Thunder

Thunder was a dark bay Quarter Horse who spent two decades as the heart of the Dawson family ranch outside Bozeman, Montana. He arrived as a three-year-old with too much energy and not enough manners, and he left as the gentlest soul on the property — the one they trusted with the smallest riders and the longest trail days. He taught all four Dawson kids to ride. He carried them through first lessons, first competitions, and first heartbreaks (there's something about crying into a horse's mane that fixes things). In his later years, Thunder became the ranch's unofficial greeter, standing at the fence line every morning waiting for his apple. Thunder was laid to rest under the cottonwood tree where he liked to stand in summer shade. The Dawsons planted wildflowers over the spot, and every spring they bloom in the colors of a Montana sunset.