“I guess you can ‘what-if’ your whole life away,” said a melancholy Tina Johnson about her family’s excruciating loss of three horses and two ponies in a furious barn fire on Sunday night, Oct. 16. What began as an idyllic afternoon of young riders roaming the sprawling Stafford County, Virginia, property doing some fishing, cooking out, and embracing the horses after evening chores, transitioned into an evening of horror. It was Stafford’s first chilly night of fall…and the first night the horses waited at the gate to be tucked into their stalls.

By the time firefighters arrived at the scene, there was little left of the Johnson’s barn. COURTESY PAUL D. LOF

Many people are feeling the loss. Johnson is district commissioner for the Commonwealth Foxhounds Pony Club, a group of about 15 children that gather at her family’s farm on Sunday afternoons for riding lessons–happy afternoons that are spent around ponies, picnic tables, a pond, and porch swings.

Three of the deceased equines were beloved childrens’ mounts. Johnson’s 11-year-old son Reese would ride Kimfa, a 14-year-old, 14.3-hand chestnut Arabian mare with a flaxen mane and tail; Reese nicknamed her Hollywood for her “diva” nature. Johnson’s daughter Paige, 9, rode a spunky 12-hand chestnut Welsh/Arabian cross named Peanut, who would reach his head around and tickle Paige as she picked out his feet. An 11-year-old girl in the Pony Club leased Tina Johnson’s veteran 21-year-old, 14.1-hand black Arabian mare Vixen. “She was a true black, she was like velvet…they were all gentle souls, but she was the barn favorite…she would let you hug her for a long time,” Johnson described. View images here