“Chordae tendineae rupture.” “Mitral valve prolapse.” “Congestive heart failure.” “Palliative care is the only option.” I typed out these words as the equine cardiologist said them into the phone because I knew I wouldn’t remember them. All I felt was shock.

A few days earlier, the friend who was leasing my longtime eventing partner messaged me about their perfect cross-country school. The plan was to compete the following weekend. I was excited for her. Seventy-two hours later she texted to say my horse was struggling to breathe, and she was calling the vet. Now he was at the emergency clinic, and an echocardiogram revealed there would be no more eventing in his future, no more gallops, no more jumps.

At 19 years old, his career as a riding horse was over, and his days were numbered. We could euthanize immediately or try to stabilize him and bring him home, where the everyday acts of trotting or rolling might prove too much for his failing heart.

If I’d been with him at the clinic, I might have chosen to euthanize in that moment. But I was half a country away, exploring a horseless life for the first time in 25 years. The cardiologist assured me he wasn’t in pain, and that it would be OK to try to bring him home for a little while. Maybe we could buy enough time for me to fly back to see him.

Fifteen years earlier I’d gone to Georgia to try a 4-year-old off-track Thoroughbred with a wide blaze and a big jump. “Joshua” had what looked like an old bow on his left front, and at 15.3 he was a bit small for me, but I loved his athleticism. I was 29, and he was the first horse I purchased with my own money. “Go slow to go fast,” my trainer told me, so we took our time moving up the levels. Josh hated the sound of falling rails and spooked if another rider reprimanded their mount. He would choose a random horse in the warm-up to spook and spin away from. It took two years before judges stopped commenting “explosive” for our canter transitions.

But baby horses grow up, and he eventually settled and figured out the game. We contested preliminary events up and down the East Coast, placed well in our first three-day together, and I started planning the move up to intermediate. Josh was as good as I hoped he would be, and thanks to him, I was riding at competitions I’d only ever spectated at before. 

Then I turned 34 and decided to prioritize starting a family over meeting my amateur riding goals. I competed Josh until I was four months pregnant, stopped riding at seven months, and then turned him over to a talented friend who put some intermediate miles on him. Two days before my son was born, I laboriously jogged around the cross-country course, cheering them on. The attending EMT and veterinarian joked about whose job it would be to deliver my baby.

I returned to competing Josh six months after giving birth. I tried to do it all: work, take care of a baby, and compete at the FEI levels. Sometimes I was successful. A lot of times I wasn’t. I was always tired. We got close to my dream of entering a CCI3*-L, but then the biological countdown started again, and I accepted I wasn’t returning to that level with a baby and a toddler in tow.

After my daughter was born, my riding life took on a different tone. I still competed when I had the time and resources to do so, but I’d lost the fire to keep trying to move my now-teenaged mount up the levels. Joshua didn’t care. He still loved to go cross-country, but he seemed equally happy practicing his flying changes at home or providing pony rides to tiny treat-dispensers whose legs didn’t extend past the saddle flap. When my son turned 7, he explained to me that his elderly pony was too slow, and he’d prefer to ride Josh now.

Throughout my 20s and early 30s, horses were what I did, who I was. My work, my free time, my dreams: They all revolved around the equestrian world. Now I was moving into the next phase of life: changing jobs, dedicating Saturdays to soccer instead of horse shows, and, eventually, moving halfway across the country to try a horseless existence for a time. But even though I wasn’t physically near him, Joshua was the tie that kept me connected to that world. He was only 19. I thought I had another decade with him, and I cherished a small fantasy that he would take my son to his first event.

Now I was racing against the clock to say goodbye. My equestrian support network sprang into action as I reached out with the news. A veterinarian friend made sure he got extra love and attention at the hospital. Two different friends took point on transportation, spending their precious hours driving Josh to and from the clinic. Instead of competing him, the friend who was leasing him took vacation days to hand graze him on the most choice bits of lawn in between coaxing multiple syringes of medication down his throat. My barn tenant offered her expertise and found a solution for the medication he wouldn’t take in molasses, sweet feed, apple sauce, apples, Fig Newtons or donuts. I made plane reservations and checked my phone first thing each morning to make sure we hadn’t lost Josh overnight.

Two days before I was set to arrive, he had a bad day. All four legs stocked up—a sign his heart was struggling to function—and he refused to leave his stall. I hadn’t been sure we were going to euthanize him during my trip home, but now I wasn’t sure he could wait until I got there. My friend asked him to hold on a little longer. She sent me a photo of him with his ears perked and the reassurance that he’d rallied.

I arrived in Virginia on a sunny Sunday afternoon and drove straight to the farm, only stopping to purchase a bag of apples on the way. My friend met me there, and we walked out to the field together. Josh—more prone to pinned ears and bared teeth than snuggles—seemed pleased to see me and accepted an apple offering. He refused to go in his stall due to his annoyance with his medication regimen, but he consented to follow me to a particularly good clover patch outside the paddock fence. He was OK for now, but it was clear his quality of life was deteriorating, and the kindest thing to do was to let him go.

For the next two days, my equestrian community held me tight. They took me to lunch, hosted me in the evenings, toasted Josh with champagne, offered to take my place at his side if I didn’t feel up to witnessing those last difficult moments that make up equine euthanasia. I grazed him for hours and fed him as many treats as he would eat. My vet rearranged her schedule and gave me every minute possible to say goodbye in my own time. That final day my phone pinged non-stop with texts of support, comfort, and, of course, a couple of terrible inappropriate jokes, because let’s be real. We’re horse people. 

I’d thought I wouldn’t be able to leave the farm fast enough after it was over, but instead I lingered, sitting next to the bare earth and small pile of rocks the backhoe driver had placed in a makeshift memorial. I felt both at peace with my decision and numb with the sorrow of knowing I’d never look through his perked ears again. He’d carried my hopes, my ambitions, and the literal weight of those most precious to me. He’d been my friend for the past 15 years, offering comfort and the occasional kick in the pants (usually not literally) when I needed it. He’d been an important part of my family, of my identity, and now I pondered who I was without him. But in his death, he gave me one last gift: the reminder that one doesn’t need to compete or ride or own a horse to be part of the equestrian community. Josh may be gone, but the human connections he helped spark and grow remain, and they sustain me. Whatever lies ahead in my life’s journey, I’ll always be a horsewoman at heart, and my tribe will be there for me, sharing the knowledge of what it means to have the love for these magnificent animals galloping through your veins.

Sara Lieser grew up in Maine and learned about eventing through the U.S. Pony Clubs. She worked in professional barns before, during and after college and eventually landed an internship at the Chronicle, where she stayed for the next 17 years, working her way up to managing editor. Sara and her husband Eric own a small farm in Virginia and have two children and an evolving cast of animals. Sara left the Chronicle to pursue a master’s degree in social work and is currently taking a gap year from horses while her family explores life in Colorado.