Since he was born I owned a tall, 17.2hh, black stallion I named the Admiral. He was owned by a friend of mine's friend, well his mother was anyway, and the day after he was born the Admiral was mine. You see Admiral's dam died five hours after his birth and nobody had faith that her tiny black colt would even make it to see the rising of the sun. So I took it upon myself to ask his owners if I could had rear him. They told me that if he made it to see his third day then he was mine to take. So ten years later the Admiral was a full grown Shire/Morgan cross of enormous size with the gentlest soul. Then one day he went lame and after the vet arrived he told that the Admiral had laminitis in both of his front hooves and was showing signs of having a problem with one of his rear hooves as well. That was the worst news that I wanted to hear, I would have been happy with a stone bruise. Well after many sleepless nights in the barn, yes I slept in the stall next to his, the Admiral was visibly worse in my eye. My friend, who was with me the day he was diagnosed, did not notice the change but I did. I was the one who had been with the Admiral his entire life so I could tell that there was a change. The Admiral lived to see his eleventh birthday two months later before peacefully leaving this world while I held his head in my lap. A few hours later my Morgan mare, Blue Bird, gave birth to his last foal. A perfect mirror image of his late sire, only the Admiral had three socks where the foal has four. So I named the foal, a colt, Admiral's Last Stand.
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