It's been a tough day up here on the mountain
Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2020 3:21 am
It's a sad day here. We had dear old Lucky put to sleep this morning at the ripe old age of 35. He was the Best Horse Ever and had been a part of our family for 28 years.
We bought him back our New York days for my husband. He may have been a short-legged sorrel of unknown breeding (part Dachshund, I think,) but he was a Rockstar. He taught Keith to ride and jump, and (mostly--with a few notable exceptions) took care of him out on the trails. He and I had some great times hunter-pacing on the Westchester and Duchess County trails, too. That little guy loved to jump!
He came with us to Utah, and when we moved up here to the mountain 20 years ago, he came with us and has been King of the Hill ever since.
It's not all be plain sailing--his view on injuries was always "go large or go home" resulting in my learning handy skills like compression wrapping an arterial bleed in the dark and speed-dismantling a pipe corral with a horse entangled in it. And he was a Houdini who was always the ring leader in any jailbreak and the hardest to catch once he'd gained his freedom!
He developed ringbone in his late teens and been pretty much retired to companion duties for the past 15 years, but still his "large and in charge" self.
But in the past few months, he'd been finding life harder and slowing down a lot, and it became plain to me that with our impending move off the farm, moving him to a new environment would be terribly hard on him.
Every horseperson should be so fortunate as to have a Lucky in their lives.
This afternoon I took Pip, my sweet mini, to his new home. He will be happy there once he settles in, but it was very hard to leave him behind.
For the first time in 20 years, I have no horses at home. No reason to get out of bed and brave the elements at the crack of dawn to go feed, no stalls to clean, no expectant faces at the sound of the garage door opening.
I'm feeling more than a little bereft.
We bought him back our New York days for my husband. He may have been a short-legged sorrel of unknown breeding (part Dachshund, I think,) but he was a Rockstar. He taught Keith to ride and jump, and (mostly--with a few notable exceptions) took care of him out on the trails. He and I had some great times hunter-pacing on the Westchester and Duchess County trails, too. That little guy loved to jump!
He came with us to Utah, and when we moved up here to the mountain 20 years ago, he came with us and has been King of the Hill ever since.
It's not all be plain sailing--his view on injuries was always "go large or go home" resulting in my learning handy skills like compression wrapping an arterial bleed in the dark and speed-dismantling a pipe corral with a horse entangled in it. And he was a Houdini who was always the ring leader in any jailbreak and the hardest to catch once he'd gained his freedom!
He developed ringbone in his late teens and been pretty much retired to companion duties for the past 15 years, but still his "large and in charge" self.
But in the past few months, he'd been finding life harder and slowing down a lot, and it became plain to me that with our impending move off the farm, moving him to a new environment would be terribly hard on him.
Every horseperson should be so fortunate as to have a Lucky in their lives.
This afternoon I took Pip, my sweet mini, to his new home. He will be happy there once he settles in, but it was very hard to leave him behind.
For the first time in 20 years, I have no horses at home. No reason to get out of bed and brave the elements at the crack of dawn to go feed, no stalls to clean, no expectant faces at the sound of the garage door opening.
I'm feeling more than a little bereft.
