Sudden death??

So, last year I had a 12 year old gelding suddenly die on me. I had my horses in a seven acre pasture a mile from the house. I had a guy call me and needed me to come rope a horse for him. I drove down to the pasture to check my horses and load one up to go catch this mans horse. I caught a big gray gelding we own and saddled him up. I had 13 head down there at the time. The 12 year old gelding we called Shadow, was being his typical self. Running around, hogging attention, and acting 100% normal. I left and it took me about 45 minutes to go rope this guys horse and make it back. When I got back, Shadow was standing in a far corner of the pasture by himself. I walked up to him and he was bleeding out of his eyes, nose, mouth and had horrible bloody diarrhea. He staggered around and couldnt move any muscles in his face. I immediately called the vet and they headed my way. But right after I got off the phone with the vet, Shadow hit the ground and died. :( The vet arrived and was baffled and no one can figure out exactly what happened. Can anyone explain this?? Thanks!!

Thats horrible I've never heard of that! Sorry for your loss! Maybe some sort of aneurism or stroke?

I thought of all that, but the bloody diarrhea kinda ruled that out. I have pictures I'll post of him right before I left. It just doesn't make any sense to me or any of the vets in my area. I took all my horses out of the pasture and brought them back to my house that day just incase it was some kind of poisoning, but I had a toxic weed specialist come out and check the pasture, they found nothing. And I had the water tested. I've been scratching my head about it since. It happened May of last year.

Either a massive aneurism or some massive internal injury or illness that had a sudden onset......that's too bad

That's terrible! I don't know what could have happened, I'm sorry for your loss.

I snapped these about 45 minutes before he died.

He was beautiful! I like his head marking too.

Thanks! One of my best bridle horses I owned too :(

It almost like he had a major artery burst because what your describe is some massive internal bleeding. Beautiful horse by the way such a shame to lose him I doubt there's anything you could of done to prevent that.

The more I mull this over, I am thinking a very significant internal hemorrhage...........like a hepatic vascular issue.....some internal cancers can grow to quite a significant size before they interfere with anything.....and by the time they get so huge they can put pressure on organs and blood supply....massive hemorrhage is quite common in people with liver cancer (my dad passed from such a cancer) the same can occur in animals......