Back in the saddle again!

YES. I got down to the barn Tuesday night and put Tristan on the longe line, after a report from the farrier on Monday indicated there was no reason the abscess shouldn't be on its way out.

Sound at the walk, trot, and canter, both directions, even on the relatively small circle I used!

So I jumped on bareback and we had a 45 minute hack through the woods. He was so happy - charging right ahead, sometimes too fast as he took me onto side trails that hadn't been cleared in some time. I did a lot of ducking and grabbing mane. Nice, big, swingy walk and happy horse.

After the ride, I flushed out the abscess holes with hot water + betadine. The farrier had dug around a bit in the hoof to make sure it was clean and open, so his hoof looks pretty awful right now. The good news is that the hoof is clearly growing out more or less ok from the coronet band again; there's definitely a rim of new hoof above the abscess hole. It'll probably take a few months to clear up completely, but there should be no lingering abnormalities. I wrapped his foot with an Animalintex poultice pad just to be

I'll do the same again Thursday night, and then Saturday morning I'll put a saddle back on and start schooling again. He's been off for about four weeks at this point, so we'll take it easy with lots of walking and loosening up and a few trot sets.

King Oak Fall Horse Trials

I had every intention of taking photographs with which to illustrate this post, and...forgot. Ah well.

I scratched Tristan from the Beginner Novice, but still had friends going, and already had the day off, so I helped pack and load ponies on Friday, then drove out to King Oak. We arrived in plenty of time to do the course walk, and my heart did hurt a little bit - we could've handled it just fine.

In bed by 10pm after some pizza, and by "in bed" I mean an actual bed! For the first time in years we weren't sleeping in the truck, thanks to R.'s very generous offer of sharing her hotel room. It was lovely to have air conditioning and a proper bed and a shower. Unheard of for horse showing!

I helped clean tack and hold horses until my jump judge briefing at 8:15, and started to get a bit nervous during the briefing - the wind was picking up, and it was quite cold and cloudy. I told my jump partners that I'd walk out and meet them there, and went back to the car for my jacket.

I was sitting with two young girls and their babysitter, and so ended up doing the recording and radioing in myself, explaining eventing to the non-horsey babysitter (who was very nice and interested, and really picked up on things through the day) and answering questions for the girls. We were at a decently large Training fence for the morning, a sort of squared off stacked logs rolltop with some airy spaces in between. Fairly straightforward. It jumped just fine all morning, as it was soon after the water and usually by then horses were going.

Problems started when it started raining. Basic rain - not so much a problem. I mean, it was wet and miserable and the girls were not thrilled, but so it goes. I mostly kept my sheets dry and during a break ran to put my bag with my Kindle and cell phone in a dry car, and then resigned myself to getting soaked. The girls headed off, leaving me to judge the Beginner Novice fence with another set of jump judges, and at the end of the first BN division it started getting ugly. We heard thunder in the distance, and the wind and the rain picked up, and they called jump judges in when the radar showed a big, nasty storm cell close by.

I ran up to sit in the truck with J. and whew, the skies opened up. We waited an hour, and then they called off cross-country for the rest of the afternoon due to the forecast. I walked back up to the volunteer tent to drop off my things and stayed for a bit to help sort through forms to get them ready for tomorrow, then checked in to find that they were running BN in the morning, and R. was staying over in order to run her horse. King Oak was able to provide stabling, so huzzah for them!

I hung out at the volunteer tent and ate dinner waiting for that decision, and then was able to get back to the barn, soak Tristan's foot, wrap it up (more on the wrapping adventures later), and be home and in bed by 10:30. Whew.

Soaking, soaking, soaking

Not much new to report. Tris is now off at the walk as the abscess processes. He's definitely draining - if not always visibly, there's always a stain on the hoof to indicate goo. It seems to be coming both from the coronet band and from the newish hole a bit below the coronet band.

I'm soaking with epsom salt and betadine. Two days ago, I poured epsom salts, betadine, and hot water into a diaper and then did a wrap of that diaper, vetrap, and duct tape over the two holes. Last night, I did a sugardine painted directly onto the holes followed by the diaper, vetrap, and duct tape, and dried off the hoof and tried to get the duct tape to attach directly, in the hopes that it would last longer.

