Dunkirk – The loss of a real character amongst our herd

We sadly lost handsome Dunkirk, a real character amongst our herd in February 2017.

Dunkirk, a striking 17.2hh served in the Blues and Royals, Household Cavalry for 12 years. He participated in numerous Ceremonial Parades, including the Royal Wedding in 2011 where he was chosen as the Standard Bearer’s horse thanks to his confidence and parade presence. He was a horse like no other, and was described as the smartest but cheekiest horse on parade giving his riders a run for their money, proving to be quite a handful on occasions!

Dunkirk relished his summers galloping along the beach and taking part in the jumping events proving to be leader of the pack. He arrived with us for his retirement in the summer of 2015 after a very long recovery at the Defence Animal Centre, for a serious injury. Whilst on so much enforced box rest he became very grumpy indeed and wanted nothing more than to get out and run around. He couldn’t understand how this would have made him stay indoors even longer! So with a reputation from the Regiment and the Royal Army Veterinary Corps to live up to… he turned out to be a total softie in retirement!  Dunkirk was best known for his hanging lower lip whilst basking in the sunshine and lapped up the attention when he was in for our visitors!

We hoped we would have longer with this gorgeous boy but he did come to us with numerous problems with his legs and the time came when although he was still happy in his mind, he was struggling even with medication to get up by himself and could not stand comfortably despite treatment, we had reached the end of how we could help him.  We knew it was time for us to give him his last kisses and to say goodbye. We’ll never forget you Dunkirk, your kind eyes and your huge personality captured our hearts and we know that we aren’t alone in shedding some tears. Night night handsome, we really will miss you.