Golondrina
Rescued: March 22, 2014
Passed away: July 30, 2018

Golondrina (Goldie for short) came to us with severe laminitis and retracted tendons due to being fed rubbish and kept on her own in a small enclosure for years.

The laminitis caused this old lady’s pedal bone to rotate down onto the sole of her hoof, and Goldie retracted her tendons in an attempt to relieve the pain. Over time, the tendons begin to stay like that – kind of like a woman who wears high heels all her life, then finds it difficult to wear flat shoes. It’s pretty serious with a horse though because, as the old saying goes, “no foot, no horse”.

So in late 2014 we sent Goldie off to Gasper and his specialist team at Equihealth Veterinary Clinic in Barcelona. They operated on both her front legs to lengthen the tendons again, which was hugely successful.

For the next four years, Goldie’s wore special rock-and-roll shoes, which rolled at the front when she walked, dramatically helping her movement. It was incredible to see the comfort and ease this gave our Goldie – she even found herself a boyfriend in our devilishly handsome boy Diplomat!

However, in late 2016 she began to suffer with problems again. This time, incredibly, and with the help of our fantastic vet Dorothea, we found giving Goldie Botox treatment actually gave her much relief.

This experimental treatment – which is starting to become common for horses in America, but has rarely been used in Spain – enabled her to continue living out in the fields with her best pal Bella and the rest of her family: Diplomat, Mystery and Nakita.

But in July 2018, Goldie began to deteriorate again. We tried again with every treatment available, including more Botox, but our darling Goldie was just suffering and there was nothing we could do but make that awful but necessary decision to let her go peacefully.

We will miss our sweet girl Goldie terribly.