Description
Traveler was rescued from a livestock auction in Texas. Our big 3 year old baby Traveler. He is now taller than the draft horses, he is massive. He has to wear shoes to keep his front foot comfortable that he had foundered in before we rescued him. He's sound with his shoes! He's just growing and living his best life out on pasture right now.
March 21st, 2025
It took me a few days to be in a mental place to share, but we said goodbye to our beautiful big baby, Traveler. Life wasn’t fair to give him but you’d never know. He was the happiest, goofiest giant we’ve ever met. He was always trying to make friends with everyone, and I mean everyone! The young horses, old horses, cows over the fence, camels over the fence. Our trainer Sheridan put it best. We’ve never seen anything as happy as Travvy, even though he was dealt the worst cards. But you’d never know if on his good days, and even on his sore, bad days he still had the sweetest kindest face. Traveler fought for over a year to try correct his front right which has foundered before coming to us , we had got it pretty under control and then went in for a routine x ray check up and his coffin bone had completely rotated back down. He was only 2 when he got here (and 18 hands!) and he was so heavy and only growing. The weight gain was obviously impossible to avoid on a growing baby, but made his foot much worse. We tried so many different shoes trying to keep him comfortable and with us, everyone loved him so. He started having less good days between the sore days. We knew it was inevitable but it was one of the hardest goodbyes for our team. His last day he sat with a bucket of alfalfa under him and had an endless cookie train between myself, Brook and Lyndi. He was used to needles from all his sedations from different shoe jobs, so his ending was so peaceful. He was here eating cookies, and then he was gone. He left a huge hole here at SMRR. When his body was taken all the horses stopped and watched, every single one. It was like the whole herd was paying their respects to our gentle giant. Even Jumbo (our camel) called to him and followed the truck that took him to bury him. I know many of our online family loved Traveler as well, he’d been here with us for so long. Just know he had the best life and the longest, fair life this 3 year old could have. ♥️