The event horse Legion Kat, who was ridden to the one-star level by Buck Davidson, was euthanized on Jan. 13 due to a ruptured stomach.

Davidson had seen “Arnold” in his field eating hay in the late afternoon before he left his Ocala, Fla., barn to go to a meeting, but received a call from his barn staff 15 minutes later saying that the gelding didn’t look right and was sweating.

Davidson called his local vet who was on site within 20 minutes and immediately advised him to send the gelding to Peterson & Smith Equine Hospital in Ocala.

Arnold’s condition continued to deteriorate once he arrived at the clinic and the decision was made to euthanize him.

“The vets told me that basically these are situations where most of the time people find the horse dead in the morning and they don’t know what happened. Fortunately my guys were on top of it and watched it and saw it at the beginning so he wasn’t suffering at all,” said Davidson.

Owned by Natalie Sandler, the 10-year-old Thoroughbred gelding (Legion Field—Ice Kat, Katowice) retired from the track in 2008 and came to Davidson’s barn three years ago.

Davidson brought him up the levels from novice starting in 2014. Last year, they won the CIC* at GMHA (Vt.) and became the U.S. Equestrian Federation National One-Star champions when they topped the Hagyard MidSouth CCI* (Ky.) in October.

Arnold and Davidson completed their first intermediate together only a few days earlier at the Ocala Horse Properties Winter I event where they placed sixth.

“Natalie is just about the nicest lady in whole the world and she just did everything—she loved that horse. She couldn’t have been classier, nicer or sweeter. I’m just so sorry for her and thankful for the time I had with him,” said Davidson. “He had just done his first intermediate and had never looked better, gone better, scored better. We’re going to bury him here on the farm in Florida. We have a racetrack, so we’re going to bury him in the middle so he can watch the horses gallop and watch the cross-country and dressage on the other side.

“He was the perfect horse—the sweetest animal, tried hard, had tons of ability. It’s just sad. We’ll never forget him, that’s for sure,” he added.