Saving Tony

Before we can go forward, we have to know where we have been.....

Here's the story on the horse that inspired me.

Tony in the Paddock as the snow begins to fall!

    In July of 2006 we lost my father’s Clydesdale gelding, Benjamin, to a bought of colic that lasted several days. I was 20 years old at the time and working long hours in the family landscaping business during the summer break from college. I spent those hot, humid evenings after work tending to the giant horse, thinking that I could get him through his predicament if I just kept fighting for him. The vet was back and forth multiple times to barn with mixed results. We tubed him, walked him for hours, washed him down, and pumped electrolytes down his throat over and over again until he finally seemed to turn the corner.

          Thinking that the old horse was out of the woods, we opted to turn him out with the others in the pasture for the night. After three days of extreme highs and lows in triple digit temperatures, I was exhausted mentally and physically. I shut the gate of the pasture that evening thinking that I could finally rest and that we had saved Ben from a trip to New Bolton for a colic surgery that we almost certainly couldn’t afford. Everything seemed right with the world as the fireflies lifted up from the meadow grass towards the big summer moon.

          The next morning, my mother found Ben in a heap on the ground. He was gone for good. My father’s devastation was palpable as he and the landscape crew hitched the flatbed trailer to the dump truck and headed over to the pasture to bring Ben back to the house. My dad had a rough exterior, but inside he was as soft and gooey as a Cadbury crème egg. Work was delayed for the day as he and the employees tearfully prepared a proper burial place for his old friend beneath the chestnut tree on the family property.  I felt a stab of guilt for not electing to haul the horse into surgery on the first day. His rally at the end had fooled me for sure.

                   And so began the hunt for a new steed. My father was not an exceptionally gifted rider; he needed a push button, bomb proof horse that would take care of him on the trail. This was no easy task, and we soon found out that the definition of “Bombproof” can change greatly depending on who you talk to. My mother spent the following months bringing home various horses on trial, only to return them when they acted up or clashed with our other horses. She was reaching peak frustration by the time September rolled around and we were down to two horses for the upcoming fall season.

          As I returned (rather unwillingly) to school for the semester, my mother continued her search for the ‘perfect’ horse. A friend of hers had recommended going to the auction at New Holland to find a cheap specimen in the pens up there. I wasn’t sure it was such a great idea and cautioned her against going there alone, as I had heard some pretty bad stories about it in the past, but she was determined to come back with something, and she had prayed to Saint Anthony to help her find it.  Surely, Saint Anthony could come up with an appropriate candidate for us.

          It was September 11, 2006 when she traveled to New Holland. The auction had concluded, and the remainder of the horses had been sorted into the pens where they would await transportation to the slaughterhouse. What a dark, dismal, decrepit place it was and, in the chaos, and the filth my mother was overwhelmed by what she saw. As she stepped back against what she thought was an empty pen, something touched the back of her head, ever so gently, like the hand of an angel reaching from the darkness.

          Startled by this ghost-like encounter, she spun around to see a muzzle above her in the dim light. A lanky horse, caked in mud and manure stared back at her quietly and patiently with large, saucer eyes glistening in shadows as if to say, “I’m here, please don’t forget me.” For a moment, they both stood there and exchanged looks, as if time stopped briefly for some supernatural event. My mother could barely even tell what color the horse was underneath all the crud, but she wasn’t going to leave New Holland without him.

          I came home from school to find a skeleton with fur in the barn. My mother had paid a couple hundred dollars for him, saying that he just needed weight and that she had been told he was about 10 years old. The yellow auction tag was still glued to his body as I went in the stall to get a better look. He was tall and lean, with a white star on his forehead and a little white snip on his muzzle. No socks, nothing fancy like that, just a plain old bay horse that hadn’t been groomed in ages. He was placid and sleepy, but something told me he wasn’t a horse for my father.

          The vet arrived the next day to see the new horse. My mother had no clue how to deal with a rescue case like this. He needed a lot of care, deworming, shots, proper feeding, shoes and dental work. We had no idea what his history was, and he had no name, but at least he had a home now. My imagination wandered, thinking of what he might have been once.

          Doc Schilling came in to get the recovery process started with the first round of shots and an exam. He flipped the horse’s lips back and found what was left of a tattoo, indicating that the horse was a Thoroughbred. The first letter, “P” corresponded with a birth year of 1986, meaning that the horse was actually 20 and not 10 years old as my mother had been told. The rest of the tattoo was severely faded, so we could never really know who he had been in his past life.

          So, my mother had brought home a horse that had been dumped out and neglected, probably due to his age. It was going to be a long road to recovery and being that he was already into his senior years, he was not a likely candidate for re-sale if he didn’t work out. He was going to become a permanent fixture in our home no matter what, and it was up to us to make the best of it. At 17.1H, he had a presence about him that was still regal and powerful, despite his dilapidated state.

     For the first few weeks, as he recovered and began eating, he was referred to as “The new horse.” The subject of a name came up when it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere; this was his final stop, no matter what. As his coat began to shine and the life came back to his eyes, his spirit returned fiercely. His demeanor changed from quiet, to hot tempered and it was obvious that he was no match for my father. This blood bay gelding had a lot of anger in his heart, and despite his age, he was no beginner level horse.

          The decision was made that my father could not ride this horse. Instead, my mother would put my dad on my old mare, Ginger, and leave the new horse for me to deal with. When asked what I would call my new steed, I thought about it for a few nights, until it came to me, without warning, like a message from above:

“His name is Saint Anthony”

          And with that, ‘Tony’ and I began a relationship that has lasted until this very day. We have had the good fortune of being together ever since that September day when he came home. I can honestly say that I’ve been through a lot of dark times in my adult life, and Old Tony has been there for all of it Every day waiting for me at the gate when I come home from work, he has outlived all of our expectations on his own terms, reaching the ripe old age of 37. We’ve had adventures on the trails, and we have shared our moments of grief. My only regret was not finding him sooner.