The Corolla wild horses of North Carolina lost several members of the herd in the last year to accidents, illness and colic.
Every holiday season, Middleton Clay Project of Chesapeake, Virginia, creates a special Christmas ornament of one of the wild horses. The ornament for 2024 is made of local Currituck clay and infused with Junior’s hair, one of the horses lost to colic.
Amadeo Jr., or “Junior,” died on June 11, 2024. Junior, the son of Amadeo Sr. and dam, Blossom, had undergone a successful second colic surgery in February 2024, but he fell ill on June 11. On Facebook, the Corolla Wild Horse Fund, a nonprofit charged with caring for the wild horses, expressed that it was “heartbroken.”
“He spent the last five months happy and comfortable on the farm, going for walks to eat grass several times a day, getting scratched and loved on by everyone who walked through the barn, and keeping a watchful eye on his mares in the neighboring pasture. We are grateful for the extra time we got with him, and also grateful that he was able to pass away peacefully at home. On Tuesday evening when our vet arrived Junior led us over to a pine tree where he often grazed, and that is where we laid him to rest,” the Fund wrote on Facebook in June.
Junior, who came to the Fund‘s rescue farm in 2021 after almost choking on an apple, was in his 20s and well known in Corolla as the stallion who led the “blonde harem.” He lived around Penny’s Hill with his harem until he was brought to the farm. Junior’s sire, Amadeo, died of old age in 2020, and his dam, Blossom, lives on the Fund farm.
Related stories:
Share
Rebecca Barnabi
