The phone call came from Karen's husband.

They'd made the decision about Buddy. He was in his twenties, and his quality of life was decreasing. The kindest thing left to do was also the hardest and they'd made it, together, with the love and courage it takes to put your animal's comfort before your own need to hold on.

I already knew Buddy. I'd met him before through Karen, a friend. I knew him in the ordinary way you know a friend's horse, the particular presence of him, the way he was in his space. At the time, I was concentrating entirely on dog photography. But this was different. This was a friend.

I didn't hesitate.

What I found at the paddock.

Buddy wasn't groomed. He was a grey. That deep, settled silver-white with flexs that only comes with years, with a life fully lived. Standing in his paddock with the unhurried ease of a horse who has long since stopped needing to prove anything to anyone.

I photographed quietly. I didn't direct. There was nothing to direct. What was already happening between them was more honest and more beautiful than anything I could have staged. The small touches. Her hand on his neck. The way he turned his head toward her, slow and certain, knowing exactly who was beside him.

Words weren't needed. They'd been having this conversation for years without them.

The ungroomed horse in the paddock, just being himself and that's where the real photographs live.

The technically perfect shot is not always the true one.

The photographs I made of Buddy that day are not technically my finest work. The light was whatever the paddock offered. I wasn't thinking about any of that. I was watching the way you watch when something important is happening and your job is simply to bear witness to it.

That's what I do. I'm a photojournalist at heart. The camera is the medium. The story is the point.

Karen's coffee.

She told me afterwards. Every morning she sits in the kitchen and has her coffee with Buddy. Not a memory exactly in his portrait on the wall. He's still at the table. He's still part of the morning.

"Every morning I sit in the kitchen looking at his portrait and have my coffee." — Karen

Why the Senior Horse Book exists.

The Senior Horse Book is dedicated to Buddy. And to Karen, who loved him well.

Because Buddy is the reason it exists and the reason horse photography is part of what I do at all. That day in the paddock showed me what this project is actually about. Not the elite horses. The ones who were there, quietly, through everything.

Don't wait for the phone call to wish you'd done this sooner.

With muddy boots and a full heart,

Jules x