It’s never very comforting when owners refer to their broken limbs in connection with a horse. It reminds you what a risky business it all is. Of course, the difference between a nasty break and a few bruises can simply lie in the way you land. As they say, it’s not the falling that’s the problem, it’s the hitting the ground at the end of it.

In this case, as it turned out, the owner had hit the ground having slipped while feeding her chickens!

Sally wanted to do the best for her horse. She’d had his back checked, a new saddle fitted, and his teeth done. She’d had riding lessons. Confident that his problems weren’t physical, she’d ‘tried everything’ when riding him. By now I’d worked out what this was code for. ‘So what does he do when you hit him?’ I asked her, when we met.

‘Oh, that makes him far worse. He gets angry, rears, swishes his tail. And when I tried riding him in spurs, he just bucked me straight off. I didn’t try that again.’

I tried to stop myself from grinning. Horses put up with a lot, but they all have their limits. Joe clearly didn’t consider having bits of metal stuck into his ribs acceptable.

I stepped back and had a good look at him. He was in some ways a very beautiful horse, but he had an air of despair about him. He had an extraordinarily long, fine, elegant face, but his body looked like it had been through the wringer a few times. There were deep hollows along his back where years of ill-fitting saddles had dug into his flesh. He had thirteen lines of white hair seared into his skin on both front legs, a legacy of line firing, which used to be common practice in the treatment of tendon injuries. Hot irons or a blistering agent are applied to the tendons, in the expectation that the inflammation this causes will help the tendon to heal, by building up scar tissue. Although applied under anaesthetic, the treatment results in the horse being unable to move without pain for a considerable time. This is believed by some to be the only benefit of firing, as it means the horse has to be on box rest, and cannot be worked for a long time, even by the most over-zealous trainer. Even so, box rest is now considered of dubious benefit for most injuries.

Not surprisingly, he hated vets. He could sniff one out at a hundred paces, and Sally’s had become adept at long-range diagnosis as soon as he realised the perils of close inspection. Scars rippled his hindquarters where he’d been hit by a bus when he’d panicked while being long-lined, and had broken through a fence onto a road. Overall, he had an ‘upside down’ look, where all the muscles along the top of his neck and back were virtually non-existent, and all the muscles on the underside of his body were bulging and tight from the effort of moving while resisting the discomfort of a rider on his back. No wonder he didn’t want to go anywhere.

He shifted uncomfortably under my gaze, and I had the feeling that he knew he was in a mess, and that he knew it wasn’t fair to have had that inflicted on him. A horse of natural grace and splendour, it was degrading for him to look such a wreck. If I’ve ever seen disappointment in a horse, I saw it in Joe; he’d given everything that had ever been asked of him, but it hadn’t got him anywhere. Now he’d given up. He expected nothing of anyone, and it would be easier all round if no one expected anything of him.

When I placed his new saddle on his back to check its fit, he stamped his foot and swished his tail. As I gently did the girth up, he not so gently tried to take a chunk out of me.

‘He’s always like that,’ Sally said.

It was easy to see why: his saddle was so narrow it was pinching his withers.

‘I did wonder about that, but my master saddler said it was fine. But it didn’t seem right that he should have such a violent reaction to it. I wondered if perhaps it was remembered pain?’

There’s some logic in this; if a horse is caused pain by, say, an ill-fitting saddle, they can have a negative association with any saddle, however comfortable it is. The reaction can fade over time, but you can still see some of the anticipation or the memory of the discomfort. However, Joe’s reaction was raw and current. He was telling Sally loudly and clearly that the saddle wasn’t right. Like so many people in her position, she had trusted the ‘experts’ rather than herself and her horse. Most owners could work out what their horses are telling them if they allow themselves to listen.

It was particularly uncomfortable for him to be mounted, as the weight in the stirrup caused the saddle to dig into his back even more on the other side. He tried to communicate this by moving away from the mounting block unless he was held by someone on the ground. Once the rider was on board, he was gentlemanly enough not to try to dislodge them, but he was determined he wasn’t going to go anywhere. I was not about to make him.

Joe came to Moor Wood for several weeks. Sensitive and intelligent, he went through the usual processes with a sort of disdainful good grace. Tarpaulin work was a little beneath him, and long-lining, after his horrific accident, clearly worried him, but introduced to it slowly, he overcame his fear. Sally and I led him up and down the steep Cotswold hills, and he gradually began to take an interest in his surroundings. His reluctance to go forward melted with the miles and soon we found our legs unable to match his enormous stride. Pennie Hooper, our massage therapist, began to smooth out the knots accumulated over years of tension, and he visibly softened. There was still a long way to go, but he was starting on the road to recovery.

