‘It’s Friday! Here is your Friday Flashback – a 1996 tribute piece by Julie Heise about her beloved mare, Mystic Royal Charm: “Mystic Royal Charm” (Dyberry Royalton x High Pastures Vanessa) 5/02/81 – 5/10/96 She wasn’t a stunning show mare, or a fancy one. She was plain, well bodied, and had the most quiet, loving eye I ever saw. June of 1992, that’s when we first met. I walked out to the field and Mystic Royal Charm came over and put her head on my shoulder and said, “I thinks I love you.” It was mutual, I said I love you too. From Betsy Curler’s farm in Vermont where Charm was on lease, I went straight to my motel room and called the owner and made an offer. When it was accepted I giggled with joy, what a horse I said. What a personality. She was 14.2, a chestnut chocolate brown and I don’t know what it was about her, I adored this horse from our first meeting. It was magic, sparks! I had to wait two months to get her home along with her colt Ashmoro Canajoharie, a striking little fellow with the same personality. They just both won me over in an instant. When I picked her up in August, I was told she was hard to catch and broke halters. It was a long haul, 26 hours trailering with stops, but she unloaded, was very glad to see ground, and on that day, I kissed her and told her, “Here’s your new home Charm you will always mine, I will never part with you.” A once in a lifetime bonding. She was my first broodmare. Charm would be nervous going out the barn back and forth to the field, but she never lifted a foot, or broke away. She would pant like a steam engine with fear, but she trusted me from the start, never doubting our relationship. If she got nervous, I would pet and reassure her, Charm would calm down and go on with whatever I was asking her to do. Charm never broke, kicked, bit, or ran from me. She was the only horse I ever saw that actually walked away from her food to come over to me and stand there forever to get a scratch, hug, kisses, or just listen when I was having a bad day. If I stayed in the field for an hour, she never went back to her hay until I left. I haven’t seen an animal do that before, and probably never will again. She always wanted to be with me, she was my pet. As Betsy Curler said on more than one occasion, “You didn’t buy Charm, she bought you, Julie.” True, very true. There were three breedings she absorbed over the first three years. As her colt, Joey, grew into a beautiful breeding stallion with a personality that was as kind as his dam’s, I wanted even more so to have a filly out of her. But Charm absorbed easily. Probably nature’s way now that I think about it, how sorry I am today that I pushed my luck. I remember saying to her one day, ‘well if nothing else you will be a lawn ornament, since I could never part with you anyway.” And she stood there saying, “yes mom I know.” Charm was no longer the broodmare image I first thought, she was a pal, like a giant dog following me around. I brought her in and out of the field with a line around her neck. When my second younger stallion, Wood Run Alexanders Major was finally old enough to breed, I turned them together. Waiting for 11 months was agony, also this is filly year, I was hopeful. On May 9, Charm delivered an absolutely stunning colt. She nursed and stood over him, watching and was as quiet as a mouse in her stall. She left my friend, Kristine Gunter, a total stranger in and was ever so sweet. Kristine was so impressed with her wonderful personality and said, “this is the most beautiful mare, what a personality, she is priceless.” All the other horses were outside, Charm never fussed a bit. We took pictures but thought in a couple days, we will get some good shots of both of them outside. On May 10, at 6:45AM, my other mare Wachuset Leah Ash was about to foal, and we went down to the barn after watching her for hours on the video monitor. I went over to Charm’s stall to check on her and the baby. She was drenched in sweat and panting. I turned off the heat lamp thinking I had overheated her. But there was something sadly wrong. I opened the stall door, she was trembling. I told my daughter Kelly to quickly get her halter on and start walking her while I called for my vet. We thought she was colicing. The barn turned into an uproar. All nine other horses started going crazy all at once. My two stallions were standing on their hind legs in their stalls. I thought Joe was going to come through the door, he was acting desperate. I never saw him so upset. I never had this happen before. I took Charm from Kelly while she threw out hay for the two stallions and we turned them into corrals to quiet everyone down. The mares and yearlings suddenly got very quiet. Charm called to her foal, who answered her. The rest of them also answered. Finally after 15 minutes the vet came and examined her. She was to getting worse, going into shock. He asked me to get my trailer and we would take her into the clinic immediately. I ran for my rig thinking she isn’t going to make it, I’m going to lose her. When I came back to the barn, Kelly came outside crying. “She’s dying Mom,” she said. I ran to my mare who was on the barn isle barely breathing. My vet said to say good-bye. He came back with a needle and as I stroked her gently, she went to sleep. Kelly said while I was gone, she gave a final cry to her foal, the entire barn answered her, she collapsed on the floor. The major artery in the uterus had ruptured and she was hemorrhaging to death. I realize now the other horses knew she was dying, Joe was losing one of his herd. The relationship I had with Charm can never be repeated, I ultimately lost my best friend that day. As we laid her to rest in the pasture next to the barn, the pain was almost unbearable. I would give anything to have her back. I will never find another Lippitt Morgan like Mystic Royal Charm, my Charm, my beautiful Charm. She was the kindest mare I ever saw. (From LCN Volume XXIII, Vol. 2 Versatility, July/August 1996. Photo by Julie Heise.) (Note from page administrator: Mystic Royal Charm had four total Lippitt progeny (Mystic Caramel Delight, Mystic Delight, Ashmoro Canajoharie, and Rosewater Charms Red Moro. Ashmoro Canajoharie has several progeny, several of which have bred on.)’
