Late into the night after a fire destroyed a barn at Windham’s Spruce Hill Farm last week, killing eight beloved horses, the animals’ owners, trainers and caretakers sat together.

In that room were the people who knew the horses best, who spent countless hours working with the animals, learning their unique habits and personalities. As they shared a love for the eight horses, they too shared the loss. Unable to leave each other, they began putting their memories to paper, pouring out all the emotion that until then had been held in by shock.

“We wanted to spend time with each other,” said Amy Sterling, who, with her husband Dana, owns Spruce Hill Farm. “Other people might not have understood it. Everyone here knew what the others were thinking.”

It’s been a week since the Sterlings awakened to the site of their 36-by-72-foot barn engulfed in flames, the horses and all their equipment trapped inside. With the help of friends and fellow horse owners, Sterling said, the healing has begun. Donations of equipment have come in from all over the state, and from as far away as Connecticut, and a benefit has been planned to further help replace what was lost. With a little help, she said, the barn will be back up by the end of the summer, and they might even get to a competition or two late in the season.

“Everyone in the barn has decided we have to move forward,” Sterling said.

That course, in large part, began Sunday, when barn members, friends, family and others from the horse show community met in the barn at It Takes Two Farm for a remembrance service dedicated to the horses.

After such a shocking event, the horses’ owners, mostly teenage riders, needed a proper way to say good-bye, said Crystal Stover, Sterling’s friend and owner of It Takes Two Farm.

“I’m hoping this helps the kids, you know, with the process,” Stover said Sunday as people poured into her barn, warming it up on a chilly and clear afternoon.

Through eyes red with tears, the mourners read the messages on the posters made the night of the fire at the Sterlings house: How Scotty, owned by Haley Jordan, and Monty, owned by Elizabeth Cole, were always together. How Doc liked to push hard, and how Ripley sucked on his tongue. And how Sterling’s own Zeus, the only draft horse among a stable of show horses, watched over everybody.

“He was the best bodyguard,” said Sterling of Zeus, thought to be one of the tallest horses in the state. “He was huge, but he didn’t know his own size. He was the king of the barn.”

The service drew a large crowd, including horse lovers who did not know the Sterlings or the others who lost horses, but who knew the sting of losing one of these gentle giants.

“There were people there that I’ve never met before,” said Sterling.

Not that she is surprised. Just as that group gathered in her home the night of the fire joined in their mutual sadness and understanding, horse owners everywhere are connected, said Sterling.

“The horse people, whether you know each other or not, have that common love for horses,” she said. “It’s the one that ties us together.”

Haley Jordan, Julia Jordan and Amy Sterling, all of whom owned horses who perished in a fire at Sterling’s Spruce Hill Farm in Windham last week, watch a video memorial to horses at a remembrance ceremony last week.