It breaks my heart to let everyone know that Elliott (his show name was “Happenstance”) passed away late last night at my family’s farm in Boyce, Virginia.

Elliott was an absolute fighter until the very end, and I had to make the call to avoid future pain for him.

When we bought Elliott, I was in high school and recovering from trying to event Dublin, who would get me eliminated pretty much every event.  Elliott was being sold by T. Mansmann as an experienced eventer at a reduced price, because his x-rays showed some arthritis and fused hocks, which never caused a problem.  I absolutely fell in love with him.  During our first three events, the technical delegate approached me about “speed control,” which I took seriously but it also felt a little funny to hear it after I had been riding Dublin!

We quickly moved from Novice to Training, at which point we qualified for the USPC National Championships and won the CDCTA Horse Trials with a 24%!  Elliott’s dressage wasn’t awesome, but he tried hard.  I could always see his eyes wandering during the test if there was a running cross country course behind the arena!

Once we had hit it big at training level, we moved up to Preliminary where we had a few “blips” (aka RIDER ERRORS) but did fairly well considering I was an amateur.  Unfortunately Elliott’s feet were very difficult, and I was having a hard time keeping him sound for the move-up to Intermediate.  We decided he had earned somewhat of a retirement after he got me through my Pony Club “B” rating, and we began leasing him to other Pony Clubbers to get their ratings and some experience.

After a short while of lower-level competitions, Elliott began losing weight to the point of looking unhealthy.  We called the vet, who told us his kidneys were beginning to fail, and he most-likely only had a few months to a year left.  Immediately, we brought him home, put him on a low protein diet, and retired him for life.  Our hopes were to keep him happy and comfortable for as long as we could.

The vet came back for routine blood work, and after a while Elliott’s levels evened out.  His kidneys had kicked back in and he was doing great!  We sent him to Millwood to enjoy his retirement, where he was taken care of daily by a woman named Lauren, who was also my very first riding instructor.  She loved him as much if not more than the rest of us, and his feed, treats, and turnout were catered specifically to what he liked 🙂  After a while, he started gaining weight back and looked like a real horse again!  The vet had to come out a few times for his random mishaps, but overall he was doing really well.

Elliott made it seven years from his initial diagnosis, which is almost unheard of with kidney failure.  On Thursday night, Lauren noticed he had an edema on his chest that was not getting better with time.  The vet came out once more, and gave us the option to take him to the vet hospital for the weekend to flush him with fluids to see if his kidneys would come back, but we knew it would stress him out being away from home and it was very expensive for a 21-year-old horse.  Lauren offered to stay with him, and we started him on fluids at home for 24 hours.

Friday afternoon mom had a meeting out there, so she was able to see him and check on him.  I grabbed Nathan and we trekked out during rush hour traffic to see him.  When I got there Elliott looked unexpectedly good for what his body was going through.  He was eating grass, acting like a horse, and had his ears up like everything was fine.  But when we hooked him back up to the IV, his body showed us he was not going to make it through this time.  I had to make the heartbreaking call, and we took out his IV and turned him out in the field to enjoy the rest of the night with his pasture-mate.  We were all devastated, but it was clear he was ready to go.

The vet was scheduled to come out in the morning, but when I woke this morning there was a text letting me know they had to call the vet to come out last night.  Apparently they had gone out to check on him and he had started to colic, so they did what was best.  Our vet said he went very peacefully, and then everyone saw a shooting star, which was so like him.  He always had to make a scene 🙂

Elliott will be missed dearly, as he was the one horse I ever felt truly confident on.  He carried me so many times when I made the wrong decision, and he never humbled me when I felt too proud.  In a lot of ways he was my best friend for a while, and my competition partner.  There will never be another horse like him, and I respect that.

Lots of love for you, Elliott.1991-2012