This Crazy Thing Called Life: Irish & Alten

When I was 8 years old, we moved to a new house that shared a fence line with a big pasture where girls would ride their horses every day. I would sit out there for hours every single day and watch these girls ride. Sometimes they would walk over and let me pet their horses and talk a little. We found out one of my friends from school had her pony there and sometimes she would let me ride behind her saddle and I would just hold on no matter what she did and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. My parents decided to let me start taking lessons at a local barn and my love of horses instantly began. I have met many, many lifelong friends on this journey and have owned two horses of my own. Irish was my first horse. She was an off the track Thoroughbred who was very tall (17.1 hands) and very wild. When we bought her she was several hundred pounds underweight so her true "spirit" did not quite shine yet. I look back and think this is a good thing because if it had my parents may have never bought her for me. She was a horse that taught me a whole lot and often times we were advised to sell her as she was just a handful but I loved her dearly and wouldn't have sold her for all of the money in the world. At horseshows we would clear the practice rings as she ran sideways, backwards, up and down and forward at two or three times the speed of any other horse there. People would see my mom watching and ask her if she was sure we would be okay. But one thing about Irish, it didn't matter what she was doing, when she saw that jump she charged to it without a second thought. She was born to run and jump. I don't think we ever had one stop at any stadium or cross country jump. The mare would jump a car if you put it in front of her. (We won't talk about our Dressage Tests though!) The day she died (very sudden and unexpected) I was heartbroken and I still think about her all of the time.

The second horse that I called my own is Alten. He is a big, grey, mischievous teddy bear. He couldn't be any different than Irish in most ways. Much more laid back, very steady and a personality that makes him the favorite of many barns. He is very handsome and photogenic and attracts a lot of attention at shows because of it. He is a very talented jumper and also does well in Dressage. He had a reputation as a Houdini because he could usually get himself out of any stall and he was a bit intimidating to some people because he is a horse who will test you and if you don't quickly let him know you are in charge he takes total advantage of it. He has mellowed out in his older age (he just turned 16) but for a long time he was quite the trouble maker. He is a grey horse (his coat is actually white but white horses are called grey) and grey horses have a tough time living in Florida and often develop cancerous tumors. Alten has had a few for a couple of years but they did not seem to really give him problems until the last year or so. Since the triplets were born I obviously have not had the time to devote to my horses so Alten has been living with my former trainer/current friend Cat for many years. She knows him very well and loves him like her own and takes the very best care of him. She started noticing he was getting more tumors and some of them seemed to start bothering him. He started having episodes where he felt really bad and he needed medicine to help him, but it was always a quick bout and then he got better for several months. It wasn't anything major and he was still being ridden and even going to shows with Cat and her students. Two weeks ago Cat called me and said Alten was feeling really bad. She gave him medicine and it was not helping him so she called the vet out. The vet felt inside of him and felt a tumor about the size of a grapefruit at the end of his intestines pressing against his hip. He had been having some recent issues going in that direction while being ridden, so this explained it. The vet told her if he felt that one immediately, he was certain there were more further in. He gave her some strong medicine and said if that didn't help there was not much more that could be done. She stayed with him for several hours and watched him to see if he seemed to be in worse pain as we had decided if she gave him the medicine and it did not help and he was truly suffering, we would not let him continue that way. It was so hard not being able to drive down there (he is about two hours away) but I knew taking the kids would not be the best decision and if Alten needed to be put down it was not something I wanted any of them, especially Marley, to see. After she gave him the final dose of medicine that would basically be our deciding factor, he seemed to slowly improve. Within a few hours he was up walking around grazing and continued that way thru the night and into the next day. Since then he has been acting fine and feeling good, but it's something I know could happen again at any time. His cancer is too far progressed to try to treat it.

I knew I wanted to go down and see him as soon as I could. Yesterday Marley and I drove down to see him and spend the day with him and we had so much fun. She even got to ride him! It was so fun seeing Cat and her family as well and the day flew by way too quickly. Alten looks good though he has a lot more tumors than he did the last time I saw him. We watched Cat teach some lessons in the morning, grabbed some lunch and then came back and let Marley ride Alten and give him a bath. She had been so excited that she would get to ride my horse and she loved it. She hurt her knee playing with Cat's son a few hours before she got to ride, but once she was on him she did fine. Cat led her around at a walk for about 15 minutes but it was so hot out there we took him in and let Marley cool him off with the water hose. Cat has a brand new beautiful facility down in Ft. Myers and I wish we could have stayed longer! I am hoping to move Alten closer in the next few weeks to another friend's barn. This way we will be able to see him a lot more and when the cancer does get to the end and a decision needs to be made, I can say my final good-bye to him and bury him next to Irish.

The love of a horse is not something that can be explained. It is a much deeper and stronger bond than with any other pet. Unless you have experienced it, it can't be understood. But I know that my love of horses runs deep in my soul and I hope they are always a part of my life.