VALDOSTA — Santa Claus’ Valdosta horse has passed away.

Roy had pulled Santa’s carriage in the Valdosta Christmas parade for many of the past several years. He died July 20, said Jonathan Kimmel, Roy’s owner.

Kimmel and his wife, Yvonne, own Special Memories Carriages, a Lowndes County business offering horse-drawn carriage rides.

“Roy had started losing weight for no reason,” Kimmel said. A check on his weight loss led to the discovery that Roy was many years older than the Kimmels believed.

Acquiring the horse several years ago, they had been told Roy was about 8 years old then. Until his health issues, they believed Roy was in his late teens. During the check-up on his weight loss, the veterinarian looked at Roy’s teeth and determined Roy to be about 30 years old.

Before becoming Santa’s choice for a horse in the Valdosta parade, and years before pulling a carriage for the Kimmels, Roy worked as a plow horse.

Roy and his brother were part of a work team. Roy’s brother died of cancer. After the other horse’s death, Roy no longer wanted to work for the man behind the plow. This man sold Roy to the Kimmels.

They soon learned that Roy wanted nothing to do with other horses. Ever since his brother’s death, Yvonne Kimmel said in a 2000 interview with The Valdosta Daily Times, “he’s never really cared for other horses. He never really got over it.”

Even at the Kimmels’ Special Memories location off U.S. 41, Roy was penned separately from the other horses.

He would socialize over the fence with the other horses but would not tolerate another horse sharing a pasture with him.

“He liked his privacy,” Jonathan Kimmel said, “but he loved people. He was wonderful with people.”

Roy was the gentle giant pulling Santa at the end of the Valdosta Christmas parade. A Belgian draft horse, Roy weighed 2,400 pounds in top form. He stood 18 hands high at the shoulder (a hand is four inches).

His front hooves were 9 1/4 inches wide. “A paper plate is about nine inches wide,” Kimmel said. Roy wore custom-made horse shoes, which cost about $200 per set, and had to be replaced an average of every five weeks.

Once, when a Ford Ranger was stuck in a ditch, Roy pulled the pick-up truck free.

Yet, he was a gentle animal. The Valdosta Daily Times sponsors the Santa carriage in the Valdosta Christmas parade. Newspaper employees have decorated the patient horse. Some Times staff members have photos of their small children with the giant horse.