from Germany and meeting
EH Caprimond.
On May 13, 1999 at Chez Risette Farm in Sonoma, CA,
Tim decided to come into the world at the respectful hour of 9:00 pm.
He was a big, beautiful, strong Mahogany bay colt. He was born with a heart
shape star and a tiny white "teardrop" on nose.
His face was gorgeous and his eye was soft and expressive. When
he stood for the first time, he looked down at us with
tons of presence nickering "hello". This was probably the moment when I
knew Timotheus would someday be a great stallion...
But, as wonderful as his birth was, it all very quickly turned into a
horrible nightmare when I discovered Tim's motionless body in his
stall at just hours old. I had left for a short time to get something to
eat, and when I came back to check on Taffy and her colt, I found Tim
lying in a pool of his own bloody diarrhea extremely dehydrated. I tried
desperately to get him up, calling at the top of my lungs for help. His
vet Marc Horrell who was miraculously only minutes
away on another call, arrived immediately and started Tim on IV flluids.
This stabilized my colt enough to get he and his dam in the trailer for
the 90 minute trip UC Davis. Once they were in the trailer, my friend Chris (who helped foal Tim out) and
I
drove like a “bat out of hell” to try and save his life. Luckily between
the IV and a little of Taffy’s milk that we managed to get into Tim,
he stood like a champ all the way to UC Davis. When we arrived, Tim was
weak but determined to walk off the trailer by himself to be weighed in
at 155 lbs. We then walked he and his dam to the stall where he was
examined. I remember feeling so afraid that Tim would not make it after he was
diagnosed with “Clostridium Perfringens Enteritis”; a fatal bacterium
that foals can contract and die from in just a few hours after birth. However, the
vets at Davis were very optimistic. They told me my colt seemed to
have a very strong will to survive;
therefore, he had a very good chance of pulling through. When I look
back now, I believe he was truly destined to be on
this planet for me to love and take care of if only for eleven short years.
Raising Tim was a joy, as he was such an easy colt to be around. His
disposition was
extremely sweet and he was never mouthy or
difficult to handle. As his owner, I always made sure he
was treated fairly so he would not lose his trust for humans. When it came
time for Tim to be presented, he had to travel 17 hours to Spokane,
Washington which was the nearest stallion inspection that year. Tim
arrived the night before the inspection after his handler was
unexpectedly delayed, and as
tired as Tim was, he presented himself well and was approved with
a
respectable score of 61 points with an overall impression of 8. Brad Kerbs, head of the inspection committee at the time,
had wonderful
comments to say about Tim, and as his breeder, I was VERY proud of my
colt for being so well-behaved during the entire process.
After Tim’s approval, I sent him to Eric Thomas (a dressage cowboy) to
be broke. 6 months later he went to the well-known event trainer, Yves
Sauvignon. At 4 ½, Tim completed his performance test under Yves Sauvignon
placing first after dressage and x-county with a score of 30.5 points. Unfortunately,
dropping a pole in stadium, he finished third out of 25 horses (in his division) with an overall
score of 34.5 points. Tim stayed with Yves until he went to an FEI
trainer at age was 6 1/2. While Tim was in full training and competing
he produced only a couple of foals. So, in 2008 I decided to take
him out of training and ship him
to Tylord Farm in Benson, Vermont to stand for some of their mares. At the end of
the 2009 breeding season, I moved him across the road to FEI trainer, Katie
Brown. He was trained and ridden 4th level by Katie until Joe Pimentel purchased him in
2010 and moved him to Florida.
Tim's prepotency of type and
beauty is apparent in all of his Progeny. He produced high quality
offspring with presence and outstanding temperaments. At the time of his
death, he had only produced 6 purebred
mares and
3 purebred colts. Timotheus' daughter's will
carry on his legacy someday ...
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