Not a heartbreak which was caused by death, thankfully, I’m so sorry for your loss. But I have gone through other ways of heartbreak in the past few years. The most recent one was the loss through sale of my “heart horse” Donna.
In 2016 my father passed unexpectedly. He was our sole breadwinner and we had 9 horses at the time. I barely turned 19, was still studying and I was moving out. There was only room for one horse, so I chose to keep Donna with me. It was a heartbreaking decision altogether since that meant I had to choose between her and our other horses, which no one wants to do of course.
We moved to our new place, and she was my sole comfort (along my cats) those years. Didn’t have many friends left, lived in this area pretty much on my own and I was learning to balance studies, horse and household on my own for the first time. I had owned her for over 8 years at that time, and we went through a lot of change.
She was getting older. I was getting busier. I got into an accident and medical bills were racking up. While she was doing great the first few years and we were still very active in riding, I noticed she started to lose weight. I upped her feed, started giving her senior care, but she kept losing. I resorted to sending her off for the summer to an acquaintance where they had more grass and resources, where she did gain some but still little luck.
One day I broke down, she wasn’t gaining, I didn’t have any savings left and the financial load was becoming more. I was also getting into my second to last year in college, my workload was getting heavier. I realised, watching her eat, that I just didn’t have the resources to help her and keep her healthy on her old day. At this point we were together for 10 years and I wanted nothing more than to keep her until she passed but for her own sake I had to make the decision to sell.
She was sold to wonderful people and thankfully I still get updates from her regularly. It’s been a few years and she is doing wonderful. Nearing 30 years old and still going on hours of hacks a day.
But after that I really couldn’t bear to do anything with horses again, despite always having had horses around. (Perks of a horse family)
Family suggested to lease or take care of others’ horses, to find a job in the horse world, I know I’m welcome to visit her but I broke down just thinking about it.
A few years after I was introduced to a Friesian mare. She didn’t do much in her life besides pasture pet and occasional drives. And she was stoic. I had free reign to go and groom her, though, and slowly started to go more often to spend time with her. Just sitting with her in her pasture, spending hours on grooming. And she grew to be less stoic.
Before I realised it I was in love, lol. No longer do I cry thinking about horses, I’m getting ready to visit my heart horse again too and I started getting back into the world. Now I take care of/share three lovely Friesians, started driving Friesians elsewhere and regularly spend time around horses just grooming and doing groundwork. No riding yet, in all those years, but man I didn’t realise how much I missed just the presence of these lovely animals.
