A Sudden Goodbye
Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:58 pm
He was fine at dinner time, but gone by breakfast.
That breakfast is prepped, and just sitting in my feed room. He'll never eat it. I need to put it away before the rats get to it, but haven't been able to yet.
My old gelding Henry died earlier this week. I don't know what happened, but assume it was some kind of catastrophic colic, or maybe some kind of heart attack/stroke.
The day before he died, life was normal. We saddled up and rode in the morning. Henry was teaching my boyfriend how to ride, and they had advanced a great deal, and I was sure proud of him. That old gelding was very well trained, but didn't do a lick of work unless you made him, and he was making my boyfriend a rider.
We unsaddled, gave the horses treats and pets, and turned them out on the pasture to graze. I fed them dinner in the evening, and went in to bed. When I got up in the morning, I prepped their breakfasts, and went out to dump feed, and realized the old horse wasn't standing at his feeder. It was dark, so I had to go find him -- he was lying at the end of his run, dead and gone. So the whole thing couldn't have taken more than a few hours from start to finish.
I have known this horse for 23 years, from when he was just a youngster. He taught me a whole lot -- I was a teenager, and learned John Lyons' natural horsemanship stuff, literally reading the book chapter by chapter and applying it to this horse, until I could do a halterless showmanship pattern and ride him without a bridle. We competed at local shows, and then he helped introduce me to western performance sports as we started reining -- he even won me my first reining trophy.
I sold him as a kids horse and bought a new prospect to train, and lost touch with him for 10 years. I never forgot about him though, and to make a long story short, fate brought him back to me -- I ran into the gal I'd sold him to, and the gal that SHE had sold him to needed to get rid of him ASAP. Without hesitation, I said I'd take him and after work I went to get him. He was 20, terribly skinny, and beat up. But I patched him up, and promised him I'd give him the retirement he deserved.
And I did. He got all the medical care he needed, and he and my other horse became besties. I brought them home to my back yard and they lived a happy, spoiled life.
A couple years ago, I started dating my current boyfriend, who wanted to learn to ride, so Henry got enlisted after years of retirement. He would just stop and stand unless the aids were clear, and they did a lot of standing at first
But he learned. Henry toted him on trail rides and we had some grand adventures.
I had even just gotten a little 4-H girl that wanted to be around horses, and Henry was going to start teaching her, too (and maybe helped her win at the 4-H shows next summer). It was a proud moment watching them working on showmanship, all those years after I'd taught him, and him responding perfectly to her rough beginner cues.
He was healthy, fat and going strong -- but guess it was his time.
Now this horse wasn't perfect by any means. When he was younger, he liked to act like a nut at the worst possible times, much to my teenager chagrin. And of course, his favorite hobbies was either injuring himself or damaging property, like stalls or fences. He needed the premium feed, and a lot of it, to stay fat. He was always high maintenance.
But I am sad to see him go. I have been wracking my brain, did I miss something that last night? What could I have done? But he was eating like a champ, acting normal, and even if I'd caught it, surgery wasn't an option. So at least he went fast, and not in a slow decline.
I do feel bad for my boyfriend and the kid, though, as they've lost their teacher. Guess I did, too.
I need to put his breakfast away.....
This is the last photo I ever took of him -- he got new shoes a couple days before he died.
That breakfast is prepped, and just sitting in my feed room. He'll never eat it. I need to put it away before the rats get to it, but haven't been able to yet.
My old gelding Henry died earlier this week. I don't know what happened, but assume it was some kind of catastrophic colic, or maybe some kind of heart attack/stroke.
The day before he died, life was normal. We saddled up and rode in the morning. Henry was teaching my boyfriend how to ride, and they had advanced a great deal, and I was sure proud of him. That old gelding was very well trained, but didn't do a lick of work unless you made him, and he was making my boyfriend a rider.
We unsaddled, gave the horses treats and pets, and turned them out on the pasture to graze. I fed them dinner in the evening, and went in to bed. When I got up in the morning, I prepped their breakfasts, and went out to dump feed, and realized the old horse wasn't standing at his feeder. It was dark, so I had to go find him -- he was lying at the end of his run, dead and gone. So the whole thing couldn't have taken more than a few hours from start to finish.
I have known this horse for 23 years, from when he was just a youngster. He taught me a whole lot -- I was a teenager, and learned John Lyons' natural horsemanship stuff, literally reading the book chapter by chapter and applying it to this horse, until I could do a halterless showmanship pattern and ride him without a bridle. We competed at local shows, and then he helped introduce me to western performance sports as we started reining -- he even won me my first reining trophy.
I sold him as a kids horse and bought a new prospect to train, and lost touch with him for 10 years. I never forgot about him though, and to make a long story short, fate brought him back to me -- I ran into the gal I'd sold him to, and the gal that SHE had sold him to needed to get rid of him ASAP. Without hesitation, I said I'd take him and after work I went to get him. He was 20, terribly skinny, and beat up. But I patched him up, and promised him I'd give him the retirement he deserved.
And I did. He got all the medical care he needed, and he and my other horse became besties. I brought them home to my back yard and they lived a happy, spoiled life.
A couple years ago, I started dating my current boyfriend, who wanted to learn to ride, so Henry got enlisted after years of retirement. He would just stop and stand unless the aids were clear, and they did a lot of standing at first
But he learned. Henry toted him on trail rides and we had some grand adventures. I had even just gotten a little 4-H girl that wanted to be around horses, and Henry was going to start teaching her, too (and maybe helped her win at the 4-H shows next summer). It was a proud moment watching them working on showmanship, all those years after I'd taught him, and him responding perfectly to her rough beginner cues.
He was healthy, fat and going strong -- but guess it was his time.
Now this horse wasn't perfect by any means. When he was younger, he liked to act like a nut at the worst possible times, much to my teenager chagrin. And of course, his favorite hobbies was either injuring himself or damaging property, like stalls or fences. He needed the premium feed, and a lot of it, to stay fat. He was always high maintenance.
But I am sad to see him go. I have been wracking my brain, did I miss something that last night? What could I have done? But he was eating like a champ, acting normal, and even if I'd caught it, surgery wasn't an option. So at least he went fast, and not in a slow decline.
I do feel bad for my boyfriend and the kid, though, as they've lost their teacher. Guess I did, too.
I need to put his breakfast away.....
This is the last photo I ever took of him -- he got new shoes a couple days before he died.
That would have been so sad and such a shock. Great story, and glad he came back to you for his final years.