03/20/2025
THE BALLAD OF SPENCER
One day in the summer of 2015, I received a phone call from an acquaintance.
She told me that there was a horse that urgently needed a home. That his absentee owner – a woman who actually lived in Utah & boarded the horse near here – didn’t want to pay for him any longer. And that she was going to send the horse to Out of Africa, a somewhat local zoo-type affair. And that they would shoot the horse & feed him to the lions.
I told her, “Get him here. Get him here, right now.”
And Spencer arrived.
It seems that the local NBC affiliate had gotten wind of the story & sent a news crew out to the ranch. Long story short, they had contacted the head of Out of Africa & he said that, owing to Spencer’s health & vibrancy, they never would’ve accepted him. I believed the man. However, some people do send their horses there to be euthanized as the lions have to eat, too, right? And they have to shoot them instead of using the usual massive doses of phenobarbital because the lions can’t eat the meat, otherwise.
Anyway, Spence arrived & we put him into the field with Suze & Solo & Miss Hidden River & Danny & Chianti. And all went well.
Until the following Christmas Day.
That morning, someone in the very nearby vicinity sent off a single gunshot or a single large firecracker. It scared Suze & she bucked & jumped around like a crazy woman for a couple minutes. When we went to feed those kids their lunches, we saw that Spence had been badly injured – he’d gotten kicked in the face by Suze during her freak-out.
I immediately called the vet (this was before Dr. K) &, thankfully, she was on call & would be right out.
The left side of Spence’s face was kicked in, up by his left eye.
The doc immediately took radiographs of his head & face & found that his orbital socket had been badly fractured. The good news – if there was any good news to be had – was that no bone chips had made their way into Spence’s sinus cavity & that his eyeball wasn’t ruptured. The eyeball was injured but it appeared as if he could see out of it. Whether or not he could see clearly or not we didn’t know – nor have we ever known.
His convalescence from that was long – nearly three months. And, during it, we had to put meds into Spence’s eye several times a day. For weeks. Along with bute for the pain. That’s really when I learned that Spence was one of the toughest horses I’ve ever known. He never once complained. Not once. Although I knew he was in pain & that our treatments had to be tough on him, he always stood like a trouper, letting us do what we had to do.
Eventually, Spence was over it & we decided to move him into the ‘Corner Office’, directly adjacent to the ‘field’. Over the next few years, we lost Suze & we lost Solo & we lost Riv. And, after that, we’d put Danny & Chianti & Spence out into the arena together every morning at 6AM. Danny & Spence always got along really well but Chianti was never a real fan of Spence.
Maybe that was because she knew that Spence was a king. Danny surely knew it. He knew that Spence was a king - a quiet king.
Spence was always that – quiet. But when he wanted to move another horse out of the way or get what he wanted, he just did it. And everybody else scattered. As quiet as Spence was, he was surely the ‘itancan’ (leader) wherever he went & with whomever he encountered. Quietly. Like a king.
Over the years, Spence developed a number of other physical ailments. He’s had PPID (Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction)/Cushings for years &, all along, we’ve treated him daily for that. For the past couple of years, we’ve clipped his long coat (a by-product of PPID) every spring. He also developed anhidrosis (the inability to sweat) &, in the warm/hot weather, we’ve given him a couple of supplements to treat that, plus we’ve given him his own AC unit outside his house to supplement the misting system overhead.
A few years ago, he contracted EOTRH (Equine Odontoclastic Tooth Resorption & Hypercementosis), a painful tooth/gum disease not uncommon in horses his age. That resulted in Spence having 13 or 14 teeth removed. Once that was done, he never looked back.
Yeah, Spence had been through the wringer. Yet he persisted. Like a king.
The thing, though, that we couldn’t do too much about was his chronic laminitis. He’d have bouts of it every year or so & we’d get him through those. Last fall, though, his semi-annual radiographs showed us that his P3s (coffin bones) had rotated downward pretty substantially since the last time. To combat that, we had our therapeutic farrier put him in special ‘clogs’. Unfortunately, he began developing abscesses & other hoof problems even in the clogs – again, the result of his chronic laminitis.
Over the past couple of weeks, he began to go downhill pretty rapidly. It was more painful for him to walk. We increased his daily bute dosage & added in large twice-daily doses of acetaminophen. Even with all of that on board, his pain was evident.
As the saying goes, “Better a week too early than a day too late”. And that saying has been on my mind for the better part of the last ten days. Plus, it was Spence, dammit – the toughest, most steadfast horse I’ve just about ever known. I could not & would not allow him to suffer.
Dr. K & I discussed it last week. And we decided that today would be the day. This past Friday, I could tell by his demeanor that he’d just about given up trying to fight any longer. Over the weekend, he ate well & devoured his treats just like he always did – but I could tell. Even with his tougher-than-nails façade, I knew what he was telling me.
So, on Saturday, after all the volunteers left, I went in with him. And he put his head right into my chest & I held his head with both hands. I told him that I knew that he was in pain & that I had a plan – a plan to make his feet stop hurting. But it would just take me a couple of days to get things in order. He looked me in the eye & I swear that he understood. And accepted what I was saying. And, in his own way, thanked me. He actually seemed a little perkier for the rest of the day & evening.
We added another feeder & another water tub into his house, in the back of it, where he spent a lot of time. That way, we’d take his food to him rather than his having to walk the thirty feet or so to his usual feeder. It was up to him which one he would use & he used both.
Late this morning, I turned on the fan to his AC unit &, just like always, he stood right in front of it. It was one of his favorite spots, with the wind blowing on his face. I told him that it’d be just another couple of hours ‘til I’d be able to take his pain away. And handed him a few treats.
A few minutes before Doc got here, Mindy came & brushed out Spence’s mane & tail & brushed his coat.
When Doc got here we slowly walked Spence up the lane to ‘the spot’. And, as Doc was administering the shot, I told Spence, with as much excitement in my voice as I could muster, “Now, Spence! Like I promised you, we’re going to make the pain go away right now.”
And then he was gone.
My brother – our king - was gone.
Now, hear the words of White Elk: “When you were born, you cried & the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries & you rejoice.”
Today, we cry.
And Spencer rejoices.
