FWIW, I’ve been told this stallion is HUGE in the sporthorse breeding industry.
But.
When I was flipping through the HorseTrader yesterday, I was stunned to see a full-page ad that was all about saying farewell to their 32-year-old (read: ANCIENT) stallion.
It included several photos of him, as one might expect. And then a few you wouldn’t.
Like…HIS CORPSE IN THE FIELD! BLEH! …With his owner lying on top of him. (Look, I understand that, but to share that with the whole horseworld??) Then…another shot of his corpse being sniffed by another horse, apparently his grandson (with a caption describing what he’s “thinking”…“I’ll make you proud, grandfather.”)
It also included some (sorry, but it is) really bad poetry dedicated to this horse, as well as a few hokey lines here and there…something like “if heaven had a gateway, and memory a lane, I’d walk right up to heaven and take you home again.”
It also had details on his impending Memorial Service. (It’s today, if y’all want to go.) …And a farewell comment from the owner to her horse, saying her ashes would be joining his someday. (!)
I’m a little conflicted about mocking her grief…I mean she had the horse for a verrrrrrry long time. But this just seemed a bit…much.
I’ll see if the ad is online and come back and link it if I find it.
Hey, I loved my grandpa like you wouldn’t believe, but I didn’t run a full-page ad in AARP Monthly with pictures of me laying on his body after he died (One, because there are no pictures of me laying on his body after he died. And two, even if I had and there were pictures, I wouldn’t publish them).
Yes, this lady is way creepy.
Happy
My sister-in-law had two horses. One recently died. I think she put her down. Anyhoo, she paid $700 for the burial and is PICKING OUT A HEADSTONE. Her other one is in ill health and she will be buried with him because he’s her soulmate. To each his own, I guess…
Yes, but remember, if it hadn’t been for her horse, she never would have had that year in college.
The pictures of the corpse thing is totally bizarro.
I mean… yuck.
And… laying down on the body? Triple yuck.
Alas, it appears the online edition of the HorseTrader doesn’t have this ad. I’m half tempted to go grab a copy and scan it (although it won’t be the greatest quality).
I can kinda understand seeing a beloved pet of 20+ years dead in a field, collapsing and crying over it. But…to photograph it. And…publish it?? Cuh-reepy. (To help you visualize it…horse is, uh, dead, lying on its side. Owner is up by his head, her arms wrapped around his neck and her face pressed against it. She is lying down in a kind of fetal position, curled up against him–not exactly on him.)
Hello Again, maybe you’ve heard of this stud. When I was at the barn yesterday and shared my incredulousness over the ad with other boarders, a few mentioned how HUGE this stallion was. “You don’t understand how important that horse was…” Perhaps not, but even when Secretariat died nothing quite like THIS was published. The stud’s name was something like Graf Gotthold…I did a search but found nothing, so maybe I’m misspelling it. He died last week–any of this seem familiar to you? I’m not up on my warmblood breeding programs…
People have strange attachments to dumb animals, especially horses. Because of their size and strength I can’t help but suspect that for some people a horse becomes a surrogate father figure. How’s that for psycho-babble?
My daughter is still bugging me to put up some sort of monument for her little grade gelding who died some two years ago. What I can’t tell her is that when one of her great-grandfather’s horses died he skinned it and fed the carcass to the hogs. Times have changed. Grandpa saw his horses as machinery and was no more sentimental about them than one of us would be about a pick-up truck or a lawn mower. He treated them well because they were a valuable and useful asset, but when they wore out they were no longer valuable or useful. He didn’t keep them around for the sake of companionship. The British, who generally are as goofy about horses as anyone you can think of, still destroy the ceremonial horses at Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards Parade when they get too old and feeble to be used. There is no sentimental clap trap about being turned out to pasture for a well earned retirement. According to my father the fire horses in Cleveland received the same treatment. My daughter, on the other hand, saw her horse as a friend, one who never let her down. I have no idea what the horse thought of her.
Well I am not sure about that particular horse, but I know that the Graf line is a big jumper/dressage line. If he is that old, he is probably one of the main studs…
Oh yea, I agree. Talk about vanity ad gone wrong. I wonder what COTH would’ve done if that ad had been submitted to them?
Well I picked up a copy of the HorseTrader this afternoon, and alas, being printed in black-and-white in newsprint, there’s no way a scan will do it justice.
But, oh, I stand corrected. The woman is curled up in the fetal position on the horse’s neck, not next to him. Yick.
The poem is truly terrible, but I’d feel mean posting it. (It’s not by the owner, apparently…someone else.) Of course, that won’t necessarily stop me from doing that, sans name of course. 
The horse’s name is Graf Gotthold Z, if that means anything to anyone.
Ruffian, I was guessing that he was the sire of Graf George, Gunter Seidel’s famous Grand Prix dressage horse (and 2-time Olympic bronze medalist), but apparently not… But with the names being so similar I bet they are related somehow.
Apparently Gotthard was at one time (maybe still is) the leading sire for money earned by his offspring in showjumping.
Still no reason to throw yourself into the grave beside him…
