I did my chores at the barn, then tacked up Lily to go for a ride on the trails. It had rained all night and most of the morning and the arena had turned to muck, so I applied Vetrap to her foot and covered it with duct tape to protect it from the water with the intention of just riding her around on the park road. I used the mullen mouth eggbutt again, since Lily had been so good the day before. My plan was to just go for a long WALK, just like the vet said we should do.
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| Left hind after a good scrubbing. The crevice appears wider due to keeping it open with the cotton, but it's not as deep, and it's definetely not as painful. She wiggles the leg when I'm messing with the foot anticipating it to hurt, but when I'm actually treating the crack, she doesn't even flinch anymore. You can see the abscess, all nice and clean, on the back of her upper heel in the photo. This is still sore when touched directly, but seems to be healing well, as you can see in the photo-no signs of swelling/redness/bruising. |
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| Duct tape & Vetrap bootie. And yes, she was stocked up after almost 24 hours cooped up in her stall.:( |
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| Secured around the back of her heels to cover the abscess |
Well. I rode her to the park and she was looking around more than usual, but was calm otherwise. Going down the powerlines, there was a cluster of logs by the brush on the side of the trail that she had looked at the day before. I decided to have her take a closer look, but she was not having it. She avoided getting closer and actually started to get worked up about it, so I decided to let it go and ride on. She walked a couple of steps, then suddenly spun and tried to bolt. I have no idea what spooked her-if it was the logs or something else. I brought her to a halt, but she didn't like that and proceeded to buck. And buck and buck and buck. Remember from my Isaac post how much air she can get when she bucks? I lost a stirrup, and she continued to crowhop, all 4 feet leaving the ground at once, and I couldn't bring her head up with the stupid snaffle. I came off.
And slammed into the ground left side first, in the middle of the powerlines. My head bounced off the ground, and once again I thanked God for riding helmets. They have saved my life more than once. Lily galloped away; I leaped to my feet (thankful that I could still actually do it) and went after her. Instead of heading home, she had turned into the park, and veered off into the brush halfway down the powerlines.
I found her in a clearing in the bushes by the fence running down the perimeter of the powerlines. She considered trying to run away, but the reins were stuck on one of her front legs and the bushes were too overgrown to allow her to go through anyway.
I called to her and was able to catch her. I unsnapped one end of her reins to get them off from her leg, and she tried to take off again-she was terrified I was going to beath her: she was stuck in a flashback of the cowboy. I sighed and yanked on the rein to reel her in, but the buckle on the end of the rein slipped off her bit and set her free. (Go figure-I thought it had broken, but it was still in one piece!). She galloped away, this time heading home, and I saw her disappear by the entrance to the park. Great. Wonderful.
I alternately walked and jogged up the powerlines for what seemed like forever. My left hip (my already bad one, caused by a nasty fall from my jumper mare when I was 20, then compounded by a rearing horse falling ON me 5 years later) was definetely bruised and I was certain that it would be near impossible to walk by tomorrow, so might as well move as much as possible now. Even so, right now it felt like the head of my left femur was jabbing into the hip socket with every stride. I ignored it and moved on.
By the time I got to the gate Lily was nowhere to be seen, but her galloping tracks were fresh in the sand leading onto the asphalt. After that there was no clue as to what direction she had taken-logic said she would have headed back to the barn, but looking at her tracks, she might just have well headed straight into the bushes and tall grass that ran behind the barns on our street.
I made my way back to the barn on foot, reins still in my hand and helmet off. Turning onto our street there were still no signs of her. I tried calling Judy in the hopes that she might have her phone on her, wanting to find out if Lily was back at the barn, but there was no answer-Judy had been riding in the arena when I left. I hoped she had headed back. If not, it might be a small mission to find her. What if someone stole her? Or my saddle? I have a bridle tag on her with my name and phone number for precisely this reason, in case we ever got separated (I have one on every halter, even the rope one, and both bridles), but what if they decided not to call? I kept my phone in my hand as every possible dreadful scenario played through my head.
I plodded on, and halfway down the street, I found the duct tape bootie that I'd made for her left hind. I breathed a sigh of relief-she had definetely headed home. At that moment, a Gator pulled out of Saphire Stables, a nice hunter/jumper barn on our street, with a lady I didn't recognize driving, a groom that I did know riding in the back (he was the cousin of the stablehand from my previous barn-both really nice guys), and Jess, a girl that had boarded at our barn back when I had my neurological gelding, in the passenger seat. They stopped to ask if I was okay, and I said yes; I asked if they had seen my horse. They said she had galloped up the street and had disappeared into our driveway. They had seen her running by and had come to look for me. The lady was nice enough to offer to give me a ride back to my barn-this is one of the wonderful advantages of boarding on a street with only a handful of barns: everyone knows everyone, even if only by sight. I thanked the little trio profusely and hopped onto the bed of the gator as my phone rang-Judy. Lily had made it back to the barn okay.
As we pulled into the barn, Ines had just tried to hop on Lily to come look for me, but Lily had refused to leave the parking lot. Good for Ines, as she had not been wearing a helmet when she did so-Lily appears safe and calm to ride and is the sweetest horse on the ground, but she does NOT trust other people on her back other than me, and I was glad we had arrived at that point, or Ines might have gotten hurt if she had insisted.