I did chat with the vet the other morning, and despite my valiant efforts to get him to spend my money, he said there was nothing to do but wait it out. Sometimes abscesses just hang around in the hoof and keep channeling around. I forgot completely to check in with them about the gassiness, too, in the hopes of preventing future colics, so I will have to call back this afternoon and at the very least order another tube of banamine for Monday.

I also want to check in with the farrier to see if he can just put eyes on Tris's foot during his regular rounds on Friday, and call Smartpak to see about doing a digestive supplement. Most of them look formulated for hard keepers or nervous horses - neither of which is a good description of my horse! We'll see what they have to say.

Tomorrow is a day off to make a Smartpak run to pick up some Animalintex poultice to wrap Tris's foot with, some assorted supplies for friends, and then to pack up the ponies and head out to King Oak. I am sort-of grooming for Hannah on Friday, then volunteering at King Oak all day Saturday. A bit bittersweet that we won't be running after all, but with the continuing problems I know I made the right decision, and I have plenty of friends to cheer on.

Book Review: Chosen By a Horse

Chosen By a Horse: How a Broken Horse Fixed a Broken Heart
by Susan Richards


My mother lent this to me a very long time ago, and now that I am no longer in graduate school, I've been working through my backlog of loaned and long-ago-purchased books. I picked this up to head off to a long weekend at a house in the White Mountains, and it suited lazy hammock reading nicely.

Richards has a very straightforward, simple writing style. Probably about half the time it worked for me, and the other half I felt frustrated that she was clearly describing things far too plainly. I can tell there's a good, knowledgeable horsewoman in there, but several times I spotted her dumbing down her descriptions or analyses for a broader audience.

The story of Lay Me Down really was touching, and well-told. The mare sounds like she was utterly wonderful, with loads of personality. I'm not sure she "fixed" Richards; as another reviewer pointed out, the battles with alcoholism and abandonment were in Richards' past by the time she adopted the mare. If there was some more profound connection between the mare's story and Richards moving to a new phase of her life - I didn't get it.

The only parts that truly annoyed me were some of Richards' horsekeeping decisions. More than anything else, her decision to enclose her barn inside her pasture and then...leave the stalls open all day, let the horses wander in and out of stalls seemingly at will, and feed them wherever they hung out, sometimes in the aisle, really, REALLY grated on me. I'm not sure what she expected would happen with an alpha mare and a small enclosed space. That's an accident that should NEVER have happened, and from descriptions later in the book she really had no intention of fixing the problem.

Anyway. Those reservations aside, this was a pleasant enough read. It didn't change my life, but I also found it quite readable and read to the end - something of a feat for me and books recently.

Again. Some More.

So, my horse has an abscess.

No, another one.

Or maybe the same one.

Do I sound like a broken record? I feel like one.

I was away for the weekend, and left anticipating that all I would hear was that my horse had some lovely walk/trot sets to ease him back in slowly. I was thinking, maybe I'll ride him in the lesson on Tuesday, even if we just do a bunch of trot stuff.

Then I got the text that he was off at the trot and there was some discharge from his foot - that same right front. #@!@!%$#%@

I got to the barn tonight to see a nice lump about 1/4" below the coronet band, quite hot, with a pinprick hole or two in it. He'd been soaked by awesome friends over the weekend, and I bought more epsom salts and betadine on the way to the barn to keep going.

I was frustrated, riding the tail end of a long weekend, and we had some bad moments early on in the soaking but I took a deep breath and apologized to him. We both stood and sighed for a moment, and he behaved from then on.

I'll call the farrier and the vet in the morning. Farrier just to take a look; vet to try and talk them into getting me some antibiotics and then coming out to see him on Monday the 10th when they're looking at another horse in the barn. I'm not sure it will work, but I can always hope. At this point, I don't want to chase this around anymore with soaking; I worry about it going more systemic.

He'll stay in tomorrow and be good and mad at me for soaking tomorrow night, but hopefully after talking to the vet & farrier I'll have a better plan of action. I'd like to be done with this already.