THE THIRD AVATAR INCARNATION
GUERRO NEGRO
1981-2017
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GUERRO NEGRO at age 28 photographer Jay Fishback
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GUERRO NEGRO BEGAN RACING AS A THREE-YEAR OLD
AND WON AT HIS FIRST START AT GOLDEN GATE PARK.
WITH 79 STARTS, HE RACED THROUGH HIS EIGHT YEAR-OLD SEASON
AND RETIRED AS A PLEASURE HORSE IN 1990.
HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF AS AN AVATAR IN 2006
AND STAYED SOUND FOR RIDING UNTIL AGE 31.
BETWEEN 2014 AND 2017, HE DICTATED THE AVATAR DISCOURSES.
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Guerro Negro's long and unremarkable racing career began in California where he was born and bred. As a four-year-old, he was sold twice, the second time to Peter Doth who based his racing stables in Minnesota. Selectively started in claiming races, to insure that the horse, a Doth family pet, was not claimed, he remained with the Doth Family until his retirement from racing in 1990, at age nine. Throughout his racing years, Guerro Negro was appreciated for his manner, demeanor and beauty. A tall, elegant, and near black horse, he was strikingly similar to Ruffian in appearance but slightly taller, at 17.1 hands.
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Sold to Stephanie Johnson, a racing fan, upon is retirement, Guerro Negro was transferred eight years later to the care of A. Windsong Diamond. His second and final retirement owner became his collaborator on What if God Sent A Horse?
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The author and Guerro Negro, on a trail ride outing in Northern Virginia
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Before beginning the collaboration on his Avatar discourses, Guerro Negro waited patiently as his person resolved the residual trauma she had held arising Ruffian's final race. Diamond had witnessed the life-ending injury of the incomparable black filly from the grandstand of Belmont Park on her birthday in 1975. As a pleasure horse, Guerro Negro remained sound for riding until a paddock accident at age thirty-one, after which he revealed the purpose of his long life.
As the author fully awakened to her participation in completing his mission, dictation on the book began in December 2014. Dictation of discourses proceeded almost daily through early February of 2015, and the bulk of his discourses were completed by September 2015. At that time, Guerro Negro announced that he was free to leave at any time. He remained reasonably healthy, considering his advanced age, until the winter of 2016. He continued to dictate discourses and gave his final discourse a few days before his death on January 19, 2017.
He is buried on a farm near Abingdon, Virginia.
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