Sleep now my beautiful boy.

[Marie1]

From reading this thread (have not seen other threads started by op) it seems that this is a situation where the op has loaned a horse at a very young age and without a huge amount of experience under her belt. It would appear that she had sole financial responsibility for the horse. I think the owners of the horse knew he would break once in work - obviously we don't know whether or not this was disclosed to op before she took him on. Horse then did break and op was not in a financial position to handle this, coupled with the fact that she may not have the experience to deal with it either. When she asked owners to take him back, they passed the buck to her, taking advantage of her age and inexperience, resting the responsibility with her. Reading between the lines, I believe this horse may have had problems for some time, which should have been dealt with by his owners, instead if just loaning him out to an unsuitable home (no offence meant by this, just saying things as I interpret them here).

Lots of forum members have said over and over again on numerous threads that there is a worse fate for a horse than the bullet - I believe this to be true. Say the owners had taken horse back, what if they had buted up to the eyeballs and loaned out to someone else? Would that have been the right thing to do? This horse is no longer in pain, he is out of harm's way. Sadly there is nothing more can be done for him.

OP, I believe you took this horse on and found yourself out of your depth with this situation. This is not meant to sound cruel in any way, just honest advice, but in the future please think very carefully about whether you are in a position to take another horse on. Any horse can need veterinary attention at any time in its life - you need to be prepared for this financially. If you cannot care for a horse for better or worse then it may be best to wait until you are in a position to be able to do so.

RIP Whisper x

Nothing unfair has been said here, perhaps I lacked knowledge I should have had with an inured horse, but due to this being my first full loan I had never had the responsability of such a horse on my hands, and I took advice from others as gospel which was retrospectively wrong. I would just like to point out though that I did have him insured but that circumstances out of my control and not known of at the time I took him on, other than his lameness contributed to my need to give him back for an indefinite amount of time.

 

[Adopter]

I feel a bit bad for the OP...

The horse is gone now, rightly or wrongly the horse can't have anymore 'wrong' doings done to him now.

Not going to write anymore but don't think OP horrid for putting this horse down.

I agree, the horse had an uncertain future, how often do we read don't pass on an older lame animal. Better a month too soon than a day too late.

This is a very emotive topic some forum members have recently lost very loved horses and ponies, so the thread reminds them of their loss.

However OP you seem to have done your best based on the advice and instructions given by others, in my view others have more responsibility in this than OP. The horse is now beyond pain and being moved around different homes, so he is not suffering.