Hi all, I’ve ridden and shown my entire life and am nearing my 50’s. I’ve always been the one to hold the end of the rope during euthanasia when owners just couldn’t and have seen a lot in my horse years. My young teenage daughter and I shared an absolutely lovely hunter that we recently purchased and it was fun to tune him up at home, occasionally show in the adults and watch the horse and our daughter have a lot of success together. We constantly reminded ourselves what a lovely animal we had and considered ourselves lucky to be blessed with him. We had only had him for a few months but knew we had something special in him.
Last month during a typical lesson our daughter was jumping him around when suddenly he just looked and seemed off, like dazed and wobbly. She quickly pulled up, stripped his tack, threw a cooler on him and I ran to call the emergency vet when he suddenly dropped, thrashed for just a moment (seizure in hindsight) took two big breaths and was just gone before our eyes. Luckily as soon as he dropped my daughter ran out of the indoor (along with the other kids present) and didn’t see the end. It was awful and I stood there stunned. Necropsy ruled out anything aortic or digestive, so it was ruled a brain aneurysm. I’m still in disbelief weeks later, it all just happened so quickly. Our daughter was inconsolable, naturally, and the weeks following his death have been rough. Luckily we still have a horse on lease for her that we had even before we bought this horse, so she was brave enough to get back on and ride the next day, even though being at the barn aisles and especially in the indoor took a few weeks for both of us to be able to do without tears.
Our daughter is adamant that she still wants to
ride, show, etc. whereas I feel as though I’ve seen enough and this loss kind of broke me. I’ve owned and lost other horses prior to this one, but this one was really hard. He was a very special, very sweet and very talented horse — he just had it all and was still very young when he passed. Daughter and I are both seeing a counselor to help us with the loss and she desperately wants to buy another horse. Of course, my husband and I want to support her so we are “in” if she is but honestly I’m struggling because my heart just isn’t in it anymore. I gotten back on a few prospective horses since he’s passed but we are still looking for the right one. Has this ever happened to anyone and if so, did your feelings change as time goes on? Maybe I just needed to get it off my chest with fellow horse people, so thank you for listening. Oh, horses…
