Fourth horse euthanasia in 24 hours

Fallbrook:

Veterinarian Matt Matthews examined the horse's broken left leg and solemnly shook his head.

"I can't fix it," he told Glenda Parcell. "He'll bleed to death."

The horse, Tater, had fallen in a trailer in the middle of the night as Parcell and her husband fled the La Jolla Indian Reservation just east of Fallbrook.

They had to slam on the brakes to avoid colliding with a Volkswagon that had stopped without warning on the only road out.

Now, standing in the parking lot of the Pala Casino, Matthews filled a syringe with two narcotics, torbugesic and xylazine, and slipped the needle into the horse's jugular vein.

"He's being a gentleman," Parcell told the vet.

Matthews came out of the trailer and closed the door behind him, muting the dreadful sounds that followed: Tater, knocked unconscious, banged into one wall, then another, before collapsing to the floor with a final thud.

Then silence, broken only by Parcell's sobbing.

As her husband and other relatives consoled Parcell, Matthews finished the grim task with a needle full of pentobarbital.

In the minutes it took to slow Tater's heart to a stop, Parcell climbed inside the trailer, kneeled by his side, stroked his mane and whispered a tearful goodbye.

It was Matthews' fourth horse euthanasia in 24 hours.

-- Christine Hanley