Horse Illustrated Magazine

‘Tis the
season…to decorate your animals for the holidays. In today’s
video, Molly the Mini Horse is wearing a festive set of green
reindeer antlers and some merry red bows in her mane. She’s also
sporting the ultimate accessory: a barn cat named Gumphrey.

Cats love to find
the warmest spot on a cold day, and a fuzzy horse’s back certainly
qualifies. We’ve seen this story play out before. But Gumphrey’s
penchant for sitting on horses is more than just a play for comfort.
The 13-year-old feline was practically raised in the saddle.

Gumphrey lives at
Fieldstone Farms in Holland, Michigan, where he’s lived his whole
life. “When we were kids, we would put him up on the horses with
us,” explained Fieldstone Farms’ Meagan Hengst in an article at
mlive.com. But eventually, he decided he didn’t need a human
chaperone and would curl up on the backs of blanketed horses on
winter days.

Hengst reports that
Gumphrey will hang out on the arena fence, and if a horse stops
nearby, he’ll jump aboard. The skilled feline equestrian rides at
the walk, trot, and canter “…purring and drooling the whole
time.”

Leslie Potter is a writer and photographer based in Lexington, Kentucky. www.lesliepotterphoto.com