*Comets Kurino*

I purchased Comets Kurino from Pam Burrows in March 2019. He was six years old at the time. I had competed in ride and tie for six years without a horse, relying on people with horses who needed a partner, so it was wonderful to finally have my own mount. Due to the kindness of Lea and Courtney Krueger, he has a farm to live on and their horses as buddies. His first ride and tie was at Giddyup and Run in Tennessee a couple of months later. Courtney Krueger and I partnered at that race of 25 miles, and we took Comet through slow and steady.

Since then, he has competed in many, many races, and has turned into a great ride and tie horse. He stands tied, often whinnying towards his coming runner, but waits for the runner to mount before tearing off down the trail. His short stature, at about 14 hands, makes him the perfect size for ride and tie. He has carried many ride and tiers over the past few years, and is great at his job. He loves to make his voice heard, and you can usually tell when Comet is entering camp. Though a purebred Arabian, he has quite the sassy pony personality.

In the summer of 2021, Comet started bleeding from his nose, which began a long journey of illness. Many trips to the UT vet, as well as visits and consults with our own vet, resulted in several, “we’ve never seen this before” comments. Comet had a quickly growing mass near his guttural pouches in his throat. After antibiotics did not take care of it, we were given a potential diagnosis of cancer, but once bloodwork was done, he was found to have a fungal infection from pythium. Not usually found in Tennessee, it is a mystery how Comet picked this up. But it had created the mass, which also was infected. Many rounds of medication, and a tracheostomy, later, he finally started to improve. After lots of work to bring him back to a healthy weight, we started conditioning him again, and he competed in his first ride and tie back in April of 2022 at Ride in the Pines, after nine months off from racing.

Since then, he has been a solid, and spirited, ride and tie pony. I hope we get to spend many more years competing together.