‘You know, this horse has hurdled,’ Pennie said the first time she assessed him.

Pennie can look at a horse from 50 yards and the body will tell her the horse’s story. Her fingers fill in the details. She’s petite and slim, but her hands are like iron, and she’s got muscles like Popeye. With a shock of cropped blond hair and an assortment of trendy jewellery, when she pulls into a stable yard in her sky blue Porsche, she hardly comes across as a typical horsewoman. The establishment accepts her, however, because of the incredible depth of her knowledge of horse anatomy and movement. Most of her clients are competition riders who use her skills to get the best performance from their horses. We use her with almost every remedial horse we have in, to gain as much insight into the horse’s history and physical state as possible.

‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ I told her confidently. ‘He was a flat race horse.’

‘Maybe so, but he’s also definitely hurdled.’

Sally later confirmed what Pennie had known for certain. Joe had hurdled, but only for one season, several years ago. Because hurdling involves jumping at speed, the horse moves his forelimbs in a particular way, throwing them forward, as in a gallop stride, rather than tucking them under his chest, as in showjumping. This movement pattern is written in the muscles, and unless something is done to remove it, it stays there.

It’s not that I think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with hurdling. It’s just that any horse needs well-fitting tack, a careful fitness regime, support and maintenance, and the more intense the activity, the more help their bodies need to be restored to their healthy state after such stressful activity. Some of what we ask horses to do, on the other hand, does compromise them unnecessarily. We once did a lecture-demo at a riding club, and Pennie came along to assess the horses for us. One horse we were asked to work with was notoriously aggressive. Pennie took one look at him and said, ‘This horse is jumped with a tight martingale.’

This also turned out to be true. Unable to stretch his head and neck properly over fences, the horse was forced to use his body in a completely unnatural way. As a result, his muscles were like rock from head to toe. He was in constant pain. This horse, who greeted anyone he met with a flurry of teeth and hooves, stood quietly while Pennie eased his aching muscles, only shooting her the odd warning look when she went in deeper than he could bear.

Joe also told Pennie what he could cope with, and every time she saw him he was able to heal a little more.

With his body more comfortable, and a saddle that didn’t pinch, Joe began to reconsider his views on being ridden out. The early rides involved a lot of standing still and going backwards, but within a week or so he would quite happily ride out on his own or in company. We used an item of equipment called a ‘wip-wop’. This is just a piece of soft rope that you flick at the horse, touching him behind your leg on either side. Unlike a whip, it doesn’t hurt at all, but it’s an unpleasant, possibly annoying sensation, and also works in the horse’s visual field; the sight of something moving swiftly behind their head will often encourage forward movement. The trick to using the wip-wop lies in the timing. As soon as the horse moves forward, you have to stop using it, and in this way they learn how to ‘switch it off’. With Joe, however, there was an additional factor. If you used just slightly too strong an aid, it seemed to offend him, and he would point-blank refuse to move until he had recovered from his sense of wounded dignity. You had to ask him politely, not tell him what to do. I had some fantastic rides on him. His trot felt like he left you up in the air for minutes at a time, and in canter he seemed to cover 20 yards in one stride. The power coming up through him, even in his still far-from-perfect physical state, was breathtaking, and I longed for a race track to really let him loose on.

Sally successfully rode him at Moor Wood and also at home, but he was never really happy about the pigs, and she began to feel he wasn’t the right horse for her. Julia, however, had fallen for this noble, damaged creature, from the very first moment she set eyes on him, and it was decided that she should loan him from Sally, and continue to bring him on.

Julia spent all her hard-earned money and spare time trying to restore Joe to the horse he should have been or, at the very least, to make him comfortable in his own body again. It was a difficult healing process for him, and he seemed to find it hard to let go, as if it was only his tension that was holding him together. Julia longed to gallop him, but wouldn’t have minded if she never rode him again, so long as he was happy.

When Pennie wasn’t available, he was worked on by a Shiatsu practitioner, a rather abrasive woman of the ‘stand still and be healed!’ variety. She once pinched Joe on the lips when he tried to bite her (having warned her several times that he was unhappy with what she was doing) and even slapped him on the rump when he didn’t want to let her into the scarred part of his body that had been hit by a bus. I thought Julia was going to deck the woman, but she managed a restrained ‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t hit my horse!’

Even so, Joe changed. He had a lot more energy and ‘presence’, and even began prancing around and showing off to the mares. His personality began to shine through, and he started to exhibit a real joie de vivre. Julia started riding him again, and they began to have fun together.

‘Julia’s having a bit of trouble with Joe. She can’t get him to move. She’s wondering if you could go down and have a look, and bring a headcollar.’

