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Of girls and giant horses
Whenever I post about Byron (monster-sized equine muse of Lifeform Three), you guys send me lovely emails, so I like to tell you how he's doing. This month, I have much to tell you - about trying not to make bad decisions.
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He's done astonishingly well to reach 30 years old and, although he can no longer be ridden, he's enjoying a pampered retirement. But then last month, I noticed a deterioration. He looked sad and uncomfortable.
We'd recently developed a new favourite game - I'd groom him with a cold hose, then he'd march me to the indoor school for a good, groaning roll in the dust. Now, he didn't want to get down - a sure sign of sore joints. The vet was pessimistic. She made horrifying hints about his age and his quality of life, which of course she was right to do. Before we decided to write him off, I suggested we increase his anti-inflammatories.
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More dramas followed. At first: a miraculous recovery. He was rolling again with easy joy (and much groaning). He was curious and mischievous when we played in the school, noticing himself in the mirrors and demonstrating, to my alarm, that he was tall enough to lick the fuse box.
Here's another moment from our early years. And another fine hat.
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Then: disaster. Hopping lame on a hind leg. Calamities screamed in my mind. A snapped tendon, for instance, would finish him. Thankfully it was only a bruised foot. Bruise healed, all was well for precisely one day, then he started looking exhausted and creaky again. The heatwave didn't help.
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The vet, with her pep-talk, had made me frantic about my responsibility. Had I missed other signs of distress? I began to see them everywhere. He'd chase me round the school for mints, then rest his rump on a wall. I'd heard that arthritic horses did this if they couldn't stand up. One day, he refused to walk the long hill to his usual field, but parked himself stubbornly, looked at a nearby paddock and said, clear as day, 'put me in there'. So he now couldn't walk up a hill? What should I do about this?
For much of this month, I had no idea what kind of newsletter I'd be writing to you.
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I got the vet again. How bad is this? I said.
'He's okay for now,' she said. 'The drugs have worked.'
Much, much discussion. Those signs of discomfort are real, and for me they are drastic because I have never seen them before. But they are not as bad as I fear. He's allowed a few low days if he's generally interested in life, which he is. She thinks he'll struggle in winter, but that's not yet.
So he is glued together by a phenomenal amount of pharmaceutical, which we have to trick him into eating, but we're doing our darndest for him.
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He loves visitors, so Dave and I are rounding up all the friends who've made airy remarks about coming for picnics or general horse adoration. Here he is with Dave's cousin's daughter, Vicky. She was at school when she first met him. Now she has a family of her own. I've owned him for more than half the time she's been alive. We don't know what winter will bring, but for now we'll have a Summer of Byron.
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