Empty Corral

My friend Kelly said we have empty corral syndrome.  It’s true; we have had horses in our lives for at least a generation.  Marc and I counted the years and found we’ve had one or two horses for almost three decades, and most of that time with the horse(s) living at home.  Rose was like our last horse child to leave.

No wonder we keep looking up at the corral to see what she's doing.

I bought Megan in 1987, and have not been without horses since.  Add to that time the two years my African stallion, Haro, lived in my back yard, the years I lived at home with my sister’s horse, Goldie, and the three years I had my first horse, Whiskey, that comes to about a couple of years short of half my life that I’ve had a horse to care for.  Marc, as it turns out, has spent half his life nurturing horses as well.

No wonder we keep feeling like a part of us is missing.

A few years after I sold my first horse (or rather, regretfully, traded her for a Mexican saddle), I had recurring dreams that I was back at our first house in the San Fernando Valley, and Whiskey was there and I had forgotten to feed her all those years.  That dream repeated itself periodically until mid-adulthood, when I bought Megan.  In recent years I have have frequent dreams about Dante—riding him, trying to get him to comply, grooming him, responding to his requests that I scratch his sweet spots, watching him and his mare (Megan, Jessie, Rose, in that order) charge up and down the hills, out the gate into the street, through a neighboring ranch, while Marc and I trudge along deer trails, try to outsmart them, head them off and bring them back to the corral....

Or me catching Dante at the top, climbing up onto his back, and letting him find his way back down, helter-skelter, with me just hanging on and enjoying the ride....Or me riding Dante to a training facility and walking him around the arena, glowing with satisfaction when he moves easily into a trot, then canter, then changes leads, then stops on a dime and backs up with a light squeeze of legs and a hint of tension on the reins.   

For the most part, those events were only in my dreams.

Rose loved to roll, jump up, buck, and gallop off, especially when she was outside the confines of the corral.  But from time to time for the last year or so, she appeared to be narcoleptic, and we never knew for sure if she had just rolled or fallen down.  Sometimes she'd be standing, nodding off to sleep, and her forelegs would start to buckle, as Dante’s had done when he was younger. Usually she’d snap awake, head up and ears erect, then start nodding again.  Occasionally she ended up on her knees and lurched heavily as she righted herself.  A few times, she lay down and got herself in an awkward position with her head downhill or her legs under the fence rail, and needed some help getting turned around so she could get back up.  But otherwise she seemed healthy—a vital horse in her late 20s who loved to kick up her heels and tear up the hills when she got the chance.

A couple of days ago, seemingly out of the blue, Rose was having a problem getting up after lying down, and we kept finding her on the ground.  Earlier, Marc had seen her get up from rolling, give a little kick and run around the corral, as if excited about some unexpected sound or scent; then she was down again.  We got her up and took her for a walk; she seemed fine, and appeared to enjoy the outing.  When I went up to give her an afternoon treat of specially formulated feed for older horses, along with carrots and apples--a wedge of which contained her daily arthritis medicine--she was lying near the gate with her head pointing downhill, trembling. After we helped her up using the lead rope she continued trembling, then had a bloody stool, then began sweating as we walked her down the hill to wait for the vet.  Her ears were limp and splayed out; she heaved a sigh and let out a grunt from time to time; she walked slowly, catching herself a couple of times when she started to keel over.  Her eyes looked veiled, vacant; she was clearly in pain.  We covered her with a horse blanket and let her stand or walk, as she wished.  She finally stopped shivering but was soaking wet; she stopped wanting to walk.  By the time the vet got here, her gaze was calm and she seemed resigned.  He took her temperature, which was flaming, and measured her heart rate, which was soaring.  She was beyond help, he said, probably septic; he thought it best to euthanize her.

   

I don’t know what dreams I’ll have about Rose.  We had only had her about five years, and at first she was just a companion horse for Dante (as well as a good ride and a docile and beautiful presence).  But in the four months since we lost Dante, we’ve appreciated her even more for her steadfast reliability, her serene personality, and her stoic patience which probably gave her strength through her ordeal at the end.

Marc and I are both grieving.  It was sad losing Dante, but in some ways a relief because he had so many leg problems and was in pain most of the time. With Rose, we were finally having fun with her without the distraction of Dante’s needs, giving her more attention, taking her for walks around the property like a dog on a leash.  She was also the best horse in terms of disposition and training I’ve ever had the pleasure and honor to own. It’s also probably the end of our horse era.  

And in the Year of the Horse, no less.