I hurried down to the field. In the gloom, I could make out Julia standing next to Joe, who was resting a hind leg near the fence. I felt something drop inside me as her frightened eyes met mine.

‘I noticed he didn’t come over for his hay when I put it out for them, and it looks as though he can’t move. I think he might have been kicked.’

As soon as I saw the leg, I knew in my heart it was no good, but my head refused to believe it. It was puffy and swollen, and he wasn’t putting any weight on it.

‘Perhaps he’s pulled a tendon,’ I suggested hopefully. ‘Let’s get him inside, and then call the vet out.’

We tugged politely on the rope and he started to move forward obligingly. As soon as he tried to put that hind foot on the ground, however, it was clear that he simply couldn’t.

‘Or, on the other hand, let’s leave him here and the vet can look at him in the field.’

As I raced up the track to the house to call the vet, I couldn’t stop myself from crying, for I feared the worst. But I tried to be matter-of-fact as I told Danny and Adam about it, and when I called the vet I was able to speak quite calmly. By the time I got back down to the field to Julia, I was composed again.

‘I think it’s probably broken,’ she said. ‘Will you stay here with him while I go and get him some food while we wait for the vet?’

Alone with Joe, I put my arm around his neck, a gesture he would normally shrug off. He turned and nuzzled me.

‘I don’t think you’re going to make it,’ I told him.

He already knew.

Joe seemed pleased to be brought an impromptu feed and chewed calmly and thoughtfully. Not normally a demonstrative horse, he seemed glad of the company, and accepted having his neck stroked and his mane smoothed most graciously. When Danny arrived he acknowledged him with a ‘how nice of you to come’ sort of expression.

Adam arrived with the vet, Greg, shortly afterwards. By now it was dark, and he had to park in the gateway and shine his lights, full beam, into the field, where we stood with Joe and some of our horses, who were milling around, unaware of what was happening. A quiet man with a soft Australian accent, Greg introduced himself to Julia and said hello to Joe before walking around to have a look at his leg. He felt it gently, and then straightened up and looked at Julia.

‘I’d like to sedate him so I can have a proper look and assess the damage. Is that all right?’

Julia nodded her assent, and Greg scrambled through the mud to his car to collect his equipment. Joe watched him leave and return with a calm interest.

Sedated, he showed no concern as Greg palpated his leg.

‘I’m afraid it’s no good. It’s completely fractured, and not at all likely to be fixable. I don’t think he’d ever be free from pain.’

Julia’s eyes brimmed with tears, but her voice remained steady. One hand stroking Joe’s neck, she looked Greg straight in the eyes.

‘All right. Tell me what we do next then.’

As Greg talked her through the procedure, she listened intently, questioning him from time to time. Protective to the end, she wasn’t going to let Joe suffer if she could possibly help it. Satisfied that he would die painlessly, she nodded. ‘Just give us all a minute to say goodbye.’

I felt utterly helpless. Without the adrenaline that comes from being directly responsible in a situation, there was nothing holding me together. I couldn’t believe what was happening. The thought of Joe’s life being so abruptly terminated was almost unbearable. Worse was the grief and pain that Julia was feeling, and there was nothing I could do about it. Stepping forward to say goodbye, I knew I was in the presence of a great spirit.

As the drugs coursed through his veins, he looked surprised for a moment and then sank gently to the ground. Julia knelt beside him in the mud, stroking his long nose again and again. After a minute or two, Greg crouched down and gently pressed his stethoscope to his chest. He looked up and nodded. ‘He’s gone.’

We all felt a strange sense of gratitude to Greg, whom we had only just met. He had made a terrible situation bearable, and had treated Joe with so much care and respect. He said gently, ‘He seemed a very noble horse. He died with true grace.’

Julia and I fetched a tarpaulin to protect Joe from the buzzards. We hung the lantern torch on the fence next to him. The warm glow made it seem a less desolate place for him to be lying as the frost began to crystallise on the grass around his body. He was finally free from all the pain he had carried around for so many years. Feeling numb, we walked back to the house.

Over a whisky, we all talked and remembered. There was a shared sense of having witnessed something truly remarkable, and we all felt honoured to have been part of it, to have shared Joe’s last moments. Joy, gratitude and love mixed with grief, sadness, and loss.

The other horses in the field came over and investigated when we pulled the tarpaulin back the next morning, but Ben, a livery horse who came in at nights, was devastated when he found Joe lying in the field. He sniffed him all over and whinnied in distress, nudging him gently to try to get him up. He didn’t leave his side, and when the transporter from the crematorium came to remove Joe, he was frantic, hovering around, getting in the way, trying to stop them taking his friend away. As the trailer containing Joe’s body drove up the track, Ben’s plaintive neighs were heartbreaking.