KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Seven, a foal born seven weeks early, his mother’s seventh baby, and his owner’s seventh foal of the year, has passed away, according to owner Katie Van Slyke. He surpassed all expectations of survival and lived for over a year. He was born in February of 2024.
“While we knew that we didn’t have years or even many months left with our sweet boy, we had hoped for more sunny days of watching him graze in the pasture,” Van Slyke said. “We had hoped for more mornings being greeted by his sweet, cheerful whinny. We had hoped for more evenings feeding him his favorite banana treat. We had just hoped for more.”
Van Slyke said that the high temperatures of the past week proved hard for even healthy horses, and Seven started to show signs of colic. This led her and the University of Tennessee Center for Veterinary Medicine to make the difficult decision to have him humanely euthanized…