Doppelganger

Needless to say, I am a horse enthusiast. I have been riding for enough years now that I have lost count and I have been watching the wonders of horse racing for almost as long. With this being said I have seen quite a few horses in my days, but never have I seen a horse and his doppelganger.

Late in the 2004 year I was given a totally amazing pre-Christmas present, a two-year old Quarter Horse gelding. After some deliberation we named the gelding Vader for a number of reasons I may share at some point. We bought him in the hopes that he would turn into a decent show horse and after years of work, he did.

After a year with Vader, and another year of watching horse racing, a new two year-old colt came onto the racing stage by the name of SweetNorthernSaint. Although I am normally interested in the new colts on the track, this one truly caught my eye, simply because he looked too much like my boy. I had found Vader's doppelganger.

This is SweetNorthernSaint....

And this is Vader...

Do you see what I see? Perhaps I am just being a tad overexcited, but I feel there is some definite resemblance there! The two are both tall, narrow chested, long necked, and thin legged, not to mention the coloring. Now, I have seen a lot of Brown/Black horses that kind of look like Vader, but rarely have I seen them also have that really light brown around their noses, in fact, I have been told that is how some of our spectators have recognized us from across the arena. Now, if you look at SweetNorthernSaint, he too fades into a lighter brown at the nose. Aside from the picky coloring, their chrome (white markings) are similar as well. They both sport a rather prominent blaze down their faces and the two also have the almost same markings on their feet which differ only by size on the front left.

Naturally I began watching SweetNorthernSaint like a hawk and I come to find that the horses have very similar personalities. Both horses are generally easy-going and both enjoy the company of their human companions. Just like Vader, SweetNorthernSaint has also been caught having an unusual fascination with his own species. During workouts both horses tend to stare after other horses as they walk by trying to figure out what that creature is. Meanwhile their handler (or me) is trying to regain the horses' focus while muttering "It's just a horse". The two also get distracted easily while on the job, whether it be in the show ring or on the racetrack. Although I can do nothing but mutter about this, the SweetNorthernSaint team decided to try blinkers, and the horse focused more and his performance greatly improved.

Again, maybe I am just taking too great of a fascination in all of this, and even so, this is quite a coincidence.