Khun-Phan ca 1993 - September 20, 2007 9:24 AM Phuket, Thailand




  My Enormously Big Brown, Fuzzy, Furry Khun-Phan Man (Thai for Cassanova,) was the gentlest of horses, his love nip a surprisingly tiny pinch. At over 16 hands, he weighed at least 1200 pounds but emitted girlie squeals when a frisky attack came upon him. He took great care not to bang you when he whipped his head around to get at an itch.

  Dark bay with a tiny perfect star..Kuhn-Phan, I was told, had come from Scotland. He certainly had that faded golden muzzle as do the moor ponies, and the kind of eyes that showed white easily which even furthered his human-like demeanor. A glorious mane, tinged red, enviably silky and long. Rumoured to be an ex-racer, with freeze brandings, I thought he was too big and with his huge clod-hoppering hooves, built more like a Draft. From his prominent facial profile, a Standardbred mix.
  A giant's lumbering gait with snorted indignance when urged to get a move on.

  He was my best friend in Thailand, a strange and hostile land. My companion, my mate, the reason to wake at 2 AM and decide to go outside to check the stable.
  A reason to worry...to want to hurry home. He always stood for my hugs and allowed me constant and deep snuggles in his mane. On occasion, he returned with gentle nips on my behind.
  Once, after I'd been away for a few days, we spent some time with his head on my lap while I perched on a rail. Most endearingly, he got an erection. I think he loved me, too. Another time he came up silently behind me, nuzzled my ear then rested his chin on my shoulder as if to say, "Thank you, for loving me .."
  He would push me with his head at nightfall, herding me in from the field. He had started the cat-like habit of barely brushing up against me when he passed.

  Somehow, Khun-Phan had the bad luck to end up at a beach rental stable in the hideously uncaring country of Thailand.. How long he sat in his stall, I'm not sure - a year, maybe more - after an untrained staff member- by many accounts, trimmed both front hooves so short that they bled.

  Because a riding pony I boarded was dangerously hostile due to uncaring handling, I began to gravitate toward the affectionate enormous gelding whose only care was limping to the shower every day.

We needed each other.

  "Mr. Big", as I called him before I knew his name, hobbled over to me one day. He had an infected pastern wound, his hooves were ruined; chipped, flared beyond belief. Also I would find out, Khun-Phan was IR ( diabetes ) so he suffered bouts of the hoof disease, laminitus.

He put his muzzle in my hand to politely ask.. "Please, help me.. take me out for a walk,
I've been in a stall for over a year. And my ex-racer girlfriend, Angie in the next stall, and there's that beautiful filly across the aisle."
  So, I moved him, Lamburg the rider pony and the two mares, Angie and Beautiful-Girl out of the rental/torture stable to my home-spun rescue in June of 2006.
  Because of his ailments, I never rode Kuhn-Phan though often thought of the time we would fly together down a beach. But I really didn't care. I just wanted his brown eyes and huge face to be with me, to love.

He may have been uncomfortable or in awful pain at times, but was never-ever a mean horse, not even the last moments as he quite obviously began to die.
  He was so strong until the very end, fighting for his life for 18 hours.
  At dawn it seemed he was OK after a long night of colic, but then he began walking himself frantically. Soon were sudden symptoms of toxemia from a busted intestine, drunk-like swaggering with a sickening backward, unwinding quality.
  He went down, got up and went down again and was injected with a strong sedative, euthanized at 9:24 AM by myself. Or, he died from blood poisoning. Or both.
  We were utterly alone-there was no one else to do it.

I had hesitated before, all through the night, not sure it was time, not wanting to make a hideous mistake but now no doubt, Khun-Phan was dying.


  I knew and loved Khun-Phan for 18 months of his approximate age of 14. In that time he recuperated from maltreatment and neglect himself with the help of my ignorance. After a few months, he galloped for joy on many occasions. The picture is him at his happiest, his herd lined up behind him, he's moving comfortably, maybe for the first time in years. Then he suffered an unnecessary laminitus relapse,

because I didn't double-check a Vet's advice,

but was on the mend again at the time of his death.

  Toward KhunPhan's final hour he began trembling....so suddenly tiny, so fragile. Like glass breaking, he became very still while he suffered the rupture quietly. I mistakenly, stupidly thought he, we - might be through the worst.
  

During his last quiet moments an enormous, stunningly beautiful Atlas Silk Moth with wings as big as my hand alighted in the stable - the more religiously inclined might say perhaps to take his soul?

"My Love Has Wings; Gently Curved, Upswept Things."  Gene Roddenberry, 1966


  I sometimes wish I could believe, could find comfort in religion but like to say I do not. Still, fear within has me hoping maybe the moment I die, the last I'll see-those Wings, only now enormous, meters across. My Sweetest Darling's Wings as he sweeps me upon his strong broad back...ascending, cradled forever safely, together on to.. whatever.

  Until then Khun-Phan, my Horse-Man, I cry, I miss and I still wish for you every day, every moment......Forever.

   Christy K. Sweet



Angie

ca 1992 - April 16, 2009 10:30 AM



In addition to the ailments Angie carried with her from aging, in late February she suffered a sprain or crack in her left rear pastern and was increasingly in pain and was unable to happily exist without medication. The lymphangitus had also flared up recently and sometime during the night she had lain down and unable to get up, pinwheeled herself under a rail.
After removing the rail she was too tired to even try to get up and started exibiting signs of her kidneys shutting down due to the immense weight of her body on them. Not knowing how long she'd been down, about 3 hours is the maximum a healthy horse can withstand and with her advancing age and ailments, the decision was made it was time to put her to sleep.
The vet was summoned and I wish I could say she was put to death easily, unfortunately it took far more sedative than it should have and a run had to be made back to the clinic for more drugs. Even then, unconscious, still she kept breathing, very slowly and it was decided that a neighbor, experienced with firearms would shoot her and she was dead instantly.

Angie was a very gentle and cooperative horse. An ex-race horse, she spent 10 years at the beach rental stable and most of that time she rotted in a stall due to the swollen leg.
After her release from incarceration, even with arthritis and lymphangitus, one day she ran very fast around the field, for joy it seemed and must have been an extremely fast horse while in her prime.

I have learned a valuable horse lesson at her expense, and that is to put a horse down sooner rather than later. While Angie spent her last day happy, but on pain medication-her last night was filled with stress and pain and for that, I am very, very sorry.

Good-bye, sweetest Angie, you were loved and thank you for teaching me how to care-and how to know when it is time to stop.