Borrowed Time

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

You don’t know how much longer you have left. You don’t know for how long you’ve been, grazing and living the life a horse should live. I suppose that’s for the best, but I still can’t justify how this can be, so cruelly, cut short.

You’re fine. You’re definitely fine. Okay, the white parts of your coat are occasionally caked in mud and your feathers are often rather brown, but we can’t really be complaining about that now, can we? The black patches are usually nice and crisp and you can be rugged up. There’s not really all that grooming to be done when its rude to strip the natural oils from your coat. So, you don’t take much care, pottering and trotting quite happily about your field with your little bay buddy.

But there’s no date, no time and no certainty as to when she will let you go. They call it going over the rainbow bridge, but it’s more of a rickety, creaky death bridge for you, because it is well before your time. Do you think you can face that bridge, shake your head and say “oh no, not for me!”? Would that be okay? Could you do that for us?

I’m not sure that would be wisest for you. That’d probably bring about a second bullet or another injection, all designed to stop your heart and dull the life from your eyes. There is no kind of dying that is any way to go.

Or maybe it’s not such a bad thing, for you to go on her command and to have a full stomach and a warm stable and a happy life leading up to your final moments. You’ve never been sick or sorry, a good horse with a “leg in each corner”, as they say. You’ve not known harm or strife or shortage of good grass and hay. You have been well-kept, I can’t deny that. I suppose you can’t say what may or may not happen to a horse past the age of twenty, but you seem well. I asked her too, your owner, and she said you were in good health.

So why would she ever want you put to sleep? Why would she want you to close your eyes for the last time? And why would she want to see your body taken away from the home that you’ve known the longest. Of course, it will happen one day, whether we want it to or not, but it doesn’t have to be soon. It doesn’t have to be now.

She says she doesn’t want the hassle, but I’m struggling to believe her, your owner. You did it for years beforehand, so why now is the horse that gave you so many years of pleasure such a bother, a tumour to be removed or a vice to be culled? He has done nothing wrong, your piebald cob. He’s not the fanciest of horses or the most expensive, but you would be hard pressed to find one as loyal and sweet as him.

You’ll miss him if you do it. I know you will.

I’ve got to think that. I can’t just think that you’re a heartless bastard that would put down your horse of a lifetime. Or, more accurately, the horse that you said you’d have “shot” with a completely straight face and rational on your lips. No health issues, oh no, but it’s too much hassle to look after a horse, too much stress on the yard. Whereas I would not deny that there was stress on the yard at that time, I can see light at the end of the tunnel. But I wager you’re caught up in too toxic a relationship to see the truth of the matter, if my guess is even accurate at all here.

I don’t know. I am not you.

All I know is that it cut deep to let my boy go and he was only going to a new, very wonderful home. I could put myself in the position you’re in and think, “well, he really was too much hassle and I could have put him down”. And, I suppose, I could’ve done that. I can’t imagine a vet agreeing to put such a healthy horse down, but there must be someone out there that would do it, if you think you have the possibility of ending his life in an entirely legal manner. I wouldn’t consider a vet very ethical at all if they put a healthy and happy animal down, but that’s how it goes. I won’t be using your vet – ever.

But, no. I would never put a horse down unless it was their time to go and I am happy to see my grey lad thriving in his new home. Seeing him broken on the ground, never again to wake up? That’ll rip me apart at the end of my sweet mare’s life, but we have many years before we come to that. At least, I hope so. You can never tell, can you? That’s why you have to make every day count as if it is going to be your last.

You don’t do that, not for your horse, your pride and joy, your boy. He’s given you his life and had no choice in the matter. Now, it’s time for you to stand up tall and do right by him, let him live out the rest of his days peacefully and contentedly with good grass and company. It’s time that you pay him back just a little of what he’s given you, in his kind eye and soft ear, tipped towards you as you hustle through the chores.

He’s done so very much for you, but you just don’t see him like that, do you? Everyone says you adore your animals, but I’m struggling to understand how you could let this run through your mind if this is true? Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps you’re right. We’ll probably never know. He’ll never know.

You owe him his retirement.

But it doesn’t look like he’s going to get it.