Transport, regardless of method, is stressful to horses. From the days before air travel, when horses traveled by boat to reach competitions on faraway shores, to modern times, when horses and riders alike rack up their share of frequent-flyer miles, Olympic Games-bound mounts have endured their share of travel delays, cramped conditions, stale air, weather-related difficulties, and trip-related illnesses.

More Leg Room, Please

As Joseph C. O’Dea, DVM, the U.S. Equestrian Team’s veterinarian from 1955 through 1975, recounted in Olympic Vet, the confined quarters of the shipping box themselves can cause a horse to panic and scramble. The USET veterinarian faced a particularly harrowing situation en route to the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, when J. Michael Plumb’s three-day-event mount, Markham, panicked in midair. The horse had recently suffered a bad experience on a van ride, and evidently the turbulence the Super Constellation propeller-driven aircraft encountered on the flight from New Jersey’s Newark International Airport triggered bad memories. Markham became increasingly uncontrollable; and sedatives, twitching, blindfolding, and other attempts at restraint had little effect. The horse managed to get his front feet over the front panel of his shipping box–which was considerably smaller and more flimsy than today’s “air stables”–and began bashing the aircraft’s ceiling panels. The flight engineer ordered O’Dea and team coach Bertalan de Nèmethy to do something, and De Nèmethy reluctantly instructed the veterinarian to administer the lethal injection.

The only bright spot in the sad episode, O’Dea recalled, was the calm behavior of Markham’s neighbor, the event horse Grasshopper. The Anglo-Connemara gelding “kind of looked at (Markham’s hysterics) and said, ‘You big dummy, what the hell are you trying to do?’ He didn’t break out and get all worked up. And it’s helpful that he didn’t because we had other horses that were behind Markham, and it could have gotten doubly serious