A Horses Intuition

What would you do if you lost your sentimental diamond rings that belonged to your late mother, while feeding your horses one evening? Lisa Whiteman almost gave up on finding her rings, until she thought her horse, KiwiKawa, wanted a second dinner, leading her to a bigger discovery. 

Words by Lisa Whiteman: 

I had been wearing my mother’s set of wedding rings on the middle finger of my right hand for several months, since tragically losing her to Motor Neurone Disease. My mum’s death left me an orphan, a grown woman, an adult, but an orphan none the less. Her rings were the last tangible connection I had with her, and this was incredibly important to me. 

One evening, at dusk, the rings were no longer on my finger. I tried to recall when I had last noticed them there. Had they been there before I came out to the shed to mix the horses feed? Had they been there when I was at work that day? Surely, I would have noticed them missing? 

The light was fading fast, so I started searching in the feed shed while my husband scanned the paddock with a torch. I ran my hand through the bags of horse chaff, haylage and pellets, my heart sinking further by the minute as I realised how hopeless the search was. I was literally searching for a needle in a haystack.  

Despondent, I joined my husband’s search in the horse paddock, not willing to give up my last shred of hope but knowing the chance of ever seeing my mum’s rings again was wafer thin. It was hopeless. As we turned towards the gate I was gently nudged by my mare, KiwiKawa.  

She nudged me and wandered off. There was nothing unusual in that except she is not usually interested in human company after she has a full belly from her evening meal. I watched her as she walked a few steps and stopped, turned, walked back and nudged me again. Now, I was paying attention. What did she want? What was she trying to tell me? To find out, I followed at her side. 

Kiwi led me to her feed bucket, and thinking her still hungry I said, ‘No, you’ve had your dinner’. She dipped her head into her bucket, then out and looked at me. ‘What?’, I asked. She repeated the same action again. Thankfully, she is a patient horse, while I am an incredibly slow human. 

As I reached into her bucket and felt the last remnants of her meal around the edges, Kiwi waited. I ran my hand around the base of the feed bin and suddenly felt something hard. My heart started to race as I lifted the item, while at the same time brushing away damp, chopped horse feed. And, there they were, my mum’s rings, slightly worse for wear, one broken, all three squashed, but all accounted for. I threw my arms around my amazing mare’s neck and started to cry. 

So, this is the story of the rings. They were chewed and spat out by Kiwi, and she needed me to know they were there. She found my needle in a haystack! 

My new rings, so expertly designed and crafted by Ben at The Village Goldsmith are a new creation, they are the combination of my wedding rings and my mums wedding rings set into an infinity circle of life, with a nod to finding a needle in a haystack.  

With heartfelt thanks and gratitude to my mum, my mare KiwiKawa, my husband Dean, and to Ben for making it all come together so beautifully. 

The Remodelling of Lisa’s Diamond Rings: 

Ben’s first step was to remove the diamonds from their settings and separate the white gold from the yellow gold so he could melt down the yellow gold. As illustrated in the final sketch, the new settings for the diamonds would be crafted from platinum, and the yellow gold from the original rings would form the ring’s bands. 

To melt gold, a very hot flame of at least 1,064°C is fired directly at the rings as they sit in a ‘melting pot’ known as a crucible. Once the gold has been melted into a hot liquid, it is poured down a channel attached to the crucible. The gold sets almost immediately, forming an ingot.