Today has become Munchkin's retirement day. We were out hunting with Farmington Hunt. We were on a run when he coughed a couple of times and then had bright red blood coming out of his nose and mouth. I got hi back to the trailer (thank god he is so independent) and got him over to the Blue Ridge Equine. By the time we got there the blood had slowed to a trickle. They examined him and scoped him and the vet called it Exercise Induced Cardio Pulmonary event. They didn't find the source of the bleed but it was probably way down the system. They also said he had an irregular heart beat.
So rather than taking the chance of this happening again and losing him in the middle of the hunt field, I retired him.
Munchkin is 20 years old and has been hunting almost exclusively first flight for 16 years. He is still really fast and could really jump. Just a week or so ago he did a hunt where he covered 10 miles, did 3500 feet of elevation and hit 26 MPH. So he was still in great condition and form.
Today he had two runs. The first came after we got to a funky bridge. Munchkin and another horse were across when the field decided to go around a different way. We were then tucked in behind the huntsman. The hounds hit and away we went. I had to really rate him back because I think he would have passed Mathew and just run with the hounds on his on. As far as Munch was concerned all was right in the world because he was first, in charge and on the run.
After that the hunt all got together again and it wasn't longer when the hounds hit again. We were running hard up a hill when the Munchkin and I took him in.
In a way, his retirement reminded me of Boomer's. Boomer had an arthritic knee we were treating and it was always on my mind that he could break down. So one day we had a great hunt and he had been spectacular. I was eating afterwards and someone asked about B. I just said he was retired.
So Like B, Munchkin got good runs in and retired.
He has done everything asked of him. He hunted for 16 years. He lead the fields and he whipped in. He hunted with the biggest and fastest hunts in VA. He hunted in NC, SC and GA.
I evented him. We crossed paths with Phillip Dutton a couple of times and Dutton always commented on what a nice horse he was. He had some great compliments from other 5* level riders. We won at 3' 6" jumpers. I did a trot puissance one time and he did 4'. Our miss at 4' 3" was my fault. He did dressage and was twice called by two different trainers "the most efficient moving horse".
He's still sound and we'll see how he does at retirement. He'll still do things like trail rides and keeping Wally or KC company when they need a buddy. My guess he will still jump the fence lines when he feels like it.
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