When amateur event rider Lauren Field lost her horse unexpectedly, the longtime Thoroughbred lover knew exactly where to look for her next mount. In 2013, Field reached out to Finger Lakes Finest, a Thoroughbred rehoming organization in New York, to find a suitable match. When her first choice didn’t pan out, Lucinda Finley, founder and on-track coordinator for the organization, directed her toward Midnight Tucker, a tall, plain dark bay that several other adopters hadn’t connected with.
“Lucinda reached out to me, and said, ‘There is this one horse you need to look at, but he’s not flashy, and he’s not personable,’ ” recalled Field, who was looking for an eventer.
Upon meeting the 5-year-old (Say Florida Sandy—Midnight Mood, Talc) gelding, Field’s first impression was of a “miserable, shut down” animal.
“I could see why so many people had passed on him, because there wasn’t that gravitas there,” Field remembered. “He looked so unhappy and seemed a little body sore.”
But she also noticed the horse’s soft eye, and when his handler led “Holden” out of the stall, she was positively impressed.
“His trainer was probably the lamest person I’ve ever seen, with the shortest, most hobbling stride,” said Field, 34. “He takes this strapping, 17-hand, race-fit horse out, and Holden took the tiniest little steps to stay with this man, who could barely jog. He was so gentle. That’s when I realized, ‘This is the one.’ ”
Though Holden had “a bunch of jewelry and some scars,” and seemed slightly off on his left hind, Field skipped the pre-purchase and adopted him. Once home, veterinarians determined that Holden raced on an unhealed collateral ligament injury in his left hind fetlock. Despite showing some signs of remodeling, it was likely the cause of his uneven stride. It was a significant injury, but the fact the horse wasn’t more lame proved to Field that Holden was both tough and stoic.
After six months of rest, Holden was given the green light to work. Field describes him as “the most uncomplicated horse” she has ever re-started, and she was soon taking him to hunter paces and even a schooling show.
“For two years, things were awesome,” Field said with a laugh. “Everything was so easy.”
That all changed one October morning in 2016, when Field went to feed and found Holden caked in mud, covered in lacerations embedded with rocks, and barely able to move.
Mystery Injuries
She still doesn’t know exactly what happened to Holden, who had been living on 24/7 turnout at her mother Khristine Field’s Seven Acre Farm in Littleton, Massachusetts. She called Dr. Brett Gaby, DVM, of Essex Equine, who made it to the farm in less than 20 minutes.
“As my vet put it, the mud and lacerations suggested he had some sort of catastrophic encounter with the ground,” Lauren said. “It is so rocky here; our best guess is he fell on some ledge.”
Gaby began the painstaking process of removing rocks and pebbles from Holden’s many wounds, most of which were located along his left shoulder, rib cage and hip. One puncture wound was so deep Gaby was concerned about involvement with the cecum, which is part of the large intestine, and they discussed sending Holden to the equine emergency hospital at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in North Grafton. But even with pain medicine on board, Holden wouldn’t move.
“He has never said no to me my entire time having him, and I could not get him into the trailer,” Lauren said. “He wouldn’t walk.”
Holden’s behavior, combined with a massive hematoma covering his left hindquarter, which stretched from the last rib to the gaskin, made Gaby suspicious the horse may have suffered significant internal injuries. In particular, he worried about a pelvic fracture. But given the degree of inflammation, he felt imaging in the field would likely prove inconclusive. Lauren began to consider euthanasia, but Gaby encouraged her to give the horse a chance.
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“He was like, ‘We are not there yet; let’s see how he navigates the next couple of days,’ ” Lauren said.
Lauren set up a medical stall for Holden, and for the next three weeks, Gaby and his technician visited several times a day to administer pain medication and anti-inflammatories, and to monitor Holden’s overall well-being.
“Their commitment to his welfare was above and beyond,” Lauren said. “I owe them my horse’s life.”
As the days progressed, the gelding showed no sign of intestinal damage, and once the inflammation began to subside, almost three months later Gaby was able to use x-ray and ultrasound to better evaluate the extent of Holden’s injuries. Imaging revealed the gelding had fractured his pelvis in three different places—the acetabular rim, the ilial shaft and the tuber coxae, which was splintered into multiple bony fragments. Additionally, he had three broken ribs. The diagnostics also revealed that Holden had a mild case of kissing spines and some neck arthritis.
“There were so many things going on with this horse,” Lauren said. “My vet said not many horses come back from a pelvic break, and he was probably going to be a pasture pet. I said that’s fine—he has a stall with us for the rest of his life—but I asked if I should consider putting him down. It’s a pretty significant injury.”
Again, Gaby encouraged Lauren to give Holden more time. The gelding, though not initially thrilled to be confined to a medical stall, had never gone off his feed, and his vitals were stable. He seemed to be demonstrating the same toughness that had gotten him through his track injury. With her veterinarian’s support, Lauren decided to pursue a conservative course of treatment: rest.
“We just had to wait and see if he got better—and he did,” Lauren said, her voice catching.
