Bonnie

Dec. 22nd, 2008 10:04 am
murakozi: (Default)
[personal profile] murakozi
Sunday was relatively uneventful at the barn.  Of course, as expected, it was kind of rough seeing Bonnie's stall without Bonnie in it.

Her death wasn't as quiet or easy as it could have been.  Wednesday morning, Irina came in and found Bonnie breathing rapidly in her stall.  Her heart rate was rather high.  Sandy came in and the barn hands had moved Bonnie to the indoor ring.  She was fairly weak and wobbly, but still standing.  Her tongue was blue-ish, which can mean any number of things, none of them good.

It was a stroke of luck that the vet was already scheduled to be at the barn first thing for some normal and unrelated things.  According to Sandy, as the vet was coming up the drive, Bonnie fell down.  She didn't lie down.  Her legs gave out under her.   It was pretty obvious that it was her time.

Bonnie is the first of the really 'old school' school horses that has died since Sandy bought the business.  Sandy intends to be more open about things when the horses pass on.  When Don ran the stables and a horse died, there was no official mention of it.  Just an empty stall, often with empty buckets still in it.  It was almost a kind of denial.

Sandy feels the kids should know what happened.  Since any riders are at least 8 years old, she figures they'll know and understand that people and animals die eventually.  So in Bonnie's stall was a picture of her looking back over her shoulder.  That was pretty much what you saw when you walked down the hall to the school horse aisle.  Next to that was a note saying that she'd died and a couple other pictures of her being ridden.  I kind of like that.  I don 't like the idea of the horses just sort of 'vanishing' without acknowledgement.

What really kind got to me, though, was the other stuff in the stall.  Some of the kids had brought in flowers and and candy and such and placed them on the ledge below the stall's window.  A lot of people had written little goodbyes to Bonnie as well.  Bonnie's old bit was up there as well.  To add to that, going into the tack room and seeing her saddle there on the rack all by itself made me pause for a moment.

Bonnie wasn't a beautiful horse, nor was she anything fancy.  She was just a sturdy, hard working, easy going and tolerant mare.  You couldn't ask for much more in a school horse.  She taught a lot of people how to ride over the years and that made a lot of people really love her.  There are a number adults at the barn for whom Bonnie was the first horse they rode back when they were kids.

I'll miss the old girl.  Though she spent the past year 99% retired at the barn, I just wish we could have found a place to let her spend her last years just out in a pasture.

Behind the cut is an old picture of Bonnie as most of us remember her:  looking back at you as you came down the hall, wondering if you had some treats for her.   For some reason, the color seems off.  Her mane looks red instead of its proper blond color.

 

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