![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Back in 2004, for my 28th birthday, we took on a horse with the aim of him being mine or largely mine as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sleepsy_mouse had her little arab to ride. Things didn't really work out that way- said arab's injuries proved to be intractable and in the end Joe was more sleepsy_mouse's horse than mine. Still he was our horse, we both rode him and he was central to our lives for the next few years. Looking back it was not until my seventh post that he got a mention on LJ but he predates it by a considerable time. Of course, he has always been my default userpic. He was the first horse of ours I rode and I learned a whole lot from him. After a few years on loan, his owner, Karen, gave him to sleepsy_mouse in a moment of incredible generosity and intense emotion and he was actually our own horse.
By 2007, not long after we lost Othello, he seemed to be getting uncomfortable both ridden and in groundwork and after various tests and check-ups x-rays indicated arthritic changes in every joint up his forelegs we realised we would have to retire him. A few months later he colicked badly, a sand colic. When it happened again a few weeks later, both times necessitating a visit to hospital, we knew he couldn't stay with us as the soil here is sand and he moved over to live with our friend whose yard is on clay. For the last three years he has lived out with her three mares, considering himself to be stalliano, king of all the stallions. He has, all in all, been very happy over that time, if increasingly creaky and shorter of stride.
This autumn things have gone worse for him- he's found it harder to move and needed more pain medication to get by, some problem in his throat was blocking his breathing and then last week he had a problem with one of his hind feet- maybe an abscess but it didn't show itself through poulticing and with his front legs so sore he was finding it hard to stand. After visiting yesterday and today,sleepsy_mouse, along with our friend Karen who was Joe's human before we were made the hardest decision that we have to make as horse owners. They were both with him at the end.
( Joseph Pony - illustrated version )
And the thing is this, really: We only get these gifts, the brilliant, intense and joyous lives that our friends share with us, on credit. The more value they bring to us, the greater the price they extract at the end. And it is always, always worth it.
Joe's legacy for us has been enormous. He really has changed pretty much everything and a world without him is a smaller, sadder place.
So tonight the stars look down on England's gypsy fields and share cold tears for a great and gentle heart and a questioning eye that will receive their light no more, but find instead some greater glory. And somewhere past the tears that mist our sight, our friend finds strong legs to carry him over endless summer fields where no fear can fill him and no harm come to him or the herd that run with him in those bright days.
Joseph Pony, 1993-2010
sleepsy_mouse had her little arab to ride. Things didn't really work out that way- said arab's injuries proved to be intractable and in the end Joe was more sleepsy_mouse's horse than mine. Still he was our horse, we both rode him and he was central to our lives for the next few years. Looking back it was not until my seventh post that he got a mention on LJ but he predates it by a considerable time. Of course, he has always been my default userpic. He was the first horse of ours I rode and I learned a whole lot from him. After a few years on loan, his owner, Karen, gave him to sleepsy_mouse in a moment of incredible generosity and intense emotion and he was actually our own horse.By 2007, not long after we lost Othello, he seemed to be getting uncomfortable both ridden and in groundwork and after various tests and check-ups x-rays indicated arthritic changes in every joint up his forelegs we realised we would have to retire him. A few months later he colicked badly, a sand colic. When it happened again a few weeks later, both times necessitating a visit to hospital, we knew he couldn't stay with us as the soil here is sand and he moved over to live with our friend whose yard is on clay. For the last three years he has lived out with her three mares, considering himself to be stalliano, king of all the stallions. He has, all in all, been very happy over that time, if increasingly creaky and shorter of stride.
This autumn things have gone worse for him- he's found it harder to move and needed more pain medication to get by, some problem in his throat was blocking his breathing and then last week he had a problem with one of his hind feet- maybe an abscess but it didn't show itself through poulticing and with his front legs so sore he was finding it hard to stand. After visiting yesterday and today,
sleepsy_mouse, along with our friend Karen who was Joe's human before we were made the hardest decision that we have to make as horse owners. They were both with him at the end.( Joseph Pony - illustrated version )
And the thing is this, really: We only get these gifts, the brilliant, intense and joyous lives that our friends share with us, on credit. The more value they bring to us, the greater the price they extract at the end. And it is always, always worth it.
Joe's legacy for us has been enormous. He really has changed pretty much everything and a world without him is a smaller, sadder place.
So tonight the stars look down on England's gypsy fields and share cold tears for a great and gentle heart and a questioning eye that will receive their light no more, but find instead some greater glory. And somewhere past the tears that mist our sight, our friend finds strong legs to carry him over endless summer fields where no fear can fill him and no harm come to him or the herd that run with him in those bright days.
Joseph Pony, 1993-2010
