You’ve seen him grace the pages of ec magazine for more than a year now. He’s funny. He’s quirky. He’s very real, in his own way. He’s, well, he’s just Fergus.

To know Fergus is to love Fergus. The bay gelding, born in 1998 as the first horse recorded into the FLHWBGE Registry*, has rather large (and yet very nice) ears, a wild imagination and a tendency to be a bit on the awkward side. He sees scary monsters in mailboxes. He absolutely, completely, without a doubt does NOT want to load into the dark horse trailer. He enjoys watching butterflies and dozing in the sunshine. He is routinely bossed around by a pony.

He probably has little formal training. We hope he never does.

Fergus is a window into our horses’ worlds’, thanks to his creator, Jean Abernethy. Jean, a native of Ontario, Canada, specialized in illustration at the Ontario College of Art, and has since spent a lifetime watching horses. Her talent is art, but just as important, she knows how to study animals. She sees the world from their perspectives.

Jean’s cartoons work because she’s an accomplished artist. They also work because she tweaks reality without overstepping the bounds. Her equine characters don’t drive cars or eat with silverware. The do, however, show us what our horses might express if they ever learn to speak our language!

Surprise!
“ I’d been cartooning for horse publications for about 20 years, usually a one-line comic of sorts with goofy-looking generic horses,” says Jean, who lives in &&, Georgia. “The cartooning has always supplemented painting, portraiture, and editorial illustration in my career.”

In 1998, the world-famous “Horse Whisperer” Monty Roberts invited Jean to create illustrations for his book, From My Hands to Yours. Along the way, she met Caroline Baldock, a writer for the book.

“ We worked diligently to help Monty assemble material for the book and became fast friends,” Jean says. “I in Georgia, while she was transient between California and her home in London, England.
“One day I thought I’d surprise Caroline by having a googly-eyed little horse emerge from her fax machine in London, exclaiming how much he enjoyed traveling via satellite rather than horse trailer.”
Fergus was born. Right there. In a fax machine.

Soon, Fergus was welcomed into Monty & Pat Roberts’ quarterly publication, Join-Up Journal, in a full-page, full-color comic illustration promoting Monty’s training methods. As Jean explains, “Fergus began to take on a personality which was becoming quite fun, so I started producing T-shirts with his image on them.”

Fergus unveiled his Website in 2003, fergushorse.com, thanks to help from horsecity.com. His pedigree was created. His greeting card line was launched.

“Creating the panel comic was a refreshing change after 20 years of one-line gags,” Jean says. “And we were welcomed into the Pets Page of the Ocala Star-Banner on a weekly basis. The whole thing began to gel. The T-shirts and the comics hand-in-hand.”

Fergus T-shirts and greetings cards will soon be available in England, and Fergus comics are presently appearing in one quarterly periodical across the pond.

“I’ve been blessed to have a lot of fine people help me out, and Fergus is still growing,” Jean says. “To all the folks who read a Fegus comic and smile, we’re grateful to you.”