Lance

We finally got our first taste of the monsoon weather to come.  It was late in the evening, and a cool breeze was coming through the door. I could smell, and feel the rain long before I heard the first crack of thunder. We had seen lightning far to the east a couple of days before, and we saw it disappear. There were cracks of thunder, then the downpour came. The clouds opened, and a deluge of rain fell, for about five minutes. That’s it, that’s all we got, just a small teaser. Still it cleaned the air. Gone was the heaviness that had permeated the air all day. Gone was the oppressive humid heat. I went to bed looking forward to a day I have gotten used to expect in our beautiful high desert in the late summer..

The morning was beautiful, crisp, and clean, a wonderful day for riding or almost anything. When I fed, Lance was in his stall as I rode up in the gator. Not unusual, he wanted to eat. I threw hay in, and as I fed the others I went back to check on his water. He looked funny so I went into his stall. He was dragging his back right leg. His stifle was swollen, and he couldn’t put any weight on his leg. I called the vet, and told Therese I need someone to come out to look at Lance right away, something was very wrong. Lots of horses went crazy with the storm the night before, and they weren’t sure they would be able to get out today. They told me to give him some Bute until then. I waited all-day, and late in the afternoon Lane came. I had just come up from the barn to make a pit stop when I heard the dogs announcing that someone was here. The vets don’t bother to stop at the house, but go right to the barn. Without the dogs I wouldn’t even know they were here.

Lane wasn’t expecting to come out, but they rearranged their schedules because I told them Lance couldn’t walk on his leg. He felt and stretched Lance’s leg, and then he pulled out the X-ray machine. He was afraid of what I wouldn’t entertain as even a thought in my brain. Lance was so good, giving me hugs knowing that somehow I could fix everything, and make his pain go away, but I couldn’t fix this. His leg was broken at the stifle. It’s one of the strongest bones in a horse, and how he broke it even Lane couldn’t figure out. The only logical explanation was that somehow he had slipped on the wet ground either bolting out of his stall or running, and bucking with the thunder. There were no marks on him, no scrapes, no fur on the panels or panels out of place. The stalls are safe, but the ground is caleche, and can be slick as glass when wet.

I called Rudy, and gave him the news. The hard part was getting someone out to bury him. He made some phone calls, and our neighbor who has a construction company was going to send someone over in the morning. As it turned out they was doing a small job next door so it wasn’t a big deal to bring the Cat over to dig a grave. I told Lane to go ahead, and put Lance down now so he wouldn’t suffer any longer. There was really no way to save him even if we had the money for specialists, and extended care. They would have to put plates, and screws in, and he would probably always have some pain, and would never be able to be ridden. He would be alive, but not able to enjoy life, and that’s no life at all. I couldn’t do that to him money or no money. The saddest part is that we didn’t do the video of him the day before. I don’t have any real pics except for when he was a baby. It had only been the last couple of months that he really started growing, and started coming into his own.  He was so beautiful, and I have no pics to show everyone how beautiful he truly was.

We have been really lucky, Lance is the only foal we have lost, and only the second horse we have had to put down. Yes Rudy has had to put horses down before, but not since we have been together. I found a little meadow to put Lance in, and it will probably take a few days of work to get it looking nice again. We are as I have said before on top of bedrock, and of course when he dug the grave all that rock came up. It took me forever to get all the rocks out of there, and now I have even more to take out. I’ll mix manure with the soil to create new topsoil, and when the monsoons really start, I’ll get some flower seeds to plant. There are two large flat rocks nearby I will use as a headstone. Lance was such a sweet boy, I want his resting place to be as beautiful as he is. Strange I want to be cremated myself, but I want a beautiful place for our horses to rest. Most likely I want it mostly for myself, a place for me to remember my dear sweet boy. I also want to breed Sadie to Jeri again, like as soon as I can. I will pray for a colt, but not to replace Lance. I just don’t want Sadie’s last foal to be the one we lost. She’s twenty-two and I don’t know how many more foals she has in her. If we do get a colt, we won’t geld him. These horses grow so slowly you don’t really know how they will turn out until they are at least two or three. Lance would have made a wonderful stallion. He had the temperament, intelligence, and the conformation to make a good stallion. We will never have another War Lancer again though. Rudy had to put down his first War Lancer, and I won’t have a third.

If you’re going to breed horses it’s inevitable that you will loose one or two. It is part of life. I’m sorry to have lost Lance, and I pray he will be the last we loose, but I know that is probably not going to happen, not if we keep on breeding. Still I don’t regret the two years we had with Lance. He graced our lives for two years, and we will never forget the joy he brought us.