Asher

We went looking for one white horse. We came home with two.

Blue had been on the NarroWay stage for 13 years when we lost him on September 9, 2025. *Lord of Light* was coming, and the show calls for a white horse who can walk onto a dark stage through fog and moving light, with loud music, aerial work, and sword combat going on around him. Grief-stricken and not wanting to search at all, we searched anyway. Our animal care director, Lora McCoy, remembered a sponsorship for NarroWay's annual golf tournament from Lakewood Farm in Smyrna, South Carolina. She pulled up the website, saw horses, and called to ask whether they had a white horse for sale or knew of anyone who did.

Wanda Wood answered the phone. After some thought she said she had two brothers who had never been separated, and one of them was white. If NarroWay could take both, she would give them to us.

The white one is Asher.

He is a grey with a white mane, full-bred Arabian. He and his half-brother Judah share a sire, LW Bellagios Legacy, and their grandsire was QR Excel, an Italian National Champion and a US and Canadian Reserve National Champion Stallion. The brothers were born on the same day, April 28, 2011, and have never been separated. Together they are the last of Wanda Wood's breeding program.

Neither of them had been in training for several years. Out in the field, as Wanda put it, they were just eye candy: loved, fed, admired, and entirely untested. Arabians are known for their fire, and we were doubtful the white horse would work.

A trainer was already in place. Wanda had recently hired Lindsey DuChaine, who came to South Carolina from Colorado with 18 years of horse training behind her, to work with some of her other horses. After NarroWay called, Wanda had DuChaine work with the brothers at her next session. DuChaine said the white horse had potential. So we drove out to meet him.

Asher arrived at NarroWay on September 18, 2025. On October 4, 16 days later, he walked onto the stage for the opening of *Lord of Light* as the white horse of Revelation, the horse who comes with Jesus. Judah came out as the red horse, announcing destruction. Two horses in one production was something NarroWay had never done before, and both of them were ready in those same 16 days.

"These boys were meant for such a time as this," NarroWay co-founder Yvonne H. Clark said. "It's a lot for an animal to handle, but they embraced it beautifully."

Asher was not his name when he got here. In Scripture, when God changed someone's purpose, He often gave them a new name, and these horses had come to NarroWay for a new purpose. With Wanda's approval, we renamed them. Asher means happy, blessed, or fortunate. After great loss, that is what we found ourselves to be, with all the praise going to God.

In the barn lot he is the definitive second in command. Judah leads the herd and Asher backs him. He is the steadier of the two, quicker to understand something the first time and less reactive when the world gets loud, which is a useful quality in a horse who has to hold his ground while a battle happens around him. He carries himself with all the dignity his breeding commands, on stage and off.

He also works for carrots. After a training session the brothers will stand around and wait to be paid for a good day, and Asher is very good at sniffing out where the treats are. He usually finishes breakfast first and walks down to the shaded end of the barn lot, and Judah joins him when he is ready. The two are generally together, though either one will go off on his own. They let the donkeys keep company with them, and the camels on a good day.

Asher did not come from a hard past. He was bred, raised, and cared for with a great deal of love, and when NarroWay had a need, the Wood family offered him for something larger than a pasture. "I was thrilled for the boys to have a purpose," Wanda said, "especially this purpose."