03/05/2026
🐴 The Heart of a Saint: Leroy’s Journey from a Skull Fracture
They say some horses are just born "old souls," and from the moment Leroy joined the JLM Sporthorses family on July 23rd, we knew he was one of them. At just over five years old, he had the steady heart of an 18-year-old schoolmaster.
Leroy had already done his post-track let-down and some Beginner Novice eventing, but we threw him in the deep end to see if he was truly "kid safe." I took him to a local jumper show off-property, and he didn’t step a foot wrong. He came home Grand Champion at 2'3" and jumped a clear, unjudged 2'6" round like it was nothing.
From then on, he was the star lesson horse of the barn. Every kid loved him; every kid wanted to ride him. He didn't care about "flappy legs" or bad balance—he just helped his riders. He took one young girl to her first-ever show in the poles division and earned another their first Champion and Reserve ribbons. He even came with me to be an umpire horse for polocrosse—rackets and balls flying everywhere—and he didn’t bat an eye. He was, quite simply, a lovely dude.
Then came the morning of November 10th.
Everything changed in a heartbeat. I went out to feed grain, and Leroy was slow to approach. His field mate, who he’d been with since July, trotted over happily, but Leroy was hesitant and wonky. When I finally saw the other side of his face, my heart sank. What originally looked like a ruptured eye vein or something similar turned out to be much, much worse.
I want to pause here and say: I preach insurance on horses for this exact reason. Horses find ways to hurt themselves, and it is incredibly expensive to treat them. However, between the whirlwind of new farm ownership and managing a lesson program, I never got around to insuring him.
Then, the "luck" of horse ownership hit again:
We called our vet and alerted Marion Dupont (EMC) that we were coming in hot with a major eye injury.
We went to hook up, and the trailer had a flat tire from a nail. A massive thank you to our neighbor Heather for a hefty, quick tire change to get us on the road in no time.
Even in what was likely immense pain and with zero vision on one side, Leroy didn't question me. He walked right onto that trailer without a fuss.
At EMC, the team was incredible. We learned he had sustained a severe skull fracture over his ocular and nasal bones. The red, swollen part was actually his third eyelid, and there was a small exit wound where we believe bone had actually punctured through. Because their CT was down, we loaded him up and ran him to VEI to use their fancy new CT machine. By then, the facial swelling was starting, but Leroy remained an absolute angel.
Back at EMC, we waited for a plan. I had so many questions—Why him? How? Will he be okay? We went into a room with Dr. Ludwig and her team. The plan was to either plate the bones or place them as close as possible and hope for the best, given a horse's natural healing power in their skulls. I looked at Dr. Ludwig and asked a very forward question:
"Can you perform this surgery with confidence that Leroy will live a life without pain and return to some level of normal?"
Her answer is why I will always trust her: "I know I can." She followed it with the reality that things can go wrong, but that was enough for me. "Alright, let's do it," I said.
The reality of the cost was heavy—these injuries are not cheap—but for Leroy, there wasn't much I wouldn't do. He underwent six hours of surgery with three metal plates installed. He woke and stood well, and miraculously, the eye appeared intact.
He stayed at EMC for a week with his eye sewn shut to keep the swelling down. When the sutures finally came out, his eye looked incredible. It sits a bit further back now because the bones behind it were fractured and pushed backward, but we had function.
To give him the best recovery, he moved to a rehab facility in Maryland. At home, the other horses calling for him and constant movement of a show barn would have been too much stress on a horse who needed chill time. He spent 2.5 months there, progressing from stall rest to hand-grazing, then to the hot walker and aqua-treadmill.
On February 2nd, Leroy finally came home.
He is in excellent condition from his treadmill work and has been great to be back on. He’s still working through some things after having 3 months out of work, but we believe he has most of his vision. We still don't know exactly what happened—we think he and his buddy got a bit frisky in the morning dew and he may have been landed on when a friend reared up—so for now, he’s turned out with fence-mates only.
It hasn’t been easy for us here at JLM, working extra hard to pay off these medical bills, but it was 100% worth it. Thank you to Dr. Ludwig, the entire EMC staff, VEI, and the rehab team in MD for saving our boy.
Leroy... we are so happy to have you back, bud. 🤍
