Death And Resurrection At Ardmore Golf Course

A quarter horse dies, and his 'mule' buddy mourns until he senses the risen friend.

Kokanee Breeze, a sorrel quarter horse with white socks and a star on his forehead, had lived on Ardmore Golf Course with a pasture pal, a giant seventeen-hand mule named Thunder Thumper, the dappled son of an appaloosa mare and a mammoth jack donkey from the Pyrenees. Seven donkeys and hundreds of golfers were their friends. Golfers sliced, hacked and hooked around them as they day grazed in the Gary Oak meadow between fairways one and two. Inhaling and exhaling primal yells the donkeys would announce the new day, as mist rose and golfers teed up. Never much into running, Thumper would graze slowly muzzle to ground, often with a pair of miniature Sicilian donkeys under his white belly. Kokanee would race around Thumper and the donkeys like he was practicing tight turns in a barrel race.

Now, after twenty-five years of whining, galloping, frisking and rearing Kokanee could hardly walk. His legs and ankles were swollen with retained water. It was time to spare him further pain. We led him to a spot where flowers could grow after a backhoe burial. Thumper watched from a distance. The veterinarian injected the first of two syringes. I held Kokanees’ head and braced against his shoulder so that as he started to lose consciousness I could guide his collapse onto a white tarpaulin.

Once Kokanee was down we spoke our goodbyes and expressed our thanks for his life. My wife and I looked into our pets’ eyes, smelled his quarter horse hair and tried to accept our decision. Then the vet injected the second dose that stops the heart. A ripple of energy seemed to vibrate through Kokanee’s body; legs and ears moved. Suddenly, Thumper looked toward the golf course, and walked to the gate. It was as if Kokanee had gone to the golf course and Thumper wanted to find him.

Thumper had often experienced separation anxiety when Kokanee left for shows and competitions. It is a fact that horses, donkeys and mules forge strong bonds with each other. If a partner dies, the surviving equine must be allowed to mourn, must be allowed to come to terms with the loss some how. I expected that Thumper would be sad and would grieve loudly.

When the backhoe came Thumper looked the other way. He refused to watch as I folded the white tarp over Kokanee’s face and shoulder. He didn’t see us sprinkle the first soil with our hands before the machine did the back fill. He stood with his back towards the machine and noise. His huge ears were directed towards the Gary Oak Meadow. He announced his intention with his mule voice. “ Let’s find Kokanee,” was that what he said? A mules’ voice is neither like that of a donkey nor like that of a horse. Thumper’s sound is deep and resonant followed by a brief wheeze. His calling had the sound of distress, fear, and separation anxiety. Tears flowed from my vein stressed eyes.

Thumpers almond eyes were searching intently for something.

Standing at the gate, Thumper lifted his head skyward and like a moose calling in rut to the moon and his mate he brayed. He made twenty trumpets an hour. By nightfall I had spoken to our neighbours to explain what had happened. By next morning Thumper was still trumpeting. I was sleepless. I had been back and forth from house to paddock. I could not calm him. He wanted out and seemed to yearn for the golf course haunts of he and Kokanee.

The relationship between Thumper and Kokanee had been as close as that of the donkey, Dapple with Don Quixote’s steed, Rocinante. These two friends, Cervantes writes,” used to approach and rub each other, most lovingly, and after they’d rested and refreshed themselves, Rocinante would lay his neck across Dapple’s,” for long afternoons. Cervantes marveled at the depth and sincerity of their emotion and despaired that humans,” don’t know how to maintain their friendships” like horses and donkeys. So it was with Thumper and Kokanee. Nothing would separate these boys.

I opened the paddock gate. Looking for Kokannee, he took me to a grassy field near the seventh fairway. He inhaled and exhaled his strident call, head up, then down. His alert mule ears turned independently in different directions like satellite antennae. Next he led me around the reservoir berms that over look the golf course. He and Kokanee had run on the reservoir walls and slopes. He vocalized again. Then he took me through the Gary Oak Meadow across to the golf academy. No one was there. Now he pulled me to the brink of the small pond for a drink.

He put his right foot into the water just where the pond had been deepened. Falling onto his right shoulder Thumper rolled into the pond and submerged. Moments later he broke the surface and swam to me. My old mule struggled in vain to stand. Every time he tried he slid on mud and collapsed. He made ten or more lengthy thrashing attempts. How much could his old heart take? Calling for him to try again my heart was breaking. Tears rolled from my eyes. My lungs heaved. Suddenly he was lying in three feet of water with his nose almost under. I moved to him quickly and held his muzzle above water. He was motionless except for his deep breathing.

I cell-phoned the pro shop. I screamed through tears that I had a crisis “Come soon, I said, “As many as possible, NOW. With ropes and tractor to pull Thumper out of the pond.”

I spoke to my mule. I looked into Thumpers’ almond eyes where I could see my reflection. I was a complete wreck of emotion and panic. Was death taking my old friend Thumper like he had taken Kokanee hours before?

I reminisced with Thumper, how we had been to fairs, western riding competitions; how we had camped and packed west of Manning Park; had climbed seven thousand feet into alpine meadows. My voice trembled as I sobbed my thoughts.

A growing noise from motorized equipment filled my adrenalin-sensitized ears. The roar increased exponentially until suddenly over the ridge helicopter gunships clattered in a Korean cavalry charge to the rescue. It was the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, M.A.S.H., of television fame. Motorized help had arrived; two tractors, one triplex greens mower, two golf cars, a sit on rotary blade rough cutter and a backhoe.

When Thumper saw and heard the backhoe his eyes turned white with fright. With a herculean effort he pushed himself to the limit and arose from the pond dripping muddy water in the dawning sunrise. Seven combustion engines stopped. The club manager, superintendent, and greens-keepers fixed their eyes on Thumper and me. Deep silence prevailed; not even a golfers’ call of fore through the morning mist, only the sound of ripples on the pond.

One greens-keeper said, “ We got the rope.”

“Thanks, thanks for coming,” I spluttered from my mud-splattered face. “Thumper hates that backhoe.” I grabbed Thumpers’ halter before he could bolt away and then called the vet to examine him.

With thanks in my heart I have decided to walk with Thumper daily. Like Robert Louis Stevenson in his “Travels with a donkey in the Cevennes” I travel the pathways, byways and meadows of North Saanich, B.C.

While Thumper snacks on dandelions or fresh shoots of grass by roadside and rural hedgerow, I lean on his warm flank and belly. I can feel his big heart beating, sense the movement of his expansive lungs and hear the swish of his tail while his white muzzle picks the next morsel. I use his tummy as a writing slope where I place my iPad. I am searching for our story, and as for Thumper, the way he stares when passing equine paddocks I swear that he is still looking for the risen Kokanee. That is when I console him from by bag of carrots and oats.