I am so sorry.
My first horse lived until 31. My best riding years with him were when he was approximately 18 through 24. He was supposedly a purebred quarter horse but was leggy like maybe an Appendix. Gorgeous dark liver chestnut, almost purple, with red mane and tail. I got him when he was 11 as my first horse – I was 28 – and as my skills grew so did his condition and willingness.
He was a ridiculously easy keeper in his teens and early 20s; in fact, he survived a bout of some virus that the vet was sure would kill him. It presented similarly to strangles but it wasn’t, and it didn’t seem to be contagious since no one else in the barn became ill. Of course he was quarantined once the symptoms presented but it still seems a bit odd. Anyway, his throat and head were so painful he stopped eating and we had to get fluids into him with a turkey baster between vet visits. The vet estimated he lost 400 pounds. The vet told me that he would have called him fat on a routine check but that surplus saved his life. He never got quite so portly again but it was only after he reached 29 or 30 that he needed supplemental food. He had started to lose teeth but was still able to eat hay and grass. If I recall correctly I wasn’t even soaking his senior feed and rice bran, just supplying it for him.
He had one small stroke from which he recovered nearly 100%, and then one large one from which he didn’t. He was put down in his pasture with his buddies. His only quirk as a retiree was that he did NOT want to be a babysitter for the youngsters I was breeding. Don’t know why that was beneath him but he became positively furious. I wanted him to teach the young ones manners; he wanted to kill them.
