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On busy road, memorial sprouts for friendly horse

Checkers’ admirers — and her owner — mourn her passing

Leila Navidi

Memorial items for Checkers, the brown-dapple appaloosa owned by Stacy McNamara, still grace the fence of her pasture on Pecos Road more than a month after the beloved equine’s death in late September.

By Abigail Goldman (contact)

Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The Stop N Go sold Icees — slushed cherry, frosted cola. After school, when the urge came, Stacy McNamara rode Checkers, her brown-dapple appaloosa, two miles from her house to the minimart at Eastern and Russell.

McNamara always bought two. Checkers didn’t share.

The route that girl and horse once cut through the desert doesn’t exist any more. It has been paved for warehouses and blank industrial buildings. The pasture where Checkers grazed for the past 30 years runs along Pecos Road, just before Sunset, where cars claim five lanes and roadside litter — paper, fast-food cups, plastic scraps — bleaches white.

When Checkers was born, McNamara says, this was all very different. All the neighborhood kids had horses. Now you have to look hard.

McNamara inhales, holds it, looks up, waits. Who wants to stand in the doorway of her childhood home and cry?

The first bouquet popped up two days after Checkers died, wedged into the pasture’s wire fence on Oct. 2. Then the memorial multiplied: wreaths, drawings, cards and small cherub statues woven into the fence.

When McNamara thought the last message had been left, she took it all down. More popped up. Apples dangled from strings. Children left wobbly drawings (“We love you Cekrs”). Letters caught drafts from passing cars, rippled and resettled.

Checkers our loving girl, we miss you greatly. We came by with an apple and you weren’t there. You will always be in our minds.

I told you I would be back with a carrot ... I miss you, buddy. Love, your bud.

Dear Checkers, I never stopped to pet you in all the 20 years I lived here. I hope your owners get another horse so that this won’t be so final.

This is going to be final. McNamara’s parents once cared for five horses at their ranch home on Five Pennies Lane. Now McNamara cares for her parents. Checkers was the family’s last horse.

The neighborhood is now a mix of new and old and halted; empty modern mansions built too late to sell, at least for now. Wayne Newton lives across the street, behind a brick wall. Next door, an unfinished house has sat for months like an experiment in oxidation — the museum of rusted construction equipment and roof tile rot.

Every morning a family member, or friend, walked Checkers from the barn in back to the pasture out front. She didn’t need a lead rope. Checkers just followed.

She had a white strip from nose to forehead that broke up brown and mottled around the eyes. When people came by with apples and carrots, McNamara says, the horse trotted right up. At least until the last few days, when Checkers stayed fixed by a far fence, still as a statue.

Discussion: 4 comments so far…

By Judy

11/16/09 at 7:40 a.m.

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Thank you for a beautiful story Abigail. Checkers will be missed.
By dodgerchuck

11/16/09 at 8:48 a.m.

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i didnt even know checkers was sick
By rasabaka

11/19/09 at 1:46 p.m.

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This story is just too sweet for words. I have horses and have loved them as long as I can remember so this story really touches a special place in my heart. I can only hope that one of horses brings a fraction of this much joy to others.
By kcrowe

11/19/09 at 11:59 p.m.

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What a sad but great story, for you to have such a great equine friend that you were able to share with so many people that shared that same love. If every horse could be be loved half that much we would all be better people for having that experience. My oldest horse will soon be 28 and my wish for her is to know how much she is loved. I too have shared her and my for her and for horses in general with as many people as I possibly can. May the memories stay with you always and may Checkers be as loved in horse heaven as here on earth. Prophetstown, Illinois