The Scintillator

My most prized possession isn't mine anymore. He never really was in the first place though. My most prized possession is a saddle bred named The Scintillator , a retired show horse, who is more commonly known as Sparky. Spark is twenty-four years old, and the most human-like animal I've ever met.
For one he loves sugar, he'll eat up to six or seven cubes at a time, and then swing his head towards my box for more. He is very spoiled, a lot of the volunteers at El Shaddai like him, but none of them as much as I do. He likes the original Monster, I gave it to him once when he was curious about it, we never gave it to him again after that. He caused an incident while I was riding him, everyone thought it was an accident, but the truth was he got hyped up from the drink, but has a natural hype to him anyways. He got out of control and ran off into the woods with me on him, I got hurt by tree branches and got cut by barbed wire. So after that incident I never gave him any Monster, although he wanted it. As a replacement I gave him Fruit Punch flavored Gatorade, he spit it all over the place and kicked the bottle over. It was quite funny really, so I gave him an orange Gatorade, he loved it. I find the fact that he can tell the difference between the different flavors without the bottles even being open, absolutely hilarious. I'm not quite sure if horses can see in color but he always seemed to know when we had orange Gatorade. He also likes Cheez-its, actually he loves them, I have a story for this too. We were standing in the paddock and I was eating a bag of Cheez-its and set them down for a moment and ran into the barn to get my water bottle and when I came back Sparky had his nose stuck in the empty bag of Cheez-its. It was quite funny, besides the fact that they're orange too. Who knows? Maybe he can see in color.
Sparky is a very funny animal, I've figured that out over the past year. He loves other animals, like the barn cats and the ranch dogs, but he tends to stray from other horses. He is also very smart when he wants to be. He knows to step over Bo, our ranch dog who sleeps everywhere, when he's in the way. He has picked up our old barn cat by the scruff and set it on his back, if and when I am riding him, much to the cats dismay.
He is also very protective over his girls, including me and a feisty female horse Glacier of whom I greatly dislike, but it's okay because the feelings are reciprocated. He cares greatly about her, I'm not really sure why, but he cares even more so about me, I have a story for this as well. We were out in the lower pasture with Glacier and she called to him to eat hay and I called to him to see who he would come to, he stood there confused, Glacier got mad she walked over so she stood closer to him. She called him again, and so did I. He looked back and forth between us and chose to walk over to me. I won the battle, haha.
He tends to like people more than other horses as I've mentioned before. I believe it's because of his rank in the pecking order. He is the lowest of the low. There are twelve horses at the ranch and he is the twelfth. Glacier being the eleventh meaning she has rule over him, which he is completely fine with because he loves her, I still don’t understand why.
Sparky loves me dearly and I love that. He has protected me from other horses when they charged at me and protected me from falling off him while riding at times and even protected me from a falling tree branch once. He's kept me from falling in the lake when I slipped down the hill in the winter, and has protected me in the storm when it was raining. I don't know how I managed to create such a wonderful relationship with him.
Sparky has arthritis, meaning I can't continuously ride him or it'll cause him pain, and I want anything but to cause him pain. He limps even when someone isn't riding him and causes the ranch medical bills to go up every time his limp starts up again. He's old so that factor doesn’t help much, horses usually only live until thirty years of age. They cannot be ridden after that, it's not healthy for their bodies.
The ranch sold Sparky recently, to a family who live eight miles from the ranch. El Shaddai cannot afford to pay his medical bills any longer. Other horses are leaving as well, and it would be rude to say I don't really care they're leaving, but my best friend is being sold to someone I don't know. They don't know him like I do. They don’t know his favorite spot to be itched is behind his ear like a dog. They don’t know he likes to suck the salt from your sweat off your arms and makes horse sized hickeys in its wake. They don’t know that he loves to play in the snow with you in the winter and try to make snow angels with you in the pasture. They don't know that he loves to swim and jump on the fish as they swim by. They don't know any of that, and I don't want them to. Those are things I've found out on my own over the past year and a half. I don't want the family to learn as much about him as I did because then they'll replace me. I know I sound possessive but it's how I feel. I love that horse to death, I'm sure he would probably die for me, I wouldn't die for him though, I guess that's the sad part, although I love him to pieces and still get to visit him, I don't get to ride him anymore, or feed him endless amounts of Cheet-its and sugar. I'm going to miss him. My most prized possession is my best friend The Scintillator, known for his spark of energy no matter how old he is.