Some readers may remember the lyrics to Oh What a Beautiful Morning from the musical, Oklahoma.

Elsudoku put through his paces. Photo Wayne Martin.

It begins with, “a bright golden haze in the meadow…” talks about “cattle standing like statues” and the chorus goes like this:

Oh what a beautiful morning,

Oh what a beautiful day,

I’ve got a wonderful feeling

Everything’s going my way…

In a strange way that’s how this year started – on a golden note with life looking good. But, sadly, the past month has bought varied fortunes, the hardest to bear, the death of my dog, Zinny.

Many of you have followed the saga of Zinny’s illness and before that, the occasional story of his escapades. As for me, I enjoyed his company for nine years.

He was a companion who knew my daily routine backwards and was perfectly in step with it. The moment I put down my paper in the morning he was at the door waiting for us both to head out around the farm on our regular chores.

Whatever I was up to, he was too. But a few weeks back, Zinny lost the fight with cancer and his passing left the whole family feeling very down.

We knew how difficult it was for our vet to say the time had come but when we finally made the decision to euthanase him, the whole veterinary team was fantastic.

At the very end, I just couldn’t go into him – I just knew there would be that look of joy that I was coming to take him home and I just couldn’t face it. Zinny slipped quietly away in the best of care and we bought his ashes home.

The following days were awful but finally I decided I wanted that wonderful feeling again and, as is often the way, an opportunity unexpectedly presented itself.

As most of you are aware, I have a keen interest in harness racing but at 19 years, my brood mare had been retired from active motherhood and I’d been thinking of replacing her for time.

A couple of weeks after Zinny’s passing there came a call from my trainer Geoff Small about a horse with promise that had suffered a nose bleed during a race.

When this occurs the horse in question has to be stood down from racing for some time and the owners of this particular mare decided to sell her instead of waiting it out.

The vet and Geoff checked her thoroughly and pronounced her fit with plenty of potential to breed winners. So I’m now the happy owner of Willowbrook, sired by In the Pocket out of  Birchbrook. 

This four year old is a little beauty – I can’t wait till she’s in foal for the first time. In the meantime my pacer Elsudoku has had his first training runs of the year and by all accounts is going well. Fingers crossed he’ll make the March Auckland workouts.

So, despite the gap left in our lives by Zinny’s death, the purchase of Willowbrook and Elsudoku’s promising race prospects means life still has a golden haze and I again have that wonderful feeling everything’s going our way.

PS: Watch this space for an update on our happy hen!

• Brian Neben publishes Rural Living, and during the weekends is an avid lifestyle farmer.