A Memoir of the Beautiful Life of Danilo

Danilo Savage, my eternal horse

(May 7, 1991 – July 19, 2025)

It is a time of reflection and of looking back on the year of 1998. It began with my father’s sudden death on January 7th. In my grieving, I was searching for solace and a way to keep his presence alive. The idea came. I will buy a horse in his memory.

Danilo came into my life six months after the death of my father. Amidst the great sadness and loss, the new relationship with a horse was the healing way that brought me close to my father in more than just a spiritual way. Destiny brought me a beautiful 16 1/2 -hand bay gelding high-jumper, a Selle Français, named Danilo. Riding him gave me a surge of new life – a phenomenon that I experienced like a gift. I felt my father’s presence. I rode him on the weekends and often on Wednesdays. After many years of riding him at the club in high jumping competitions and cross-country rides, he was brought home to live with us on our hillside for my 50th birthday.

What a delight to wake up in the morning to see him on the other side of the olive trees waiting for me. We went everywhere over every hill and into every valley, across every field galloping and singing. I would say, “Go Danilo, go. Go like the wind.” And he would gallop harder and faster. Sometimes I would take him off the trail and go another way and end up in a thicket of bushes with seemingly no way out. At this point I would slide off his back and hold onto his tail and he would always find a way out and get us through it.

Little by little I started leaving the gate to the paddock open after feeding him lunch so that he could roam the hillside of 500 olive trees at his leisure. He would always go across the hill to say hello to the Micheau family. At first Noelle and Alain were not used to such a large animal coming to say Bonjour, but as time passed the relationship and trust grew. His presence was welcome, especially when the grandchildren would come for a visit. Danilo was the star of all their birthday parties. I would groom him and brush his long black tail to make him beautiful before going over to the plateau to give a ride to each child at the birthday party.

Then one day Danilo came home at his usual hour at sunset, but he kept nudging me and when I gave him his hay, I noticed he had something in his tail. Upon closer inspection I saw it was a note attached to his tail with a rubber band. The note was an invitation for Serge and me to come for dinner on Saturday evening chez les Micheau.

We began sending messages to each other through the tail of my horse. We remarked that on our hillside we do not need a smart phone. In the summer Danilo would often receive a postcard from some faraway place like the one that came from the Uffizi Museum in Florence, sent to him from Jean et Marie.

On one evening when I walked out on our hill among the olive trees, looking for him, walking silently to hear nature and to hear where Danilo could be out there in the dark at midnight. It could have been darker if it had not been for the moon. The olive trees received the light of the moon, causing great dark shadows to stretch across the earth.

My heart jolted, perceiving a dark shape on the ground, large and in the shape of a horse, felled on the ground. Could it be that the hunter, shooting earlier, mistook him for a wild boar? My heart was beating louder than the universe around me. Approaching, no movement came from the dark shape. I walked through it – a shadow, not my horse. Ah, such relief!

I continued walking toward the plateau. The bright city lights below gave a sense of deep depth. I was high up, yes, on one of the high places of the earth. He heard me and came forward in the night. He was ready to come home. I climbed onto the stone wall and threw my leg over his back. The warmth of his body comforted me. He walked through the alley of olive trees by the light of the moon and what a moon!

A rush of gratitude for being alive – for life – for being there at that moment – the moon – full, radiant, a perfect geometric circle in the sky – caused such a joy that I shall never forget. Did this moment nourish my soul? Yes, it did. It was an epiphany, an intimate moment of lucidity where God, soul and nature come together. In fact, it was Epiphany, January 5th. On my horse higher up than the tops of the olive trees I was carried under the moonlight, full, across the hilltop to the place I call home. The bright stars in the sky gave me hope. It was like a painting, immortal and deep.

An UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIp

This is one of my favorite more recent stories about Danilo … I am hoping to make it into a book someday!

Danilo Savage, my Eternal Horse

I just lost my sweet Danilo (my eternal horse). On the morning of July 19th, I walked up to give him his breakfast (feed for senior horses). As he eagerly followed me to his stall, he simply slipped on a wet spot rounding the corner and into his stall, like slipping on a freshly mopped wet floor. With no muscle tissue to protect his bones, his hind hip cracked, and he could not get up. I had wondered for the past two years how the end was going to come: would he have a long painful sickness; would he die while I was in the States on a tour or when I am home teaching a workshop? Or would he fall in some hidden place on the hillside and struggle in agony for how long?

Destiny was very gentle in allowing me to see the accident and be with him for the last two hours of his life. I had nothing else to do that day except be with him. He died at 35 years old.

The unconditional love from our animals is constant. To grieve deeply means you loved deeply. I miss him, but I have no guilt or wishes that it could have been any other way. Danilo, you will always be with me.

“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” 
Wm Shakespeare in Richard III


Can’t I just have one more moondance with you, my love, 
One more moondance with you in the moonlight... 
On a magic night 


On the hillside among the olive trees
I will never forget the many moonlight rides on your warm back
High above the olive trees with the bright stars sparking my imagination
The breeze enveloping us with a vivid presence of the Holy Spirit
Saying, I am here.

he lived a good life!