Page 115 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
“GOLIATH PROBLEMS” AND
“HOW MANY TABLETS”

Goliath and his friend Big Bonnie had been with us for a couple of years by now. With
Terena and Geoff living on the premises it had become much easier to cope with Goliath’s
problem of toppling over if he moved too quickly in changing direction!

GOLIATH PROBLEMS
When it had first begun to happen, due to his increasingly weak and wobbly rear legs plus
severe arthritis, it had been very difficult to get him back on his feet.
His legs would not fold up under him like a younger horse and just stretched out stiff and
rigid.
To begin with we ran around the village asking for help from the first five or six strong men
we could find. He needed rocking up onto his side and packing with straw bales behind his
shoulders to give him support; from this angle it was easier to pull at his head and just
lever him up onto his feet.

The support in the village soon dwindled and we had to find something else.
One day he got his head stuck in one of the metal hay feeder rings, I managed to twist his
head round and pop it out with the result that he toppled over backwards and sat on his
bottom looking somewhat dazed. I knew I had just a few moments to get help and pull him
up in just the reverse direction, back onto his feet; no way was he going to do it unaided.