I met Tony in the spring of 1987, when he was purchased by the New Riders of the Golden Age, a performing troupe which re-creates Renaissance jousting tournaments. The troupe is owned by friends of mine, and I worked for them at the local Renaissance faire for several years.

Tony was a green and strong-minded four-year-old when the troupe bought him. He went through the usual training routine as a jousting horse, and performed in tournaments at faires in various parts of the country for the next couple of years. However, he was always a bit difficult, having a fondness for speed and a certain lack of respect for human authority.

By 1989, I had decided I was ready to adopt a horse of my own. I had taken a liking to Tony while working with him at the faire, and I knew that the jousters had a considerable part of the year when they weren't using every horse in the troupe. So, I suggested that I might take care of Tony when he wasn't needed for the jousting, thus giving me a horse and relieving them of one of their many mouths to feed. They agreed, and he moved into a boarding barn under my care in autumn of 1989.

I arranged to take riding lessons with an experienced dressage teacher, since I knew I would need help learning to deal with Tony's strength and his rather opinionated nature. We had a few wild rides, but I gradually learned how his mind works and was able to anticipate and--usually--forestall his tricks. In the spring of 1990 I jousted on Tony at the local Renaissance faire; he was a holy terror during rehearsals, but behaved perfectly in the performances. I also rode him in gaming shows at the faire.

Since then, Tony has been my horse for most of each year. The jousters have a very busy period in late summer and early autumn, when they need every horse working, so for many years he usually went to a Renaissance faire (often the one in Kansas City) for a couple of months at that time. Other than that, he stayed with me and lived the comfortable life of a pet horse. He currently boards at a place with plenty of open fields for him to spend his days in, and a stall at night or during bad weather.

Now in his mid-twenties, Tony is slowing down and has mellowed from the speeding dervish he was in his younger days. Our riding for his last few years under was mostly of a recreational nature, trail riding and a bit of dressage practice. Tony is an excellent trail horse, steady, level-headed, and fond of exploring. He has good barn manners and is generally popular with the barn owners and other boarders; his chief fault there used to be that he tended to be aggressive when turned out with other horses, but he's settled down now that he's older and behaves himself.

Age finally started to catch up with Tony during the summer of 2006, when he developed ringbone in his front legs. (This is osteoarthritis in the pastern joints.) It's a fairly common condition in older draft horses, since their weight puts a lot of load on those joints, and given Tony's penchant for galloping in his younger days, he's probably lucky it didn't set in earlier. He's often stiff and halting in his gait when he first comes out of the stall, but limbers up when he's been out moving around for a while, and usually looks fairly sound in the pasture. Because of this condition, though, I decided to retire him from saddle work and let him just be a pet horse for the rest of his days. Tony is in good health apart from the arthritis, so I hope he'll be going strong for quite a while to come.