The Horse that Never Learned to Love Carrots

In these days of foreign wars, of cyclones and earthquakes, of disasters natural and unnatural, it is frivolous to write with feeling about the death of a pet. Real people have lost their children, their homes and their base of contentment. I have only lost a friend of the four footed variety, but still, it is worth a few words to say good-bye.

Hai was a yearling. It was his face next to mine but a few blog postings back. After six days of effort by the best of medical staffs, the decision was made this afternoon, to let him rest from his struggles. As of this writing it remains a mystery exactly what happened to him. Whether it was some unusual disease or some trauma will only be revealed after an autopsy. Although the reason of his demise is unclear, the fact is that only a few weeks ago he was the potential of my dreams.

He was a strange horse, a chestnut that came to the farm the first day of September 2007. He was a little over four months old then, and newly weaned from his mother. He was shy of the two old mares in the field and much preferred the company of humans to horses. It took him a long time to feel comfortable enough to run. He’d lag behind, content to mosey along toward dinner, which by the time he arrivied, was nearly gobbled up by those same old mares.

Eventually he did learn to run, and when he did, the ripple of his muscles and the flow of his legs gave me hope that perhaps ‘this one’ was a horse that would lead me on happy adventures. He also learned to be first to the feed bucket and he grew to be a strong and well-conformed yearling. The first sign of his distress was the morning when he wasn’t first to that feed bucket.

Hai, whose official name, Haidetz Acasa, meant ‘come on home’ in Romanian, enjoyed the curry brush and the attention but I never could get him to eat a carrot. I’ve never known a horse to prefer the company of humans to other horses, and I’ve never known a horse that wouldn’t learn to savor the taste of a fresh garden carrot. I’d mix small chunks in his grain and I’d hold out pieces for him to gather out of my hand. He watched the ladies greedily snap up more than their share but he never figured out that the funny orange thing really did taste good.

I say good-bye now to him with an uneaten carrot in my hand.