Page 112 - June 2018 Speedhorse

Sandra McFarland and Mr. Duke.
“Mr. Duke meant as much to me as any family member . . . During all that time, he had never failed me.”
Introduction: 1960. A mare in East Texas foaled twins, a brother and a sister, and then died. The orphans were given to people who wanted to take care of them. The one who begged for the orphan colt foal, and got him, was Houstonian Sandra “Sandy” McFarland. She was twelve years old and already an accomplished horsewoman.
Sandy named her orphan Mr. Duke. Leo- bred, he was a bay with hind socks, a star and slender, jaunty snip on his nose.
Mr. Duke’s welfare came before anything else, as far as Sandy was concerned – school, home- work, playtime, everything.
It was literally a case of child bringing up child, and the effect on Sandy would be everlasting.
Mr. Duke meant as much to me as any family member of my family. He was all stud, I was the only one who ever rode him.
We had the most fun when we rode in parades in and around Houston. Mr. Duke was with me through school, through my first marriage and the birth of my children, Shelly and James. He was there when my first marriage ended, there when I met and married an attorney, Logan Dietz. Until February of 1977, Mr. Duke was Number One at our place (Sugar Creek Farm, Sugarland, Texas). Then we lost him. My grief over his death was monumen- tal. We had been together for seventeen years. During all that time, he had never failed me. Others had. I was twenty-nine when Mr. Duke decided to move on.
110 SPEEDHORSE, June 2018
Speedhorse Women
by Sandra McFarland • Introduction by Lyn Jank
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JULY 1981 ISSUE