Farewell to Cherry
Last weekend we lost one of our favourite horses in Cherry who, in a freak accident, slipped into a drainage ditch by the river and became wedged under the wooden sleeper wall at the bottom. The Fire Brigade attended with 2 pumps from York and Malton and also 2 other incident vehicles along with the vet, John Somerville, from Boroughbridge. After a 3 hour operation which involved cutting away some of the sleeper supports at the bottom of the ditch, Cherry (who behaved impeccably throughout) was lifted out using a teleloader kindly lent by our neighbour Chris Roach from Oakland Farms. Cherry seemed uninjured apart from a few scrapes and we spent several hours trying to help her up but, as evening came, it was apparent that she had weakened to such an extent that the only option was to put her to sleep. The vet suggested that she may have damaged her back in the fall. We are very appreciative of the efforts of the Fire Brigade and vets who all did a brilliant job.
The photo shows Cherry being taken around the show jumps by Anna Prockter in her final Riding Holiday last month.