Plan: Wake up, load up, leave farm about 9:00, take Encore and Pete along with me and lifeshighway to the Moss Foundation on a perfect riding day in the beautiful pine savannah.
Reality: I should have stayed in bed.
Episode 1: I am backing out of my driveway, as per usual. My street is narrow but has very little traffic, it doesn't even have a middle line. I'm not really paying attention, I do this every morning. Until I feel the passenger rear wheel suddenly sink into the ditch, that deadly point of no return where your axle is riding the ground. *insert many bad words here* Plus the grass was JUST slick enough from a light frost that there was no hope of a lucky surge.
However, I AM a lucky person in that I look forlornly out my windshield and my eyes lock on to my work truck sitting in the driveway. Which just so happens to have a 9,000 lb winch on the front. As furtively (please, let the neighbours be sleeping) and quickly as possible, I dig out winch controller, pull out cable, attach to tow hook, wrestle with poor plug placement on front of work truck, curse many times, then hit the go button.
Like magic, my precious is gently removed from the ditch and ready to go once more.
My brain, however, said beware a bad omen at the start.
Sometimes, I'm a poor listener.
Episode 2: I had heard my phone ringing while hooking up the winch, but I blew it off in favour of the task at hand. Upon recovering truck and normal direction of travel, I see call was from BO and I call her back.
"Um," she says. "Encore has a cut on his leg and it is swollen, is it ok if I take him out and cold hose him."
More cursing.
I know exactly what happened. Encore was put out last night with his normal pasturemate PLUS another horse who he is not usually with. Other horse gets quite aggressive at food time and it's not hard to surmise that hooves started flying at breakfast time and Encore got the blow trying to get away (he's mostly submissive in the pasture).
I get there and find a deep slice and leg swollen hock to ankle.
So much more cursing. Horse trial in two weeks. Why, cod, why?
I call vet -- I'm taking no chances. Robin is on call, so we meet him at clinic. Summary: the shoe slice itself is just forward enough to have avoided anything nasty, it's just made a pocket where it cut the flesh. The concern is the cellulitis, which sets in very quickly, so just in case the swelling IS that (instead of just a trauma reaction), to SMZ-ville we shall go.
Thankfully, Dr. Brian says we should be cleared up within a week and have no problem getting to our trial. I am relieved but still anxious until I can kill the swelling. I leave with assignment of Furazone/DMSO sweat for 2-3 days, 5 days of antibiotics, and standing wraps. I will also sneak my Animalintex in there because it is magic. I was glad I went, because had I waited two days, we might have been in a world of hurt.
On the good side, Encore is not lame at the walk and is very generous about letting us mess with it. When I poke it and cold hose it, he just holds up the leg as if to say, Fix please, mum.
There was nothing more I could do for him so I turned him out and we loaded Solo on the trailer in his stead. We would not get to enjoy our lovely sandhills, but there are some nice (hilly!) bridle trails in a local city park, so we went there instead. It would be good forthe hippo slug Solo to work off some fat.
Episode 3: We were just at this park last weekend. They held a 100 mile foot race (why anyone would voluntarily do such a thing, I have no idea, but whatever). Since then, they have put down a bunch more gravel on the lovely, smooth bridle paths which are usually just screenings. Evil.
Both Solo and Pete are barefoot behind (I put Solo's old easyboots on his front feet). It made for a long ride. There were some stretches we could get some trot work in, but you had to come to a screeching halt and pick your way through some sharp-edged, hoof-poking #57 approximately every 5 minutes. We decided to call it interval training and all parties were overjoyed to get back to the trailer.
I don't think Solo will ever let me catch him again, but Encore let me take off his wraps and hose his leg tonight, dose him with his SMZ's, and wrap him back up without complaint.
Now, I am drinking a beer and I am considering never leaving the house again.
Reality: I should have stayed in bed.
Episode 1: I am backing out of my driveway, as per usual. My street is narrow but has very little traffic, it doesn't even have a middle line. I'm not really paying attention, I do this every morning. Until I feel the passenger rear wheel suddenly sink into the ditch, that deadly point of no return where your axle is riding the ground. *insert many bad words here* Plus the grass was JUST slick enough from a light frost that there was no hope of a lucky surge.
However, I AM a lucky person in that I look forlornly out my windshield and my eyes lock on to my work truck sitting in the driveway. Which just so happens to have a 9,000 lb winch on the front. As furtively (please, let the neighbours be sleeping) and quickly as possible, I dig out winch controller, pull out cable, attach to tow hook, wrestle with poor plug placement on front of work truck, curse many times, then hit the go button.
Like magic, my precious is gently removed from the ditch and ready to go once more.
My brain, however, said beware a bad omen at the start.
Sometimes, I'm a poor listener.
Episode 2: I had heard my phone ringing while hooking up the winch, but I blew it off in favour of the task at hand. Upon recovering truck and normal direction of travel, I see call was from BO and I call her back.
"Um," she says. "Encore has a cut on his leg and it is swollen, is it ok if I take him out and cold hose him."
More cursing.
I know exactly what happened. Encore was put out last night with his normal pasturemate PLUS another horse who he is not usually with. Other horse gets quite aggressive at food time and it's not hard to surmise that hooves started flying at breakfast time and Encore got the blow trying to get away (he's mostly submissive in the pasture).
I get there and find a deep slice and leg swollen hock to ankle.
 |
| Where is my tendon? |
 |
| Deceptively small. |
 |
| My hocks are two differently sized turkeys. |
So much more cursing. Horse trial in two weeks. Why, cod, why?
I call vet -- I'm taking no chances. Robin is on call, so we meet him at clinic. Summary: the shoe slice itself is just forward enough to have avoided anything nasty, it's just made a pocket where it cut the flesh. The concern is the cellulitis, which sets in very quickly, so just in case the swelling IS that (instead of just a trauma reaction), to SMZ-ville we shall go.
Thankfully, Dr. Brian says we should be cleared up within a week and have no problem getting to our trial. I am relieved but still anxious until I can kill the swelling. I leave with assignment of Furazone/DMSO sweat for 2-3 days, 5 days of antibiotics, and standing wraps. I will also sneak my Animalintex in there because it is magic. I was glad I went, because had I waited two days, we might have been in a world of hurt.
On the good side, Encore is not lame at the walk and is very generous about letting us mess with it. When I poke it and cold hose it, he just holds up the leg as if to say, Fix please, mum.
There was nothing more I could do for him so I turned him out and we loaded Solo on the trailer in his stead. We would not get to enjoy our lovely sandhills, but there are some nice (hilly!) bridle trails in a local city park, so we went there instead. It would be good for
Episode 3: We were just at this park last weekend. They held a 100 mile foot race (why anyone would voluntarily do such a thing, I have no idea, but whatever). Since then, they have put down a bunch more gravel on the lovely, smooth bridle paths which are usually just screenings. Evil.
Both Solo and Pete are barefoot behind (I put Solo's old easyboots on his front feet). It made for a long ride. There were some stretches we could get some trot work in, but you had to come to a screeching halt and pick your way through some sharp-edged, hoof-poking #57 approximately every 5 minutes. We decided to call it interval training and all parties were overjoyed to get back to the trailer.
I don't think Solo will ever let me catch him again, but Encore let me take off his wraps and hose his leg tonight, dose him with his SMZ's, and wrap him back up without complaint.
Now, I am drinking a beer and I am considering never leaving the house again.
