On Thursday in Part 7 of this excerpt from the new book Equine ER,

Marching Orders, the stoic Thoroughbred with the big heart, died on the operating table because of complications from a portion of his small colon being trapped inside a diaphragmatic hernia. Today, we find out what happened when the inmate whose life the horse transformed, and who was intending to adopt him, found out about Marching Orders’ sudden death.

On the last weekend in March, former inmate Chris Huckleby got word his sister had been killed in a car wreck in Texas. One week later, he got a phone call at work from the head of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation that Marching Orders had died. The foundation knew what the horse had meant to Huckleby.  After he was told what happened, it was as if the sun had been painted out of the sky. About three days after that, the wife of the couple who had donated the horse to Blackburn brought Marching Orders’ halter to Huckleby, knowing he would want it. He says on that day, life became overwhelming.

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