It’s been a sad month around the barn. We lost Eddie, my good ranch horse, my best teaching horse, and one of the most honest horses I’ve ever known. I wrote about him recently in my Equine Good Citizen blog. It happened fast—literally within minutes, he was dead in his tracks. Although I’ve seen many horses euthanized over the decades, I’ve never seen a horse go from seemingly “healthy-as-a-horse” to no signs of life in under three minutes. All my life, I’ve heard of horses dying suddenly—with no signs or symptoms, but this is the first time I’ve actually witnessed it. It’s not common, but it happens.
Sudden death in horses is sometimes caused by a rupture to the aorta. In the case of Eddie, my best guess is that he sustained a sudden disruption of oxygen to the brain, which may well have been caused by an aneurism, although we saw no outward signs. Why he died, we’ll never know. There are few answers because necropsy is not often performed on horses. Even when it is, we don’t always find the reason why a healthy horse would drop dead. The sad fact is that Eddie is gone, but at least he did not suffer much.
To say we are feeling the loss around the barn is a HUGE understatement. Since Eddie was the de-facto herd leader, the other horses are a little bit lost. Since Eddie was one of our best trained horses—a true Western bridle horse—we’ve also lost one of our most reliable team members for the media production that we do around here.
We felt the loss just two days later at a scheduled video shoot for Showsheen, but our second-string stepped up. Annie carried the big load as the only “broke” horse (photo and video shoots can be scary for a green horse), Pepper was there to fill the role of the horse that needs Miracle Stain Remover, and Mel’s 2-year-old, Gus, (with his Fabio looks) was our supermodel. Even Dually came out of retirement for a cameo role.
I’ll miss Eddie a lot. So will Rich, who’s been riding him for the last couple years. Even my friend and colleague, Barbra Schulte, who’s been teaching clinics off Eddie when we work together, feels the loss. He was the kind of horse you could put anyone on and he would try his best for them. Consequently, many of my family and friends have ridden Eddie when they visit us. I know they will miss him too. RIP Eddie’s Pick.