A christmas ride was arranged for the whole yard..
About 10 of us went out for a ride on our horses, the younger kids went off just round the block while us others went for a long hack up heberdens hill...when we got to the hill everything went horribly wrong.. at the bottom of the hill the horses got way over excited and all of them took off, despite our efforts to try and stop them, we failed...it was still a little icey from the snow a couple of weeks ago... one of the horses (hoppet a 15.1hh thoroughbred) slipped and was extremely lame..Nickie (her owner) got off and hoppet was holding her back leg up and wouldnt put it down..it was hanging loosely...one of the girls said its probably just dislocated...wrong. Nickie called the vet out & he said he'd be there in half an hour, I went back down the hill on little old phee (25 - 30yr old tb) to the stables at the bottom to find someone & borrow a rug to keep Hoppet warm. I carried it back up over phees shoulders (phee stayed so calm the whole time bless her im so proud of her) we put the rug over hoppet and waited while the vet came, two of the other riders rode back home because they werent comfortable with seeing the state of hoppets leg..me & zoe stayed with nickie & the vet turned up...straight away he told us Hoppet and completely snapped the bone and needed to be put down there and then. I was crying the whole time, and im still shaken up now. (about 9 hours later) the vet asked me and zoe to stay there with our horses to keep Hoppet calm, so we did. He put her down and within a few seconds she was on the floor. Her eyes were still open but clouded, the worst part is it looked like she was looking straight at me... im heartbroken and I barely knew the horse, I can't imagine how nickie feels.
That was one christmas ride gone horribly wrong..we returned with one less horse & nickie carrying the tack of her dead horse that was earlier perfectly healthy.. there was supposed to be a christmas party after the ride...obviously none of us we're up to that & we all went home.
Can only imagine how awkward its going to be up the yard tomorrow..cant say im looking forward to it..
R.I.P hoppet you beautiful girl.
