As my husband left for work early Wednesday morning, he felt compelled to call me from his cell before he’d even made it out of the driveway. It had already been determined that the day was going to be a Bad One for me, pain-wise, so I’d loaded up on medication, sent Bella to preschool with Daddy, and settled in for the duration. When I answered the phone, Alex said, after making his apologies for even having to bother me, knowing how bad I felt, that he didn’t like the look of the way Magic, our sweet little Shetland pony mare, was lying down in the pasture. “I think you’d better go out and check on her,” he said. “Maybe call the vet.” Now, my husband has only known horses as long as he’s known me (about 6 years), but he has always shown good instinct with animals and a sharp eye for what Arkansas horsepeople refer to as “ADR (Ain’t Doin’ Right) Syndrome.” He may not know everything about horses, but he knows “ADR” when he sees it, and has twice before made what turned out to be lifesaving calls of this nature, so when he speaks in this vein, I listen, and I dragged myself out to the pasture to see what was up with Little Miss Magic.
And that is when I saw something horrible; something I’d never seen before in all my years with horses.