332 Comments

Well Dr Malone, I’ve often wondered how you’ve been able to maintain your sanity...your equilibrium throughout these past couple of years, and I think the answer is evident in today’s column. Clearly your life is grounded in the things that truly matter...your home, your family, your friends...your animals, and much, much more. I’m happy for you!

Expand full comment

Indeed.

We all need to stay grounded in these trying times. I was very moved by this post.

Expand full comment

I like the name Topaz for him since you seem to favor gems. It would work well w his coloring. If not not masculine enough, then perhaps Turquoise, Turq for short. Or Tristan.

Expand full comment

I like it too!

Expand full comment

Topaz is a really really beautiful stone, just like Turquoise. I made paint today from Turquoise pigment. So I join in with your suggestions.

Expand full comment

Topaz!

Expand full comment

I KNEW someone would beat me to it!!

Expand full comment

Those are brilliant

Expand full comment

Tanzanite would be a nice name. It can be shortened into cool nickname. Also Tanzanite is very rare; 1000x more rare than diamonds. It is said to contain properties associated with calmness and compassion. Finally, Tanzanite is a fertility gemstone, so a great name for a stallion.

Expand full comment

Oooooohhhhh. I like this one the best. Rare, calm, compassionate. My suggestion was Tuff.

Expand full comment

Nothing wrong with being Tuff :)

Expand full comment

Thats the first name I came up with.

Expand full comment

Topázio is the Portuguese for Topaz. (Since mom is Brazilian).

Expand full comment

That may be the winner!

Expand full comment

love this.

Expand full comment

Your resort to a farm after traveling the globe, fighting the good fight, reminds me of Whittaker Chambers' weekend retreat to his working farm in Maryland after a week doing what he could, as an editor and feature writer at Time magazine in NYC between 1939 and 1948, to blunt the US' leftward drift toward socialism and even Communism. He wrote:

"Our farm is our home. It is our altar. To it each day we bring our faith, our love for one another as a family, our working hands, our prayers. In its soil and the care of its creatures, we bury each day a part of our lives in the form of labor. The yield of our daily dying, from which each night in part restores us, springs around us in the seasons of harvest, in the produce of animals, in incalculable content. . . . [T]he farmer . . . completes the arc between the soil and God and joins their mighty impulses. We believe that laborare est orare--to labor is to pray." ("Witness," ch 10, part XXXI)

Thanks for sharing your home with us.

Expand full comment

So beautiful, thank you for sharing this.

Expand full comment

Titanite - strong & regal and oozing tenacity...resembles all the blood, sweat & tears you and Jill have put into your horses.

Expand full comment

Topaz.

Thank you for the inspiring story of the evolution of your and Jill's dream. Blessings to all including the horses!

Expand full comment

Nice read. My grandfather in Montana raised horses and I helped him train, and take care of them. He was a horse whisperer, and his horses loved him. When we drove into the pasture they would all come up and mill around him. He trained them to be halter broke, saddle broke, ridden with saddle and bareback, and with a halter or no halter, and drive the buggy. All his horses were trained to be easy to ride even for kids or beginners, it took lots of time, and lots of gentleness. All births were in the pasture and no breech births. The horses lived outside always even in the cold middle of the winter and were quite healthy. Of course when we showed up they knew we would give oats and pellets. My sister barrel raced with our appalosa quarter horse. We even had a sleigh for winter.

Expand full comment

Good Morning Robert,

Thank you for sharing your story! Made my heart ❤️ smile!

I'm 60 and a first time horse owner of a beautiful chestnut Dutch Warm blood gelding! He's a 20 y/o jumping and dressage retiree who my husband and I adopted in Dec last yr! 🙂

The learning curve is STEEP and

you're grandfather sounds like someone I would love to have met and spend time just watching his magic and learning!!

Sincerely from Texas

Stephanie

Expand full comment

Thanks for noting that it’s “breech” and not “breach” birth. I’m an editor and wanted to point it out but would feel like a snob if I did that on someone’s Substack. And I don’t mean that you are a snob. 🙂

Expand full comment

Victim of autocorrect? We've all been there. :-)

Expand full comment

Don’t most people know it’s “breech”? Also, being a doctor and in the business of raising horses, Dr. Malone would especially be likely to know the correct way to spell “breech”.

