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We had just moved to our home on a small farm in Hastings, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand in January 2020 – the year of Covid 19. Also the year of a very bad drought in Hawkes Bay and feed was short. The farm had lots and lots of trees on it and also the house we moved into had trees all around it.

The horses had a lovely hillside paddock right beside the house.
Before we moved into the house the farmer had put a mob of cows through our soon to be horse paddock and the grass was quite eaten out.

So when our 4 x horses arrived, feed was already short and with the drought continuing it did not improve. We also had access for grazing to the driveway to our house which had sheds and quite a bit of grass along it.

It was now May and on the weekend in question we let our horses into the driveway to graze. We did not know that there was a Sycamore in the adjoining paddock on the other side of the driveway and this tree hung over the grassed area where the horses grazed in the driveway.

So all of our horses were grazing in this area over that weekend.
As I’ve said the month was May. (I have since found that April May June is the worst and most toxic time for Sycamore trees!!)
So they grazed on the weekend around this tree.

Then during the week on Wednesday we noticed Sara was not herself at all. My husband said something unusual to me – he said “keep an eye on Sara ” I wondered what he meant but next thing while watching her I noticed that she had laid down in the driveway – something that they don’t normally do there. So I grabbed a rope to go and catch her and check on her and by time I got to her she had moved back into her paddock and was lying down again by the water trough – something they never do there either. I immediately thought all this lying down – that it was colic.

Put a rope around her and brought her out onto the driveway and we rang the Vet to come immediately. As we thought it was colic we kept walking her up and down the driveway for over 45 minutes. She was continually trying to lie down. I had to keep tapping her with a stick on the rump (which made me feel so bad) to stop her doing this.

The vet arrived and he checked her over and gave her some drugs (not sure what now) I had said I thought she may have eaten some very old grass clippings???that a previous tenant had dumped over the fence which we had picked up but a small bit was left scattered around. I wasn’t sure but the lying down thing just seemed to me that it may be colic.

Being a Morgan Arab cross Sara was a horse that would eat everything and anything – she would eat things that the other horses wouldn’t bother with. That is a characteristic of the Morgans. He said to keep an eye on her and let him know the next day if she improved. We kept her in around our house and put another horse in with her for company. She stayed the same – very lethargic, lying down all the time, just not knowing what to do with herself. She was “in another zone” and not her usual alert friendly Morgan self.

As she hadn’t improved we rang the vet the next day which was the Thursday and he came out again. This time he took blood tests.  He rang us that afternoon and said the tests showed she had been poisoned and did we have any Sycamore or Box Elder trees on the property. We didn’t know. We messaged the owner of the property and he said he planted a Sycamore tree in the corner overhanging the driveway paddock to give shade to his farm dogs (this was many years ago – as he was now retired) The tree was now huge (he had been on farm for 60 years).

So this confirmed to the Vet what had poisoned Sara. How the other horses did not eat the seeds also and be subject to the same fate we will never know.
The vet said some horses do pull through from this (I think he said 30% chance). He said she could go to his home (about 30 mins away south of Hastings) and he could care for her there or she could go to Massey University also. But I could tell from how she was that even the smallest ride in the horse float she would not cope with this.

Sara was a very strong Morgan/Arab mare and I thought if there was a chance she could pull through this we would give her that chance so we would keep her around our house and hopefully she would come out of it. So he said the next 17 or so hours would be the test of that.

Again we had a restless afternoon and night. She was the same – very lethargic, not knowing what to do with herself – in another zone!. Would not eat or drink (and she loved her treats of carrots and apples normally so when she refused I knew something was wrong)

At about 4am I heard a noise outside – a banging noise. I thought perhaps she was rolling and had knocked the side of the house. I got up and found that no it wasn’t her rolling – it was her banging on the flyscreen door in our carport into our house. I opened it and offered her some carrots but she refused them.

I put on a warm jacket and hat and I took her out of the carport as I feared if something bad happened it would be better if we were in the open. We both wandered around the house for the next 2 hours. Again her lying down and getting up and just not knowing what to do with herself.

Around 6am just all of a sudden she did an almighty “bolt” across the lawn, fell to her knees catching herself on the front of her cover and flipped over and there she lay letting out the most horrendous moaning noises I have ever heard. It was the most horrific thing I have ever been through in my life to see and hear her doing this. I screamed out to my husband who came out and took over for me as I was in such a state of shock as I knew she was having a heart attack. He lay down beside her and was with her until she died only minutes later.

Sara was 19 and soon to turn 20. I had had her since she was 5. I know I would have got at least another 10 years with her had she not suffered the fate of the Sycamore Tree.

I had been so cruelly robbed of my “heart horse”

I hope this account of what happened to us will help other horse owners to prevent their beloved horses from going through this shocking death.

The farm owner was so very upset about what had happened as he too did not realise that this tree was deadly poisonous(and he had planted thousands of trees over his lifetime on his farm) .I am pleased to say that he cut down the tree and then when it started to grow again from the stump – he poisoned the stump.

Even though the tree had gone it took me over a year to let the horses graze back in that area again.

The only good thing to come out of this horrific death was that Sara saved her three mates from the same fate – they could so easily have all died in the same way. It’s unimaginable to think of four horses going through this at the same time!!