Farewell to Henry..

13/01/2012 by shaun.

..who passed away last night after a horrible case of timpanic colic which we just couldn’t get him through. At around 7.15pm Henry looked a little uncomfortable in his stable and Katie got Hugh out to him. We started lungeing Henry in canter almost straight away. The aim being to get his gut moving and the trapped gasses working through his guts to relieve the pressure and pain. Hugh arrived really quickly and gave him an examination, a muscle relaxant and a pain killer. We then left him for 40 minutes while this worked through and then started 20 minutes of lungeing followed by 20 minutes rest, three times. After the second lungeing session it really looked like he had got through it. He looked happy and relaxed and was galloping around the arena. After the 3rd session we popped him back in his box and watched him.

Unfortunately, as the muscle relaxant wore off he started to get more irritable, pacing around his box and looking at his belly. He even started to role in his box. So I took him back into the indoor school and tried lungeing him again but it got harder and harder to keep him cantering as he wanted to lie down and roll. Hugh came out and we agreed that he was in so much pain that we couldn’t even get him on a trailer to take him to the Dick Vet for colic surgery. In the end the best thing for Henry was to put him to sleep. It was really really sad and the yard just feels like it has something missing. Probably, Henry leaning over the stable door giving passers by the snakey head thing he did!

I have looked out some photos of him to remind us of what he was like. Sadly I can’t find a photo of him closing the M74 last summer.

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