Oak Hills Gold Friday had a long and interesting history. At age two she was sent from Al Mavis' Oak Hills Farm with shipment of other Oak Hills fillies to Florida, and for all intents and purposes she disappeared off the map. No one knows what happened to Friday for the next 10 years, but she had been broken Western, and had a yearling TB cross filly still nursing on her when found by Donna Duckworth of Balmullo Farm. Friday was sold to Catherine Mack in Virginia, where she was ridden and eventually competed in a 25 mile endurance ride. Friday was then bred to Balius Branigan and foaled the filly Aluinn dé Haoine the next spring. When Dee was 2 weeks old, she and her mother made the trip north to Marilyn de Wispelaere's Snug Pines Farm, in Rochester New York.

Friday was then bred to Aladdin's Owen and had SP Mils Breaban in 1988 and SP Brian in 1989. Brian went on to sire a purebred filly, Elizabeth O'Brian (now in BC) out of Wintervale Promise, before he was gelded. He is now ridden and driven by the Winklers of Journey's End Farm.

We purchased Friday from Marilyn in the fall of 1990 and she once again made a trip north with a daughter, this time it was Millie. We rode Friday a bit that fall, even jumping her around a small course, and with a little calculation realised she hadn't been jumped in at least 5 years, if ever, but she seemed to know what to do! An old back injury which made bearing the weight of a rider very difficult for her soon reappeared, so we stopped riding her, deciding that at age 17 she could retire to being a full-time brood mare!

Friday had 5 lovely foals for us by Mick: Elphin Domnach Casja, Elphin Drumcarrick, Elphin Sweet Rosaleen, Elphin Tiernan and Elphin Camas.

The more we got to know Friday, the more we learned what a truly amazing mare she was: strong and proud, yet kind and gentle too, with a mischievous sense of humour, both with other horses and humans. She was good pals with our stallion, sharing his hay across the stall wall, and she looked after our scatterbrained TB mare.

In the fall of 1997 we decided not to present Friday for inspection, as at age 24 she was no longer foaling; and little did we know this was to be her last fall with us. Throughout the latter years of her life Friday suffered from trapped nerves in the vertebrae of her neck. This caused severe muscle spasms, but with careful management we kept it under control. The problem rapidly deteriorated and we decided to put her down to end the pain. We always thought we would be able to keep Friday to a ripe old age, but her retirement was cut short. We buried Friday behind the barn, and she is still missed by all of us.

Friday and Aluinn dé Haoine	Friday and SP Mils Breaban
Friday and SP Brian	Friday and Elphin Domnach Casja
Friday and Elphin Drumcarrick	Friday and Elphin Sweet Rosaleen
Friday and Elphin Tiernan	Friday and Elphin Camas