Mara the wonderhorse!!

This is my friend Shela on her 17 year old mare Mara.

Mara is an amazing, courageous, lovely horse.

Many years ago she damaged her leg on some wire. It was a horrendous injury and it just wouldn't heal up. It looked like she was heading for euthanasia. Nothing would go right and we were in despair. Treatment plans came and went. We tried everything. We attended to her every day for months! We debated dry versus wet healing. ( Wet means constantly having it covered in ointment and bandaged. Dry means leaving it open to the air and allowing a scab to form.) I had been taught dry, but the latest thinking at the time had turned to wet as the preferred option. Anyway we allowed it to dry and after a very very very very long time it healed. Thats cutting a long story short! She has nine lives I think and this used up one of them!!

She used another of her lives when last year she developed sarcoidosis, a type of skin cancer. She has had a few courses of chemotherapy, which were painful for her. However she took it all very well. Normally we sedate horses before treatment but she did it all with a bucket of feed!! At present she is in remission with no sign of the cancer, touch wood.

Throughout all her traumas Mara has remained even tempered and lovely, no matter what I have had to do to her over the years. She is a very brave horse! She still enjoys being ridden and she and Shela are often to be seen riding along the Caledonian Canal.

I hope Mara has a lot more lives to live and that she and Shela have many more rides to go on and many days to spend together yet!!