A horse and her girl

“Hey Cat, I think we found a horse for you.”

It was fall of 2006.  My friend Jeanne has her own farm about half an hour from my house, and I would go there to ride her horses when I had some free time.  Gracie was about a year old and Rob was still around.  I had never thought about a horse of my own since I was twelve, so when Jeanne said We had found me one, my first thought was, We had actually been looking?

Apparently some friend of hers who also had a farm needed the space for paying boarders, and the personal horse of (I think) her daughter needed somewhere else to go.  It would be a lease arrangement, technically the horse wouldn’t be mine on paper, but I would be responsible for her.

I didn’t expect to want to go for it.  I was busy enough, I had Gracie, Jeanne’s horses were fine for me to ride.  Then we went out to the ring, and there was this little bay mare standing there.  Apparently when Jeanne went to get her from her friend’s house, it had been raining and the pastures were all muddy, so Jeanne’s first sight of this horse was this dainty brown Morgan perched on a rock she had climbed up on, to keep herself out of the mud.  When she saw Jeanne bring me into the ring to meet her, she came right over.  She was this nervous little thing who seemed to say with every anxious step in my direction, “are YOU going to be my new friend??”

I never knew what her show name was, but she was called Shadow.  Jeanne is the kind of person who prefers to get these older horses who often do not wind up with happy fates, and make their golden years wonderful.  Shadow was about 21 when I got her.  She had a bad back from having spent a few months ridden by some person way too large for a smallish horse.  Apparently a previous rider had also been severely retarded.  But she had done all the big Morgan horse shows back in the day, and had the smoothest and fastest gaits I or Jeanne has ever experienced, and once she knew that she had a Home and a Rider and what her new rules were, she was a champion.

I had never even cantered before Shadow.  She taught me how, and was so smooth and sensitive that it was easy.  I don’t think she had been a trail horse before coming to me, but once she got the hang of it, she would gallop up hills and through fields and no one could catch her.  I exercised and stretched her back and it got better.  She took care of me.  Depending on Rob’s schedule and when he could stay with Gracie, I would go out once or twice a week, as long as it wasn’t raining.  My riding companions were usually the same three or four girls who had favourite horses of their own, and we would often go to dinner after.

Shadow loved me.  You can just tell.  She often gave me attitude and was definitely smarter than me and she knew it, but she loved me and for that reason she mostly did what I asked of her.  When I rode her on shot day, she could somehow tell that Rider wasn’t feeling so hot and she took extra care of me.  One winter she hadn’t been drinking enough water, became constipated, and actually almost died from it.  Jeanne called me and said Shadow was lying down in her stall and wouldn’t get up, and this is always a bad sign for horses.  I rushed out, terrified.  I put down a saddle blanket on the floor of the stall by her head, prepared to just sit and soothe her until the vet got there – but she minute she saw me, she got up.  “Rider is here?  I can’t just lie around, I have WORK to do!”  She didn’t like it much when the vet did things with tubes at both ends of her to clean her out, but she was a good patient and within a few days she was fine.

I could tell Shadow stories for ages.  She was a funny horse.  She topped herself this past summer when unbeknownst to anyone, she got herself knocked up and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, who we named Beulah over another wonderful older horse who had lived at Jeanne’s for a while, whom we all loved.  Shadow was a wonderful mother, and that miracle baby brought her and everyone else ridiculous amounts of joy.

I hadn’t gotten to see her as much as I had wanted to in the past year or so.  Once it became just me and Gracie in the house, I could only go riding while Gracie was at school, and a lot of days I was too tired, the weather was uncooperative, or Jeanne wasn’t around to ride with.  I missed Shadow, but whenever I did see her, I knew she forgave me.  Once Beulah showed up and Shadow was nursing her, I didn’t ride much.  Life this fall has been hectic for both me and Jeanne, and it was hard to find time.

Yesterday I was on a plane on my way back from a weekend in Colorado.  I had been thinking I needed to call when I got back and go out to visit, even if it meant I had to bring Gracie and couldn’t really ride (Gracie loved Shadow too, and rode her with me when she was only a year and a half old).  My phone had been turned off for takeoff, but then we got an announcement saying there would be a delay and we could turn our electronics back on.  The second my phone came back on, it rang and it was Jeanne.  Shadow had had a stroke.  Her back legs, which weren’t good to begin with, had given out.  She couldn’t get up.  There was nothing anyone could do, and the vet had been called.  I begged Jeanne to have the vet wait (as long as Shadow could wait) until I got there so I could say goodbye.  Jeanne gave her a painkiller and a tranquilizer, said Shadow would be comfortable, and the would see me when I got there.

This was one of the longest days of my life.  It took forever for that plane to take off, and then I had a connection in Chicago which I almost missed.  In between all this and trying to subtly sob in my window seat, I spoke to my mom and my friend Julie, and between them they arranged for Mom to meet Gracie’s school bus and stay with her for a while, and Julie picked me up at the airport and drove me right out to the farm. 

Shadow was lying against the wall of the stall.  She had tried to get up, couldn’t, and had banged her head against the wall.  Jeanne had cleaned her up, given her another shot, and was doing her best to keep Shadow calm.  Some animals, when they are ready to go, they let you know.  Shadow didn’t want to.  She was angry and she was scared.  When she saw me, she tried harder to get up, and I talked to her and did what I could to soothe her.  She calmed down, and I stroked her head and said goodbye, and promised we would run together again one day.  Jeanne suggested I go home before the vet came so I wouldn’t be there for the actual dying part.  Julie took me home and I held Gracie a lot, which helped.  Jeanne called me this morning and told me that it was done and went fine, that they had gotten Shadow moved to the center of the stall and once she could stretch out, she seemed accepting and calm and went peacefully.  Jeanne had another horse, a blind 30-year-old who was a mess and had been needing to be put down for a while, so the vet did both of them, and they will be buried together tomorrow in Jeanne’s back field.  We cut a bunch of hair from Shadow’s tail and I will have it made into a bracelet.

Shadow was special, and I think she was lucky that she got to spend the last years of her life being cosseted and loved, and baby Beulah is glorious and healthy and Shadow loved her and was happy to have given everything she had to her baby.  It would have been awful if I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to her, but I think she was glad I came.  An old friend came up with this theory, a few years back when Beulah died, that when horses are as loved as this and they die, they become unicorns.   I hope Shadow is a unicorn.  She deserves it.