|
Margaret Faris and her husband Don had been supporting SCCR financially for about year when they saw a notice about monthly sponsorship of specific horses. Don is clearly a horsewoman’s idea of romantic because he quickly suggested that this would be a nice present for Margaret’s 90th birthday, connecting Margaret again with her childhood passion. Summer 2024, a few months after her 90th, Margaret and Don went up to Cheekye to finally meet Spud, her birthday horse. Spud isn’t generally super friendly with strangers, but somehow he wanted to meet Margaret. “He was with his pals and I said ‘Hi Spud’ and he just came running over. It was like he’d known me forever.” Born in 1934, Margaret was raised on a farm about halfway between Regina and Saskatoon Sask. She was put on farm horses at 2-years-old and when Margaret was 6, she got her own horse, a young standardbred cross. Margaret describes Princess as “dark brown, white star, one white foot. She wasn’t broken when we got her but she was pretty gentle WITH CHILDREN.” The two grew up together. When Margaret was 10 or so, she’d ride the 2 ½ miles over to visit her Sunday school teacher, have lemonade and ride home. “We had such freedom then. After harvest a bunch of us kids would get together on a Sunday afternoon and play hide and seek on horseback. When someone discovered you, it was a race for the granary that was home base. Princess was pretty fast, so I usually won.” After high school, Margaret went to Saskatoon to study business administration. An adventuresome soul, she spent a few years working in the US and then exploring Europe with a pal before coming back to Saskatchewan, where she met Don. In 1960, they married and left Canada for Don to further his education. Before they left, Margaret bravely said good-bye to Princess. “Her legs were giving out and we let her go.” After Don got his doctorate in theology, the couple accepted different church postings, moving from Castlegar BC to Zambia to Regina where Don served 2 terms as Saskatchewan’s Minister of Education. In 1987, they settled permanently in North Vancouver. Even raising two kids and working to help support her family, Margaret still found time to ride until she was well into her 80s. But nobody ever replaced her heart horse. “I’d tell Princess all my problems and of course she’d listen. Horses react to you as if they can feel what you’re feeling. I just have this connection to horses that kind of steals my soul.”
|
