Four-Legged Guardian Angel

Warning: Kleenex Alert! Do NOT read this story if you are experiencing PMS or have recently lost your bottle of Zoloft!

If you were to ask my mother, I believe she would say that my first word was “horse.” If it wasn’t my first word, it was probably no less than my third. Considering that neither my mother nor father could be considered “animal people,” I believe this word may have taken my poor mother by surprise. I’m sure at the time she believed this to be a result of a popular 60’s children’s T.V. show called Mr. Ed about a talking horse, but little did she know...

Over the years, my interest for horses did not fade, but grew stronger and stronger. Every Christmas and every birthday, my first and often only request was for a horse, or if that was simply not possible, a pony. Of course as we lived in strictly suburban surroundings, an equine in the back yard was not possible, nor was it legal.

At age 6 I was finally old enough to take riding lessons at our local stables. For one hour every week, I was in heaven! I rode fat little ponies and skinny old nags, but it did not matter to me. They all had that wonderful horse smell, and if they were willing to move, I was willing to ride them.

As the years past, I found ways to keep riding, though money was sometimes tight. I worked at local barns, cleaning horses, stalls and tack in return for a lesson or two. When I was 13 years old I finally got that first pony! I spent every extra hour of every day with him, and learned all sorts of invaluable lessons, like how not to get kicked when brushing the “tickle spot” and that clean, wet ponies like to roll in the mud at the first possible chance.

At age 20 I decided to try a young, inexperienced horse. As money was tight, a critter without a lot of training was better suited for my tight budget. It was not long before a friend told me about a 2-year-old Thoroughbred who had just recently come off the race-track. He had been won in a poker bet by a truck driver named Butch who, until then, had been no closer to a horse than the picture on his “Polo” cologne. As racing and polo were the only horse related sports Butch knew of, he had the horse taken to a local polo club where he hoped the horse would earn his keep on the polo fields.

Needless to say, a young Thoroughbred with no training is about as suitable to polo as a Cadillac is to mowing lawns. The polo club demanded remuneration for the time the horse was kept on its property, and the food he was consuming. Butch could afford no such thing, so the horse was locked up with little food until the fees could be paid. At that point Butch made a call to a local slaughter house and found that the dog-food folks paid a pretty penny for healthy horses.

I got there about an hour before the slaughter house truck did. Though skinny and unkempt, there was just something about that horse that was… special. There was a certain honesty in his expression and trust in his actions that compelled me immediately. Something about his eyes spoke to my heart. I offered Butch $700 for the horse right then and there. Butch informed me that the slaughter house would pay $800 for the horse. At that time I happened to notice that Butch’s 3-year-old daughter had marched right up to the large animal, grabbed his lead rope and was taking him for a walk around the busy parking area. Butch seemed fully unaware of the danger this situation presented for his daughter, though he followed my glance and explained the horse was like a “pet” to his daughter.
I saw the weak spot and went for it like a vulture.
“Then what are you going to tell her when she asks where her horsy went? Are you going to tell her the truth, or just lie to her?”

Over the next five years, that $700 horse proved to be highly talented in the show ring, always gentle with children and small animals, and the best friend I’d ever had. We spent hours together, and could practically read each other’s minds. I felt I could almost see his soul when I looked into those eyes which were a shade of brown I had not seen before. I was offered large sums of money for him on more than one occasion, and thought nothing of turning it down. I would no sooner sell my mother, though the thought had crossed my mind.

In late September of 1995 I was near the end of my second month of my troubled pregnancy. I continued to bleed, and my body was simply not doing what it was supposed to. The army doctors told me not to get my hopes up that the pregnancy would last. It had taken me over two years to get pregnant, and this news was devastating.

As I was leaving for work as a veterinary assistant on the morning of September 30^th 1994, I saw that Mario had gotten one of his beautiful forelegs hung in the barbed wire fence. Where other horses would have struggled to free themselves, he was standing patiently, waiting for me to come help him. I threw the truck into park while it was still moving and jumped out to help him. Seeing that the wire had cut deep into the leg, I told him to stand still and I ran to the barn to grab some wire cutters. He stood patiently while I ran back and gingerly cut the wire on either side of the gaping wound, leaving a six inch piece embedded in his leg. I knew pulling it out could do far more damage than leaving it where it was, at that point.

I tied him to a nearby tree and ran to the phone to call my neighbor to bring a horse trailer as quickly as possible. I then called the veterinary hospital at Kansas State University to ask them to prepare for our arrival. I bandaged Mario’s leg around the wire to prevent the wire moving further, and led him slowly on to the trailer.

The veterinary team at Kansas State University took radiographs, and had him in surgery within the hour. It took them three hours to remove the wire and close the gaping wound. I had already been warned that the damage could be too extensive to repair, but I had to try everything I could to save my friend.

For the next three days Mario lay with his head in my lap. Of course I was warned by each shift of veterinarians that sitting with a horses’ head in my lap could end my pregnancy should he get startled or decide to move quickly. I told them all that I knew my horse well enough to know that he would never do any such thing. He was always so gentle, he was incredibly careful with me, even when he was lying in unfamiliar surroundings, poked full of IV needles and had a huge, metal brace on his leg. He barely even wiggled until I was ready to get up or move.

On the third day, the vets came to me with bad news. The damage was so extensive that the chance of recovery was almost zero. The only way to keep him alive would be amputation, which would mean my beautiful horse would never leave his stall again. He would never run with his neck stretched out and his mane whipping around my face. He would never walk with me through the sunset, back towards the barn at the end of a long ride. His freedom would be taken away completely, and he would be in pain for the rest of his life.

I made the hardest decision I had ever made in my life that day. It was up to me to decide my best friend’s fate, to kill him or condemn him. The best choice was by far the most painful. I could make no other choice but to say goodbye to Super Mario that day.

Mario followed me willingly down the corridor on his three good legs to a room with padded walls and floors. I held his lead-rope in my hand as the doctor injected a clear liquid into his neck. I watched as his eye clouded with confusion, and as his knees gave way under his beautiful, athletic body. I was with him until his heart stopped, and his spirit was set free from the bonds of his injured shell. I wept on the neck of his beautiful, lifeless body, taking in his smell so I would never forget it. I said goodbye to the best friend I had ever had.

As Mario’s heart stopped beating, another tiny heart grew stronger. The next day I went in for a prenatal check up to see if the tiny life inside of me had made it through the stress of the last few days. The bleeding had stopped only that morning and the cramping had gone away. For the first time, the heartbeat could be heard clearly on the monitor. My own heavy heart skipped with the joy of hearing my baby’s heartbeat for the first time.

The following March, my son was born. In those first few moments of life, they set him on my chest, and he opened his eyes and looked right into mine. I noticed immediately that his eyes were the most amazing, deep shade of brown… a color I think I’d only seen once before.

In memory of all angels.
Super Mario: 5/15/87 – 10/3/94