‘I Didn’t Want To Push Him’
In late spring 2017, Gaby cleared Holden to return to ridden work via a slow, progressive 12-week conditioning program. When the gelding handled that well, Lauren spent the next year working almost exclusively at the walk and trot, mostly hacking out or doing ground pole work to strengthen his body. She joined Facebook groups to learn new exercises intended to support horses with kissing spines or hip injuries, and she peppered her vet with questions.
“I didn’t want to push him; he’s way too generous a horse, and he would say yes, even if he was hurting,” Lauren said. “I was very mindful of that.
“My vet was thankfully phenomenal the entire time, navigating me through putting him back to work,” she continued. “Dr. Gaby was amazed—floored—by his recovery, and said that Holden will tell me if it’s too much.”
Despite the support she received, Lauren admitted she still struggled with self-doubt when it came to deciding when and how much to ask of Holden.
“I am hypercritical of horses’ soundness, and I kept texting my vet little video clips: ‘Is he sound? Do I keep asking for more?’ ” she said. “There was one point early on when we began trotting, where I didn’t like how he looked, so I went back to the walk. That was part of the reason it took so long to get him back to where he was before—I wasn’t willing to work through something I felt was an unsoundness.”
Ultimately, it was the horse himself who convinced her.
“Holden always came up to me in the paddock, always with a, ‘What are we doing? When are you taking me out?’ type of attitude,” she said. “They will tell you, through their facial expressions, through their body language. He just hasn’t said no yet. I have to be careful, because he’s not the type to say no. My mom will tell you it is me babying him, but I have to honor him, too.”
Back To Business
In April 2018, not long after Holden had resumed jumping, Lauren underwent knee surgery that kept her out of the saddle for several months. While she recuperated, Holden enjoyed additional time off. But that July, he was the first horse she sat on post-surgery.
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“That is one of the things that is incredible about his personality,” she said. “I can put him on the back burner, then get back on him, and it’s like nothing happened. He’s not frisky; he’s not rude. He’s unfailingly polite.”
In addition to riding plenty of hills and doing pole work to keep him strong and supple, Lauren found that 24/7 turnout, four shoes and twice yearly mesotherapy injections best work to manage Holden’s kissing spines. These practices also support his pelvis.
For the next several years, Lauren and Holden focused on hunter paces and training, with an occasional unrecognized competition on their calendar. But in 2023, Lauren became an adult member of the Groton Pony Club, which she describes as “transformative.” With the encouragement of other members, that June, she entered her first USEA-recognized event in over a decade, beginner novice at the Green Mountain Horse Association in South Woodstock, Vermont.
“I’d avoided recognized events because they are so much more costly here than unrecognized,” Lauren said. “I would rather put my money toward his mesotherapy and massage. But I was given an event voucher by Muffy Flynn, another eventer, which was so generous.”
However, after a steady dressage test and a solid stadium course, Lauren thought Holden didn’t feel like himself out on cross-country, and she pulled up. In hindsight, she believes the long trailer ride and multiple nights in stabling had taken their toll on his body.
“I felt so bad disappointing all these people that had come together to make the event happen for us, but I felt I owed it to Holden to listen to him,” she said. “He wasn’t supposed to come back from this, and he doesn’t owe us anything, after everything he’s been through.”
‘Absolutely Not’—In A Good Way
After concentrating on schooling for the rest of the season, in 2024, Lauren felt Holden was ready to tackle another recognized event, this time the June Apple Knoll Horse Trials (Massachusetts). Not only was the venue nearby, but the Central New England Region Pony Club eventing rally was held in conjunction with the competition, meaning she could represent her club as well.
“It was an enormous undertaking to be doing a rally and a recognized event at the same time,” she said. “I remember pulling into the parking lot and thinking, ‘What did I sign myself up for?’ ”
It poured during their dressage test, causing Lauren to lose focus and make a mistake, but she was able to set that aside for a “fantastic” and clear stadium round, before heading to cross-country. With the day’s rain, she knew footing would be boggy and was prepared to pull up at any point.
“He jumped everything ears forward,” she said. “Toward the end of the course, he pulled a shoe. I heard it go whizzing by me. I started to pull him up, but Holden said absolutely not. He had seen the last three fences; they were all in a line, and he just carried me over them. It was incredible.
“I finally finished my first recognized event in 10 years,” she continued. “It was such a victory for me, but it was also such a victory for him, because he had been through so much. Life has knocked him around a lot, and he still has this unflappable attitude where he shows up every single day at the gate like, ‘What do you have in store?’ ”
Lauren looks forward to many more years with her favorite Thoroughbred, and possibly a move up to novice in eventing. When she has time, Lauren is also producing a young Hanoverian named Evie, whom she hopes might help her pursue national level Pony Club certifications, allowing Holden to enjoy a more leisurely pace of life.
“I’m taking it one day at a time, because I think if I put too many expectations on him, it might not be ethical or fair,” Lauren said. “He is the perfect amateur horse. He’s there for me; I can ride him, and he says yes to anything I ask. He is so honest. For me, he is the textbook Thoroughbred, and every single day with him is a blessing.”
Do you know a horse or rider who returned to the competition ring after what should have been a life-threatening or career-ending injury or illness? Email Kimberly at kloushin@coth.com with their story.