The Life of Bill so far….. xxx

by Sophie Cartwright

(Buckinghamshire)

This is a long story, but please read…

We first bought Bill when he was only 6 years old and I was 9. He is a 14hh Irish Cob. He had a lovely personality and was turned out in the field all year round. I tried him out on a hack and he was as good as gold. In the end we bought him and took him back to our yard that only had winter turnout; what a big mistake that was!

As he was a youngster and had all that energy from being in a stable, he was always spooky when mum rode him (I was a little too small to ride him at first). Nearly every week, Mum fell off. He didn’t do anything naughty; he just turned around and ran away! He used to get so scared in the indoor school that he would gallop around without stopping. In the end, Mum had to jump off while he was still galloping! We decided to move yards six months later as we knew that he wasn’t settling in. The yard we moved at had all year turnout so it suited him perfectly.

I began to ride him and gained my confidence; yes he did the odd spook, but that only made me more confident.

He has always loved his jumping, has done the odd competition, most local sponsored rides and loved them all!

Bill has always been such a little angle in the 8 years of having him. He has never been lame however, the last year or so has been a rollercoaster…

At the beginning of the year we realized that he was starting to lose weight, but we just thought that because I was riding him more and getting him fit for pony camp. This was unfortunately not the case. Bill managed to get through camp (bless his heart) we realized that he was starting to get really tired and sluggish (Bill always had energy to jump and do flatwork but he didn’t even want to jump!). We called the vet out, she took some bloods and the results came back with Liver Failure. We took him in for a liver biopsy but the results came back negative due to the enormous amount of blood around it (this was because the liver wasn’t working properly and the blood wasn’t clotting). He was getting really thin, and even for a cob; that isn’t really common!