The day my life changed and how my horses shared it with me.
It was the day my life changed forever. The day I was inducted into the C-Club.
I had gone into hospital 5 days before for an operation for a benign enlarged prostate. Something very common in men as they get older. The operation is called a TURP and is basically a reboring of the urethra to enable me pee as normal people do. The operation had been a success with only one little problem when a blood clot had blocked the catheter and had had to be cleared, which was pretty painful and I was really pleased to be leaving after 5 days lying in that bed.
During this procedure a routine biopsy had been done and that morning expecting to be discharged the specialist just dropped the news, very casually as well. “Mr Pike the biopsy shows a large malignant tumour, you have an aggressive high risk prostate cancer.”
Boom.
When I get news like this my default reaction is to go completely calm and ask questions. The obvious question to ask was how bad, has it spread? Well the only way to find out was to do a few tests a CT Scan and Bone scan and that involves drinking revolting unflavoured chemical milkshakes and being injected with stains and posted into the gaping mouth of machines that buzzed and hissed.
Some hours later I had met the doctor, with the results that there were no other tumours but it was in the nerve system and the lymph system so the possibility that microscopic escapees that could set up further problems still existed. This has indeed proved to be the case but that’s a story for another time.
Suddenly things got urgent and I was told that there was no time to lose and that as soon as I had healed from this op I had better get into surgery pronto. The urologist telling me that I was in a very tiny window or time. Wow, that’s pretty big news, especially for someone as healthy as I am or thought I was.
What would you do if you had been in hospital for 5 days and had heard that things weren’t as good as you thought? For me since I was a child and now ever since I got back to polo a few years back the answer was very easy. Go and talk to the horses.
So that’s what I did.
I drove out to the club where my horses were living, stopped my car and walked into the paddock. That’s when the magic happened. It first started when I was talking to Emperor’s Spirit. I was rubbing her poll, the little bump on a horses head between her ears, My other filly, Royal Bid walked up from behind me and put her head under my free arm and I started rubbing her ears and poll as well. It must have looked sweet to any onlooker, me standing in the paddock with a chestnut filly under each arm.
Images Clockwise. 1) Capture the Crown, 2) Indigo Amigo and Court Dress move in, 3) Royal Bid moves up as the other two leave, 4) Royal Bid and Sun Emperor.
Then Emperor’s Spirit did something strange she bent her head down and started sniffing my tummy area and nuzzling the area where I had had the operation. How remarkable, I really believed that she was telling me to recover. Of course it may have just been hospital smell — who knows, how could she possibly know. I walked around chatting to the others and then because I was feeling weak went to sit on the ground with my back leaning up against a fence pole.
It wasn’t much later when along came Capture the Crown to chat to me. He then did something really strange he bent down and took the toe of my boot into his mouth and started chewing it, very gently and then held it. I laughed and took out my iPhone and snapped him doing it. When I looked up all the horses were standing quietly in a queue. They came in two by two and all did exactly the same thing. Bent down and took the toe of my boot in their mouth and chewed it then settled holding it, let go then walked off.
When Sun Emperor when had finished he called out and did a half rear and stamped on the ground next to me. I don’t know what that was about. I don’t know if they knew something wasn’t right but I believe they did. I believe that they were wishing me well.
A lot has happened in the two years since then some of it because of the cancer, some of it because of the side effects of all the drugs and the hormone treatment. The side effects much more debilitating than the actual illness. Business has been bad, expenses have been high.
No matter how tough it’s got though these horses have kept me going. My outlook changes when I walk into their paddock, when I swing myself onto their backs. When they are stretched out at full gallop on the polo ground.
I would rather starve than allow them to feel hardship and even that’s happened in this time.
Thank you for being in my life, my six ex-racehorses.
