We called him “Posuda,” because everyone around us always gives horses ridiculous home nicknames. “Posuda” means “dishes and utensils” in English.
This story started in 2006.
So almost 20 years ago now.
At that time we were living in England, renting a corner of a farm from an old respected English farmer called John Funnell.
Yes — exactly that John Funnell.
The father of the well-known showjumper William Funnell.
So this was not a random place.
Apart from trading sheep, horses and basically everything possible, this wonderful old farmer also specialized in dealing with horses that people wanted to finish.
When a horse was considered completely unsuitable, unwanted or impossible, dangerous or hopelessly ill — people brought it to him.
He would take the horse to hunting kennels where 30–40 hounds lived, shoot the horse there on the property, and the hounds would eat it afterwards.
At the time, this was still a fairly normal practice. Maybe it still exists somewhere even now despite all modern animal welfare discussions.
John Funnell was a very respected man: if he gave his word, he did what he promised.
That is why owners, riders and various respected people trusted him with these situations.
Meanwhile, we were living on his farm, and he watched our sporting experiments with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief.
Then one day Asudo arrived.
A beautiful five-year-old gelding with excellent breeding, originally bred for eventing by M*** Ph****.
The horse had been sent there because he did not want to be broken in to ride.
He threw people off.
Deliberately.
Again and again and again.
So the official plan was simple:
John Funnell was supposed to shoot him and feed him to the hounds.
But instead, he suddenly became interested in running an experiment.
Who would win?
Would this horse become rideable with us?
Or would we lose too?
Especially Kir.
In the end, John basically gave us the horse almost for free.
Probably for little more than the amount already paid for having him fed to hounds.
And eventually — Asudo became rideable.
It was not easy.
We will probably not describe all details publicly because some things are better left undescribed.
But the fact remains: the horse became completely functional. About a year later, by the beginning of the next season, he was ready to compete in eventing. First novice level. Then intermediate. Then quickly up to one-star CCI level. At six years old, that was a normal sport career start. With Kir they did it all — dressage tests, cross-country and showjumping rounds.
He stopped throwing people off completely.
Mostly he just made dramatic facial expressions with his elegant thin lips and occasionally considered removing Kir from existence — but usually decided it was easier to continue jumping instead.
Eventually Asudo moved on to other people.
He spent many years carrying different riders through different countries.
Then something interesting happened.
Years later, after passing through several different owners, the horse eventually returned back to us as part of an exchange deal for another young horse.
So Asudo ended up back where he started — with us.
He stayed with us again for some time, and later moved on once more to people who gave him a happy retirement life.
In total, he lived almost 25 years — passed away at the end of 2025.
Which is interesting, because he was supposed to be destroyed at five years old in 2006 because he was considered completely unusable.
So was it good or bad that it didn’t happen and old John once changed his trustworthy word?
We rode him through it all and he returned to the sport he had originally been bred for.
Were those extra 20 years of life — and the happiness he gave several different people besides us — meaning that maybe the original verdict was not entirely correct?