If you’ve been following me a while, you know the way I deal with things is writing… telling my story.
It all began back with the loss of Traveler and the journey of starting over with Tesla, and loss of him within 2 years. It has unfortunately also included Prophecy’s story with a gut wrenching decision to retire him as a riding prospect after 2 years together. The past few years have been the ups and downs of the journey with Sully, from the highs of becoming an endurance team with two 50mile completions and a LD Best Condition & High Vet score win at the ride that I lost Traveler, to the lows we started facing earlier this year with his health, along with the joy of the last year and half bringing along Skyler and Scooby together.
Here I am, heartbroken again over the sudden and unexpected loss of my Sully this morning.

I’m in shock. I never expected this. I may have deep down suspected an off chance of having to make that call one day based on whatever we found out with the vet, but never thought I would walk out one morning to find him gone. Since our last post/ride at Fleetwood I had been in contact with the vet and her team and we had some ideas of what next to chase at his appointment – Tuesday/tomorrow. Seriously? I had hope that maybe we were going to find that smoking gun that was stopping him from feeling his best and being able to completely heal. It has been an utter rollercoaster all year, but his loving personality never waned. His desire to be with me, love of the trail even if not at full speed, his sweetness with everyone, his patience for everything we were doing to help him feel better, was always present.

No, I won’t ever know what really happened. I can only assume that it was part of the bigger issue at hand with him we hadn’t nailed down. This past weekend I had gone to an endurance ride to volunteer and returned home early Sunday. I fed them, all was good, Prophecy came home from his job being a buddy for a neighbor for the last month and everyone had settled in like no time was between. We got the more powerful fence working, but they seemed pretty content on the grass they had been allowed on as well. They were watching me work on the trailer roof while munching on their round bale in the afternoon. Skyler and I fed them dinner in the drizzle and all was well. It was staying warm overnight, so I didn’t put his rain-sheet on. I only had noted he seemed a little dull again… we had been trialing not using Equioxx (vet suggested) and thought that might be why, figuring we’d restart after further discussion at the appointment.

Monday morning came and I do my check on Skyler (as she doesn’t always hear her alarm!) before heading out – she wasn’t feeling great so I told her to go back to bed and we’d let her stay home and rest. As usual, I see only 2 of the 3 at first – normal as I usually have to hunt Sully down, but instead I discover Sully had broken into the trailer area paddock (which has electric tape that isn’t particularly powerful) and was laying flat out snoring. I left him, feed the other 2 and came in for a shower. I went back out intending to move him out of the that paddock area and give him breakfast. I saw he hadn’t moved… I no longer heard his snores as I got closer…. I couldn’t see his chest moving… I didn’t know what to do next, other than cry. I learned long ago never to go out to them without a phone… I called Doug and told him. He came running out to me there. All I could do was cry. The other 2 horses had stuck close by, so I took down the fence to let them in and see. Prophecy and Scooby were stuck to each other. Prophecy came over first, snorted and nudged Sully’s ear. Scooby needed us to walk away before he would check Sully out.
This all was happening before 8am and I didn’t know where to go next… I thought about calling the vet to see how to take care of things but then sent a message to the guy who does our bush-hogging of the fields and some other work we’ve needed done out there to see if he could help with burying him here. He’s a cattle guy, but has been around horses and knows how much they are like family. Unfortunately our pasture is so hilly he was worried about getting things correct to ensure no ground settling issues later, but he offered to take him and bury him at his farm nearby. He really went out of his way to figure out the best option for me with the least impact.
Prophecy and Scooby ended up staying close to Sully for a few hours until I removed them when T was on his way with a truck and trailer and I needed to open the gate to the road. He dropped those off and then I took him to get his tractor just a bit away at another farm. Once he arrived in the tractor we said our final goodbyes, cut another lock of mane I braided for Skyler (yes I have a bunch of tail and mane saved), and she and I went inside. Doug stayed out there to help with the final move, but I knew T would take very good care of Sully. I couldn’t not watch in some way and was checking from the kitchen window to see when the truck and trailer pulled away. That was a very hard moment.

It was still another hour or so later, 2pm, when I finally felt like I could eat something. I’m angry, devastated, and numb. Skyler and I have been a mess all day. It comes in waves… I can’t believe the journey with him is done… I knew there was something more behind his decline this year… I’m just mad it ended this way. I can only take comfort in his passing being peaceful and at home. I know he’s up there running around, free from whatever was ailing him…