USA Top Star is dead

[DebiG54@aol.com]

Everyone:

This may not be the proper forum for this, but here goes.  I want to let 
everyone know that a great endurance horse died last night.  His name is USA 
Top Star and he was owned and raced the last 4 years by my friend, Kim Orr 
Franklin.

This is Debi Gordon speaking.  "Toppy" was a 3 week old foal at his mother's 
side 12 years ago when I bought the two of them at an auction in Ohio.  He 
and his dam, DCF Loucinda, were pretty cheap, because he had VERY crooked 
legs.  But I bought them anyway, because I really liked her for her potential 
as a broodmare.  When those legs didn't straighten out in a few months I had 
periosteal stripping done on the outside of both knees to relieve the 
pressure that caused the crookedness.  He was a wild little thing, but 
learned to tie and have his knees bandaged daily after the surgery.  I got 
really good at foal wrestling and knee bandaging.  His legs never were quite 
perfect but close enough.

I didn't have very many Arabians at that time.  But when I brought Loucinda 
and Toppy home, one very famous horse kind of adopted them as his family.  
That horse is CBS Redman, my superstar.  Red was always like a big brother to 
Toppy--they even looked a lot alike, except Toppy was a little guy (14' 2"), 
but he moved like a big horse.

When he was four, I broke Toppy and only rode him a few more times before my 
daughter Sara (who was only 11 or 12 at the time) took over.  He became her 
horse.  She taught him to jump and accompanied me on many rides with big 
brother Red.  She rode him in 3 competitive rides, where he was the top point 
winner each time.  He never got tired, and his tail was always straight up in 
the air.  Sara grew up and lost interest in riding and I was looking for a 
back-up endurance horse to Redman.  I started riding Toppy a lot and getting 
him in shape.  It was five years ago (Toppy was nine) when I was riding him 
close to home and in one bad moment, he flipped over on top of me on pavement 
and my elbow was shattered.  My interest in campaigning him was never the 
same.

Well, Kim had always admired him and asked if I'd sell him.  She finally 
talked me out of him and started competing with him almost immediately.  They 
went straight to the top, nearly always finishing in the top few and often 
finishing first.  Toppy won several hundreds and many best conditions.  He 
was ranked nationally in the hundred mile category and in best condition 
standings.  He was a great best condition horse, because he always looked so 
happy and he recovered with the best.  His tail was always flagging, even at 
the end of 100 miles.

Yesterday he was a bit colicky, so Kim summoned a vet.  During the first 
rectal exam Toppy acted weird, like it really hurt.  He went downhill during 
the day, first transported to the local clinic and next to a vet hospital.  
She elected for surgery.  When they looked inside, his rectum had been torn 
to shreds.  There was nothing the surgeons could do.

Kim didn't watch the surgery, because she said she didn't want that to be her 
last picture of him.  So, I asked her what her last picture of him was--the 
last time she saw him alive.  Kim said she watched the doctors lead him away, 
remembering the sound of his hoofbeats and his ears at attention.  She said 
she looked at his tail, all wrapped up for surgery, and it was straight up in 
the air, just like always.

This morning, she and I are trying to make sense of this and we can't.  There 
is only anger and sadness for a life lost for no good reason.  So, good bye 
USA Top Star.  Your name was the best description of what you were to all of 
us who knew you--a top star.

In sadness,

Debi Gordon