MY FLASHLIGHT HAD BEEN GETTING DIMMER by the minute as I continued searching the mile-and-a-half long creek around the perimeter of our farm. I was slogging through muddy marshes full of brambles and briars and vines of all sorts, frantic with fear and trepidation.
My goal: to find my stud horse Cody.
My family and I had been gone for a day. Normally, we would have just gone into the house and gotten ready for bed, but for some reason, I had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right. So, I grabbed a flashlight and walked to the barn to check on the horses.
I could immediately see that Cody was nowhere to be found—he was always with our mares.
As I searched the farm, I could tell there had been horses along the creek—earlier that day most likely— but that was of no help at this point. Just as my anxiety began to take over, I shined my light behind a big sycamore tree and gaped, scared stiff.
It looked like something was hanging from the tree. I cannot be seeing what I think I’m seeing, I thought.
When we moved back to Missouri in 1995 from our small farm in Iowa, we brought seven riding horses back with us, including an untrained stud named Cody. Cody was the grandson of Zane Grey, the famous foundation stud for the Missouri Fox Trotter breed. Cody was a classic bay horse with a reddish brown body accented by a black mane, tail, and four stockings. Like most stud horses, he was focused on his female companions but that didn’t mean he wasn’t responsive to me. He was about 15-and-a-half hands tall and was like riding thunder and lightning.
While Cody was a powerful animal who had the potential to be a handful under saddle, I had worked with him from the time he was a foal, and he always respected me.
Anxiously, I stood and studied the figure suspended and swaying from the tree. As I got closer to the giant sycamore, I could see it was definitely Cody, and I stared in disbelief. It appeared that he had gotten his leg caught in the vine and had turned in circles until he hung himself upside down. I ran back to the barn, got a saw, ran back, and cut him free.
He plopped down, laying down on the ground that he had worn bare from trying to get loose. He didn’t move, and his breathing was labored. After a few minutes though, he began to move a little, and his breathing slowly returned to normal.
I still didn’t like the way he looked though, and he didn’t want to get up. When I finally got him to stand, I put a halter on him and led him slowly uphill to the barn.
I rushed into the house and called the local vet in Boonville, Wiley McVicker, who came right away, even though it was nearly midnight, and checked him over. Wiley said if I hadn’t found Cody when I did, he would have most likely died by morning. After Wiley administered several different medications, and they began to kick in a bit, Cody seemed to be coming around.
After a few days he was just fine, except for where he had rubbed his skin raw from trying to get loose. The spot where the grape vine had wrapped around his upper back leg, just above the knee, turned into a scar that he had for the rest of his life.
Cody sired more than 40 foals from our mares. One of those foals, Gypsy, became my next horse after Cody retired and was put out to pasture. He was almost 30 years old when he died peacefully in the pasture. Over the years, I have had more than 50 horses that I have considered to be “my horse,” but I’ll never have another like Cody.
His stalwart demeanor made him one of a kind, evenwhen he was hanging upside down from a tree.
• GREG WOOD, PUBLISHER
HANGIN’ OUT
This article was published in the September 2025 issue of Missouri Life.
Photo caption for the feature photo: From left, the Wood family’s exchange student Botir Ohunjonov from Uzbekistan, daughter Marissa Wood, and Greg ride on the farm several years ago.
