William's Story

William PFF was born at Passing Fancy Farm on May 29, 2005.  William is by Wonderful out of Dara, a Diamont mare.  William has always had a kind heart and a willing dispositiion.  His answer to every question is always "yes ma'am".  As he grew, it became obvious that he also had a lot of natural talent and athletic ability, so Trudy began to explore options for William as a breeding stallion.  She took him to the NEDA Fall Festival breed championships in 2008, where he was Born In the USA Champion.

Trudy made the decision to send William out for training, to prepare for the his Hanoverian stallion licensing which was to take place on August 8th, 2009, and begin to campaigne him as a stallion. Unfortunately, both Hilltop Farm and Hasseler Dressage were both full, so Trudy had to make other arrangements.  On June 7, 2009, William was brought to a well known Olympian's facility in New Jersey.  Naturally, he was excited to be in a new place, but maintained his composure.  William was placed in a stall and after about 2 hours, the trainer asked if he could lunge William.  Trudy agreed and offered to do it herself to show the trainer William's routine, but the trainer insisted that he would do it.  The trainer asked one of his teenage students to tack William up and bring him into the indoor arena.  Trudy assisted her in adjusting all of his tack including the elastic side reins to the manner William was used to.   As for his behavior on the crossties, the pictures speak for themselves.

After William was brought to the indoor by the student, the trainer came in to work with him.  The trainer started to lunge William, and he was compliant and willing.  Trudy felt the session was going well and was relaxed and talking to the assistant trainer outside the indoor arena.  She didn't feel she needed to worry about William and trusted the trainer's judgement at that time.  She now regrets not paying closer attention to what was happening in the arena.  Over the course of lunging, the trainer changed the elastic side reins to a plain leather rein and drastically tightened the contact.  He also, at one point, created a pulley system with the lunge line, that went through the bit and back to the girth on the inside rein.    William tried to continue working but when another horse whinnied, he tried to lift his head to the outside of the circle to look for the horse and found he couldn't.  The trainer tried to regain his attention by pulling on the inside pulley rein, which signaled to William to stop abruptly mid-stride, forcing his head up. Unfortunately, due to his momentum coupled with the tight physical restriction of the reins, the laws of physics took him off his feet and over backwards.  Once on the ground, he struggled to get back up, but the tight rein restricted him from picking up his head and would not allow him to stand.  As he thrashed on the ground, his head was pulled back to the ground over and over because of the interference of the rein.  Horses need to be able to pick up their heads to stand, William could not.  William was bleeding from his nose and convulsing.  The trainer tried to get William back on his feet with a whip. William continued convulsing and went into shock.  Trudy demanded his saddle be removed.  The side reins were secured so tightly, the bridle had to be removed as one with the saddle.  William being in shock caused his temperature to rise dangerously high.  Trudy repeatedly requested his temperature be taken, but they ignored her pleas until they gave the him a banamine injection.  The barn staff brought in buckets of water to pour on William until Trudy requested they bring in a hose.  The trainer asked for the hose and instead of using it on William, dragged it over to the wall to wash off William's blood.  He then asked staff to continue to wash the wall and returned to hosing William.  The vet arrived and treated William as best she could.  He attempted unsucessfully to stand several times.  After nearly 5 hours, with several people using lunge lines to assist him, we were able to bring William to his feet which he was unable to do by himself.