Horses are beautiful and dangerous creatures, kind of like a rose. If you hold the rose just right, their dangerous thorns will not prick you but if you grab the rose and yank it around, there will be a price to pay. When you are near a horse you have to approach it with a kind attitude. If you don't then the horse will remember the harsh way you treated it and when you're on its back, grabbing and yanking the reins, you will have to pay the price.


It was a cold winter New Year's eve when my horse, King, was taken away. Someone took my horse out and tied him up to a post with only a lead rope around his neck. Then something bad happened. Someone or something scared him. He started backing up, causing the rope to tighten with every step he took. It was so tight that he became unconscious, falling down with the rope still around his neck. His head rolled under the barn. Someone heard noises and rushed out to the barn. They saw my horse laying there, still. They freaked out and cut the rope and threw water on my horse. That instantly woke him. He started running around and around trying to figure out what just happened. After all that you would think someone would call an animal vet or something but all I got was a, "Don't worry about it! He will be fine! He will be as good as new next week when you come back." I tried to believe it, but something inside of me knew that he wouldn't be fine.


The next week my horse wouldn't eat anything. That surprised me because he always looked for treats in my back pocket, so I asked my mom to call a vet; yet again she denied my pleading.



My mother thought his stomach was upset and she told me to walk him around the round pen. I relentlessly did what my mother told me to do. While I was walking my friend I noticed something different about him, his dark black body turned slightly greyer and his long black mane looked a little bit lighter. His long Tennessee Walker face turned pale and his goofy expression he always had vanished. His slim and muscular body looked limp and his stomach hard as a rock. His small hoofs, two black and two white, looked weak. All of the sudden he collapsed. His gums turned white, eyes began to close, and he struggled to keep his breath. I freaked out. I began slapping him in his face, "Get up King! PLEASE!" I screamed but my screams were muffled by my sobs. I turned for help but no one was there so I began calling, "Someone help! My horse is DOWN!" Then my step father came rushing out of the barn five minutes after I started calling. I asked, "Are you deaf?! Can you not hear me screaming?" he told me to shut up and go to the house. After I said a few more words (that I would regret later) I stumbled to the house, trying so hard not to fall down.



My mother was out with her cousin, giving a Habitat Horse a home, so I couldn't talk to her about what had happened so I talked to my step sister, Jena. Finally my stepfather and his friends got him up. My step dad ran into his truck and sped off to get a vet, which I remind you that I've been trying to get them to go get one from the start, but I didn't feel like arguing.
Then one of his friends had a idea. His plan was to tie my horse to a tractor and drive it around the farm so the horse wouldn't fall. I told him it wouldn't work, but he did it anyway. In his eyes I was an annoying kid that didn't know anything. Oh by the way, my horse did fall, and the tractor drug him by his neck about six feet from where he fell. I got to witness my friend being drug across the grass while a man looked right ahead without a care in the world until he realized that the tractor was going slower than usual.
When my mother arrived she when straight for muscle relaxers and gave my friend three shots of it. Then someone pulled a trailer up in front of him so I couldn't see what was happening. After thirty minutes of worrying I saw my mother walking towards the house, she was crying.
I already knew what had happened when I saw my mother's face. I couldn't look at her because I was so angry. In that instant I stopped crying and I had no feelings at all. It was almost like all my tears had dried up.
King had died from a twist of intestines. These twists cause the blood circulation to cut off in his stomach. The cause of all this was Stress. Not just any kind of stress, stress from a freak accident. Which I do remind you happened two weeks ago. I t was a stupid person, with the rope, in the barn.
After all this I thought back to the first day I got him and how I only had six months to spend time with him. I thought about all the good times my friend and I had together. I thought about all those nights that went in his stall and did my homework. I thought about all the work I had to go through to get him in my name, but mostly I thought about how he triumphed through a whole two weeks before letting go. Sometimes I think that he waited for me to come and see him one last time. I think that he lives up to his name.







His name is A Heart Of A King.