NO MINE!

Most people would think this is weird so I'll 'splain it for everyone who doesn't understand pets.

Let's say you took a picture of your kid and it was a good picture. Like a really really good picture of your favorite person in the world and you thought, "Wow, I don't think I could have taken a better picture of a kid anywhere!". So you show it to your friends and you go to Meijer and have them put it on a t-shirt for you so you can wear it around and when you wear it around even strangers say, "Hey! That is a great picture of a kid!"

Let's say you enjoy that for a while, until one day you notice someone wearing a shirt and it's got that picture of your kid on it! And then someone saw THAT guys shirt and made buttons! And then you notice stickers, and online avatars, and cutsie posters where people have photoshopped a clown nose onto your kid! You'd think "What the heck?" Or maybe you'd think "I really should have copyrighted that picture and then sued all these people" or maybe you'd think both.

This is basically what happened to my horse. Yeah yeah, I know, it's just a horse but it's got to be one of the weirdest things for me to do a Google image search for the word "Clydesdale" and undoubtedly more than one link will have MY picture of MY horse! Let me give you a little sample:

Here he is, and here, and yet again, here he is in a poorly done video, and here he is enjoying some heavy metal, and proudly representing his breed, and here he is in australia, and there are more. Search "clydesdale" in Facebook Flair and he's there. At one point someone had drawn little cartoon running shoes on his feet for their jogging club website.

I know it's petty, but that horse means something to me. And yet people who couldn't care less about this horse use his picture hither and yon without a care in the world. They don't care who he is or where the picture was taken or what a good horse he was. And the little kid in me wants to shout, "NO MINE!" So just to get the word out there, here's the scoop.

His name was THV Jasper. THV standing for Thurstons High Vally, his breeder. Glen Thurston sold my Grandfather Jasper when he was a 2 year old. Jasper was born April 16th, 1980. He was 19 hands tall, taller than the average clydesdale but he was so well proportioned you can't tell from the picture.
Japser served as our main breeding stallion, show horse, and favorite pet for many years. He once dragged me by his leadrope through 2 feet of snow for several yards. He noticed the gate to the pasture had been left open and I didn't. I chose to hang on as opposed to letting go and having to chase him all over the field. He finally got tired of dragging me.
We also had a local newscrew out to do a story on our farm, I was filmed in my pigtails riding on Jasper's back.
The famous picture was taken in Madison, Wisconsin around 1988. The original picture has him facing left. My father was originally in front of his head wearing a blue coat but most pictures you see have him cropped out.
Jasper died the summer of my 8th grade year. He was buried in the stud pen on the family farm. He is one of 4 who have been buried on the farm. Many of our clydesdales are his direct descendants.

That's my horse, he always will be.