GOODBYE, GAMUT
Passed away 11/1/19

 


Dear Gamut is gone. My Gamootus-patootus. The cancer which was evident when she joined TGCs herd began to eat her up. Suddenly, despite eating massive amounts as always, Gamut started melting away. She began to be weak, her hocks hurt worse than usual, and I realized it was time to let her go.

This is Gamut and Boo - unusually close, but what a cute couple!

 

This is Gamut and Ronan - see, not TOO close, but always in sight

Dear Gamut (pronounced Gah-Moot here) was an ex polo lesson horse. When those bad hocks made it too hard, she was left alone in a pasture, and the instructor there told me she never moved. Here at TGC, she roamed slowly around the field, mostly keeping Ronan and Boo (HER ‘boys’) in sight and eating eating eating. I gave her some pain meds as needed, which helped her. And I watched her diet carefully, as she simply got rounder and rounder, almost entirely on the Bermuda grass hay!

Gamut was a strong woman who wanted to be alone. Her fascination with Ronan and Boo aside, she didn’t have a lot of use for horses – and was particularly happy with my first choice of a stall for her. She was on a line end – meaning only one neighbor – and situated such that if she came back early and was in her stall, she could mess with every other horse as they had to pass her to get to their stalls! She had serious attitude! She’d stand at her fence, and as they approached, she’d lay back her ears and sometimes even lunge at them if they were ‘too close’. As they dashed past panicking, she’d .. well, I swear she grinned. I could almost hear her chuckle! I honestly believe it was the high point of her days.

awaiting her next victim

Is that all of them? Dang...

Don’t get me wrong. The other horses never messed with her. In stalls or in field, she was always left alone. That’s how she wanted it, and that’s how it was. She slowly followed Ronan and Boo around – but she was rarely close to them, just in sight. She was a strong woman. All she needed was plenty of food! I bet she was a tough one on those polo fields. I have always had a soft spot for the feisty ones.

Here she is, demanding I get those buckets ready for dinner!

She was little – and like a lot of little women, had a weight problem since she loved to eat, anything, anytime, anywhere. I worried about her foundering, so left her to eat all the grass hay she could manage, and kept her buckets lean. But how could I not give her a cookie in the morning? Or her carrots at night? The darling would poke her nose out and gently nicker, encouraging me to hurry up with that bucket! Every night.

Before you leave this, click Gamut's name at the top, and look at her page. See who she was. Remember her.

Gamut’s silvery coat gleamed in the sun, and her eyes were bright, so this loss seemed somehow worse. But I didn’t want to wait so long that she’d lay down and be unable to get up from weakness; or for the pain to increase. And while horses can have cancerous tumors that don’t change much for a long time, once they do, the end is usually swift. I’ve lost horses in a sudden spasm of agony, I’d rather it didn’t get to that. My girl died munching on her favorite cookies and carrots – just how she’d have wanted it. And part of me died too. Bye bye, Mootie ….

My favorite Gamootus shot - Fat, alone, watching everyone. Beauty