I thanked everyone for their help, and then decided what to do about Lily. She had had her reward of getting away and coming home, so the damage was done. I had to get back on and do our walk workout, but I was terrified to get back on her. I put her rope halter on over the bridle, clipped the lunge line on, and led her, still fully tacked up, to the arena. Some of the water had drained out in the last hour (the barn really is high and dry for the most part) so I took Lily to the far corner where it was just damp sand and no puddles. I sent her out on the lunge, and Lily chose to gallop. And gallop and gallop. Change of direction. More galloping. I removed myself from my fear and anger, and just watched her. Her gallop was beautiful-very uphill again, like the day before-no soreness there. I gave her some line, and with the additional length she ended up lined up right in front of one of the water barrels. Normally she would have dodged the water barrel to the inside, which is what I expected, but instead she came to a complete stop, then jumped over it. An upright water barrel. That's at least 3 feet high. She leaped over it with a foot to spare. "Holy shit!" I exclaimed, but no one had been standing around to watch. Again my mare's talents go unwitnessed. I brought her to a stop, set 2 barrels down next to each other on the floor, and lunged her over them in both directions at canter and then trot, in the hopes that this would tire her out faster-up until now she had been going-going-going. When she had finally settled down to where she didn't want to gallop around like a madwoman anymore, I took her back into our corner and let her trot out in both directions in a beautiful lengthened trot. She was moving great today, I'll give her that.
Back in February, when I had decided to sell Lily, we had had an incident similar to this that had set everything in motion, but while still at home-we never got to leave the property before Lily had her little crow-hopping outburst. At that time, when I lunged her immediately after the incident, Lily was absolutely terrified of me and did everything in her power to try to get away from me, not listening, mentally stuck in a flashback. This time, while still wanting to run, she still listened to me when asking for changes of direction; I didn't even bother with requesting down transitions because I knew that despite everything, she was so worked up she wasn't going to obey. I really didn't want to argue with her, and risk losing all the ground we've gained this year. So I let her do what she chose, trusting that she would do what was best for herself.
She listened now when I asked her to walk, however, since she wasn't doing it of her own accord, then I led her to the arena fence, where I removed her bridle and tied her by the rope halter to the fence. I ran into the barn, quickly switched her bit back to the pelham (it is very likely I'll never use the mullen mouth again! Definetely not for trail riding!), with double reins this time, and in the process discovered I had a considerable scrape on my left elbow. All that adrenaline had kept me from feeling it all this time. I washed it quickly and almost yelped when it burned like crazy from the water, then ran back out to the arena. Lily was blowing hard and I didn't want her sitting around like that. I put the bridle back on, closed the arena gate that led to the outside, and hopped back on.
She was blowing HARD. So hard that I couldn't feel my own trembling; all I could feel was her breathing. I gave her a second, then gathered the reins and asked her to walk. She did.
We did some of the best lateral work Lily has ever given me, all at the walk, but we even half-passed at the walk in both directions, did perfect walk pirouttes (holy shit indeed!) and our renverses were gorgeous. She was cooperative and listening, immediately bending into the positions I asked her to and moving laterally with barely a weight shift. It was beautiful work. I asked her to trot a half circle, then canter a half circle, just to remind myself that I wasn't going to die on upward transitions, then brought her back to a walk. I was still really shaken up about this fall-it was always my worst nightmare to fall in the park and have my horse gallop back to the barn. What if she'd been hit by a car? What if we'd been on the trails, me knocked unconscious, and an ambulance couldn't find me? What if I'd bled out? What if Lily had been killed? What if, what if...? All of these played in my head as we worked across the arena. We did walk work for an entire hour, and she was still huffing and puffing by the end of it, despite the sun having already set and the temperature dropped. I had her do one more turn on the haunches in each direction before hopping off, and led her into the barn. My poor mare was exhausted-I don't think I've ever seen her this tired. :(
I untacked her quickly, hosed her off, scrubbed her foot thoroughly, put her ice boots on and prepared her epsom salt soak for her left hind.
She had almost completely dried off, but she was still panting somewhat, despite the ice boots. Normally, these drop her temperature within a few minutes.
I switched her to the wash rack by Rose's stall, hosed her off again and turned Rose's Farmtek fan directly on her. Within 5 minutes her breathing had finally slowed to a normal rate and effort, and she had perked up, all of her fears forgotten, ears pricked in my direction and watching my every move as I finished setting up her feed and picking her stall. My mare was back. Thankfully, her left hind was fine: she was putting weight on it and alternately resting left and right like a normal horse.
I applied Sore No More to all 4 legs, wrapped her with standing wraps, and treated her foot as usual post 2nd vet visit (only iodine spray and cotton w/topical antibiotic). Her paddock and walkout were both still very wet, so she'd have to stay in her stall tonight again, and I was afraid her legs would balloon standing still after all that activity and body heat. Dianne will be at the barn in the morning, and she said she'd take Lily's bandages off then and let her walk around her little grass paddock if it was dry. I definetely want to do some groundwork with her tomorrow, weather permitting, which will also allow her to walk around.
On the upside, I was joking with Diana that maybe I should take up professional bronc riding: I stayed on for 8 seconds!
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| My prize for my 8 second crow-hop ride: one lovely scraped elbow! |
