Climbing High was one of those horses you just had to love. Photo / Glenn Taylor
Horses can't talk. Maybe, but with a language all their own a handful can create a bond with humans as strong as any love between two people.
Climbing High, who had to be put down yesterday, was one of those.
The brilliant veteran steeplechaser snapped a leg working on the flat, doing the same as he had most mornings for nine years.
Tomorrow's $35,000 Waikato Steeplechase will not be the same.
Climbing High would have started favourite and probably would have won, even under 71kg topweight.
No more brilliant, crowd-pleasing, displays of front running and jumping. Climbing High was one of those horses you just had to love.
Despite the 11 years, he was a big, floppy kid. He forgot to grow up and it was his most endearing quality.
He was a family pet - eight members of the Weal family from Te Awamutu had their names in the racebook and Mark Weal prepared him in partnership with his veteran father, Bill, who was happy to admit pottering around with the horse kept him going.
The Weal family shared close to $200,000 off the jumping star.
Regular rider Shelley Houston was a partner in every sense of the word.
"This morning I went to see Noel Wyllie, who we leased the horse from; and Shelley and said we have to forget what happened and remember Climbing High for the good times he provided for us," said a brave Mark Weal yesterday.
"We were privileged to race him - he found us."
Then it registered in him what those words mean.
He said: "I've just finished burying him in the paddock he spent the last six years in ... it's very hard," and he burst into tears.
Yes, a bond that should never be broken so cruelly.
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