The Horse With a Hole In His Side - Billy's Story

His name is "Billy". He is out in the field right now with his buddy "Kyle"*, but he recently won the Adult Jumper Classic at the Crewe Hill Horse Show in Mendham, NJ. “So what!”, you say. Well, this is a story of survival, will to live and beating the odds. Billy is twenty-something... we don’t know if it is closer to twenty or closer to thirty. We don’t care and it doesn’t seem to matter. He was found in a field in Upstate New York a dozen or so years ago by two expert Hunter/Jumper trainers who had an eye for talent and potential. They purchased him for the cost of a good used saddle and put him to work. Their instincts were right. Billy seemed to take to his new life as a jumper prospect and began to show in the lower Divisions. That was a walk in the park for Billy and he proceeded to the Preliminaries and then to the Higher Levels. He trooped around the divisions in the Canadian Circuit, Lake Placid and Palm Beach. His owners thought he might even be a potential Grand Prix Horse, but fate had other plans.

On his way home to New Jersey from Florida one year he wasn’t acting well. He had begun running a temperature and was showing signs of dehydration. He was rushed to a local clinic where he was diagnosed as having severe Plural Pneumonia. He was given intensive treatment and massive doses of antibiotics to treat the infection.  His lungs were then tapped to drain the excess fluid. He was not responding. Eventually, one of the lungs was partially destroyed from the infection and the constant draining. The doctors gave up hope and said there was nothing more they could do.  His chance for survival was less than 1%. Even, if by some miracle he did live, he would be rendered useless. The costs were skyrocketing and would become worse. The doctors recommended that he be humanely destroyed. 

          Billy would have none of it and his owners wanted to stand by him.  He had served them well and had earned more than his keep over his career.  They literally dragged his more-dead-than-alive body onto their trailer and took him home. There he was lovingly hand-nursed by a woman named Lydia , who I recently had the pleasure of meeting.

          The first challenge was to get him to his feet and keep him standing.  She devised a sling which went under his belly and up to a pulley on the ceiling of his stall.  She hand-feed him a warm, wet mash with a tablespoon and encouraged him to drink water.  Billy wasn’t ready to die and tried his best to cooperate. The discharge from his nose and from the hole in the side of his body from the drain left a stench throughout the entire barn and surrounding area. When he needed rest, he was lowered from his sling and allowed to lie down for short periods.  He was too weak to get up on his own, so he was raised to his feet by the pulley.

          The infection persisted.  A local vet passing by on a routine visit examined him and said Billy would not make it until morning, but there was a radical treatment that might be worth trying.  After all, the horse was doomed anyway. It was a concoction of Betadine and bleach which was then literally poured into the hole in the side of his body. It seemed to be effective. Little by little, the infection began to localize. 

          It was time to get the vets involved again.  They were amazed that the animal was still alive.  Again, they began administering massive amounts of antibiotics. Billy wasn’t ready to die and his owners and handlers weren’t ready to let him. Little by little the infection subsided and the horse became stronger.  After nine months, he was well enough to strut around the field. He actually looked as though he might even have some Show left in him.  The treatment had left a large, golf-ball-sized indentation in his side.  Other than that, there were no other apparent signs of his ordeal. So, after additional recuperation, it was back to the show ring.

          Again, he was successful at the Medium Levels. As time passed, his owner, a dear friend of over twenty years, felt it was time for a kinder, gentler life and offered him to us.  We had known Billy for many years and were thrilled at the prospect.  We asked if he could still do the Adults.  Like a squirrel can gather nuts was the reply. 

          He is as sound as a dollar for a horse with one lung.  His legs are as clean as a whistle.  He knows how to communicate and tells us if he doesn’t like the latest hay delivery, a different paddock, a new turnout companion or if he needs more carrots.  He is the first to greet us each morning with a little nicker, as he does later in the day from the field... just to say hello. We know he will also tell us when the day comes that he doesn’t want to jump fences anymore.

          Billy seems to know when it is “Show Day” and appears restless in his stall and ready to go.  He is a little impatient with shipping preparations as if to say, “Come on.  Get with it. I don’t need all this stuff!”  And then he marches onto the trailer like a Wall Street Broker on his way to the office. Once on the show grounds, he seems most intent on finding a nibble of grass with little concern for anything else.  After a short warm up and two or three jumps, it’s off to the ring.  Billy knows it is silly to waste valuable energy on nerves, so he waits patiently at the in-gate for his turn.  Once on course, he just wants to know, “Where are we going and how fast do you want to get there?”  He is always looking for the next jump and trying to figure out the best way to get over it without knocking it down.

          Next week Billy is entered in the John Fritz Derby at the Garden State Horse Show.  Who knows, there may be a sequel to this story.  The moral is, don’t give up.  Believe in yourself, try to find others who share in that belief and you too may just beat the odds.        

          The Hole in his side is still there!  People are always asking us about the hole and how our horse came to get it.”  We just tell them that every horse has a hole somewhere... this is Billy’s and it is his only hole.”

         Billy’s days will probably end here in our field which is much like the field where this story began.He will continue to tell his story of Glory, Agony, Pain, Victory and Survival to his pals who only know him as their friend and companion.

*Kyle - Face the Nation, Retired Adult Jumper Champion