Expand full comment

I’m sure he does know how to spell it. I think this post was a labor of love for him, and it’s not the same as a scholarly essay. I’m inclined to overlook the breach in editing etiquette. 😉

Expand full comment

I'm thinking we all have 'breach' on our minds given the daily breaching of our liberties by the gov.

Expand full comment

Actually, I kindly posit that Dr. Malone would admit to being not such a good speller.

Expand full comment

How about adding Tourmaline , Tanzanite or Tiger’s Eye into the name? Just a thought.

Expand full comment

I love the name Tourmaline! It is also one of the prettiest beaches in San Diego!

https://www.dasurfengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/da-Surf-Engine-Store-banner-1024x438.png

Expand full comment

Tiger's eye is very cool!!!

Expand full comment

All soooo beautiful! Can I come live with you?! LOL I so love that you found that pastured birthing was best (again, against the recommended norms!) and the breaching has so declined! Why do humans always think we know better than Nature’s perfect design? Congratulations on all the new births and healthy, happy mama’s!

P.S. How about TANZANITE?! Tanzi ☺️

Expand full comment

From a fellow dressage trainer here…Topaz!!

Expand full comment

That’s what I suggested. I think it would be appropriate.

Expand full comment

How about Thorsten? Meaning: Thor's stone. Thorsten as a boy's name is related to the Old English name Thurston. The meaning of Thorsten is "Thor's stone.

Expand full comment

Very Viking! I like it.

Expand full comment

We actually have a friend who is named Thorsten. He's of German descent. I like your suggestion for the foal's name.

Expand full comment

Why is Gilligan’s Island going through my head... 😏

Expand full comment

"Touchstone" comes to mind for such a gorgeous foal.

Definition per Collins English dictionary: "1. a criterion or standard by which judgment is made; 2. (Minerals) a hard dark siliceous stone, such as basalt or jasper, that is used to test the quality of gold and silver from the colour of the streak they produce on it." A tribute to your and Jill's labors for objective truth in medicine. Also noticed basalt and jaspar can be tan. Just a thought. Thank you for ALL you both do to advance truth.

Expand full comment

I LOVE this !

Expand full comment

Topaz, my favorite jewel stone and the name of my beloved childhood Shetland pony.

Your posts are my favorite read each day. Bless you and Jill and your equine family, and congratulations on the new foal. ❤️.

Expand full comment

Travertine!

Expand full comment

Though nothing nearly as wonderful as your farm, our 1st foal was fabulous. We had Mama stalled every night, per vet recommendation, with a baby monitor.

One terribly stormy night, my daughter wasn’t feeling well, so she slept right through time to tuck Mama in, AND slept through night check! She had been so conscientious (she was 24, and it was really her horse) so I wasn’t concerned in the least, and left it all

in her capable hands.

Neighbors came to congratulate us on the foal! My husband was like, “Oh, he’s not here quite yet but any day now!” The neighbors said, “Oh, yes he is and he is darling!” 😂

In the worst storm ever, Mama “Noteworthy”, went up over the ridge and birthed him under our magnolias. We learned that many horses give birth in storms, possibly because fewer prey animals are out hunting or possibly because the smells are literally dampened. God’s methods (and the immune system He created) are so cool, almost like He thought things out for us. And the FOAL SLIPPERS! (Y’all, foals are born with their hooves all nicely

rounded out, smooth as a bean so as not to tear anything on their way into the world. Almost as soon as they are on the ground, the “foal

slippers” sort of begin to morph into hooves. It’s so intricate and fascinating. Look it up!)

He was fabulous and regularly fell asleep in my lap. He’s nearly 3, but to this day, if I scratch him behind the ears and whisper how much “Gwamma-Gwam looooves that sweet boyyyy”, he just passes out. 💕

My daughter’s Farm is called Autograph Farm after a wonderful horse that was willed to her. This little (not so little anymore!) guy is named Memento, as in a souvenir or memento of a special time.

Expand full comment