Over the weekend, we said goodbye to Fiona, a longtime Downunder Horsemanship family member. If you ever visited the Texas or Arkansas ranches, you likely had the pleasure of meeting the elderly donkey. With her long ears, she stood out among Clinton’s cow horses and never missed an opportunity to visit with guests in the hopes of getting a good scratching. Once you hit all her favorite itchy spots, she didn’t let you out of her sight!
Fiona joined the Downunder Horsemanship herd not long after Clinton moved to Texas in 2008. “We found her on Craigslist, and I think I paid $400 for her. In Texas, everyone and his brother has donkeys, so I could have gotten one at a much cheaper price, but the reason I liked Fiona was that she was handled as a foal. The woman who sold her to me had raised her and somewhat halter broke her and taught her how to pick up her feet,” Clinton remembers.
“It’s hard to find donkeys that are easy to work around. They’re a lot like rats – they’re everywhere and hard to get your hands on. With Fiona, we could go out to a 500-acre field, and she’d walk up to us and we could lead her. She’d lead slowly, mind you, but she would come along willingly.”
Fiona spent most of her days babysitting weanlings and hanging out with Phoenix. Even when Clinton stopped his breeding program and was no longer raising foals, Fiona never left the ranch. When the company moved to Arkansas in 2020, Fiona hopped on the trailer with all the horses and quickly settled into her new home.
“We considered Fiona part of the family. She was worth her weight in gold to me, and I’m glad she got to live out her last years enjoying life and hanging out with her friends,” Clinton says. “It’s never easy saying goodbye, but she was the best donkey and lived a good life.”
