Max and WallE are best friends. They are inseparable. No, I mean that literally. They cannot be separated. See:

Inseparable

WallE has been doing great with his training. He gets more mature-looking every day but is still under 14.2 hands. He’s so pretty that one day Jamie and I cleaned him all up and took some model photos. He is a pretty pony!

WallE Posing

Jamie is still not comfortable riding him and even took a fall off of him and I am just way too big on him, so I enlisted my friend Katie to ride him. She is a good rider and has enormous patience. She was very good for him throughout the summer.

Katie on WallE

As the fall came around, I was watching Max very carefully as he trotted across the field when he was turned out. He sure looked sound! But I kept resisting the urge to ride him or to even jog him. I rode him several times at the walk in the ring as the vet instructed me to, but didn’t trot him. Then, about a month ago, Max came in from the field covered in hives. He wasn’t acting like they bothered him at all, but he was absolutely covered!

Max' Hives

I called the vet. She came right out and gave him a shot of steroids. So now we had the fun job of trying to figure out what was causing it! While she was there I had her watch Max jog. She watched him and said he looked 100% to her. No, we didn’t flex him or x-ray or ultrasound but she said it was okay for me to start bringing him back slowly. If he wasn’t sound, I should call her. So we walked around the fields to see if there was anything suspicious growing out there…nothing. We washed his blankets, gave him a bath, and changed his shavings. Then eventually when that didn’t work, we changed his hay. The shot she gave him did wonders but as soon as it wore off he was right back to being covered in hives. I am waiting now for a bottle of long-term steroids that I will give him daily for the next month or two. At least until we get a good killing frost or two.

Then the time came that I knew would come eventually. Nora called to ask me if I wanted to buy WallE. I told her that I didn’t. I didn’t have the money but I also didn’t want to see a young pony with so much potential end up in a back yard for the rest of his life. He needs a kid to love him. He needs to go to shows. So Nora told me she wanted him back as soon as I could get a companion for Max. I started looking.

It didn’t take long for someone to let me know that a friend of mine had a Haflinger that she needed to find a home for. He was 14.1 and only 10 years old. He had been rescued from Camelot a year ago and was now being ridden on trails, learning dressage and swimming in the ocean. He was also very good with small children. She was from another country and her visa had run out so she had to find a home for him. She was very attached to him and wanted him to be in a good, safe, loving home. Everyone that knew me and knew about our place told her that I would be perfect. I went to see him with my two youngest boys and we thought he would be perfect for our house. Great on trails, great for the boys to hop on and walk around, and fun enough for some one that knew what they were doing to work on dressage. Stocky enough for most adults and easy enough for anybody to ride. We also found out he can drive. We thought he would be perfect for us.

Trying "Buddy"

Where are they taking him?

 

There he goes...

 

Still staring

After spending the night next to each other, it was time to turn them out together and see how it went. At first Max was still calling for WallE, but after a little while he sniffed Buddy and made friends. By the afternoon they were in Max’ stall together. I don’t see the incredible bond that Max and WallE had, but I definitely see that they like each other. We’ve taken them on a few trail rides together and they are very compatible on the trail. Max doesn’t even seem to mind if Buddy is in front of him and when Max is scared of something, Buddy will lead him through it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And off they go

 He is a perfect fit at our house. Just what we needed.

Buddy

What is a “filler” exactly? A filler is a rider that gets put into a qualifying class so the class will meet the minimum number of riders needed in order for the class to “count” and the winner to qualify (and I’m talking about hunt seat equitation medal qualifying classes because that is my only experience with fillers). Often, the riders that want the class “filled” will split the cost of the entry fee for the filler and sometimes even pay for an association membership for the filler. In turn, the filler is supposed to purposely make an error that would prevent them from winning the class; usually that means they will do a circle somewhere on the course or break to a trot or halt in order to be dropped to the bottom of the pinning.

What does the filler get out of it? The filler gets a little extra mileage in the ring, but mostly they get the gratitude of their fellow horse-show enthusiasts and the possibility that the favor will be returned to them some day.

This also really helps the show managers. They want their shows to have a reputation for always filling their medal classes. That reputation will help ensure that their shows are successful. A show that has a reputation for never filling their medals will slowly get less and less people showing there. Riders and trainers will save their money for a show where they know they have at least a chance to qualify.

So everyone is happy, right?…..well, not everybody….

I was at a recent horse show where there was a lot of scrambling to fill a medal class. Some one offered to be a filler if another rider would pay the entries. In exchange, they would help fill another class….lots of complicated deals and arrangements were made on the sidelines and the class was filled. But then the filler, not knowing she had to “throw” the class, actually won the class. Later that day, the filler was checking out at the secretary’s booth and finds that the entry fee for the medal class is on her bill. The secretaries have no involvement with the filler deals—that is arranged by the trainers and the horse show manager—so if no one tells them, they charge the rider for the class. They tell the filler to go get the trainer of the rider that had promised to pay her entry. The trainer comes over and angrily declares that her student is not paying because the filler won the class. The filler also refused to pay saying she would never have gone in the class if she was going to have to pay, and she wouldn’t even be in the state when the finals will be held! So you can see the types of issues that can arise.

Then there’s the issue of fence height. In a lot of cases where a filler is used, the fences are kept lower than the specs for the class just so the filler can make it around. So, for example, the Maclay is supposed to be at 3’6″, but if a filler has never jumped that high or has an older horse that shouldn’t jump that high, the show manager may agree to keep the fences low (there are often juniors around that compete at 3′) so the class will run. Does it seem fair that one rider qualifies for the Maclay finals jumping 3′ fences and another works really hard to qualify in stiff competition over fences set at the maximum height? Who is the more deserving rider to qualify?

But beyond that, if some one qualifies by using fillers, aren’t they cheating themselves? Are they really qualified to ride at that medal finals? Are qualifiers really the “cream of the crop” that the medal finals organizers are hoping to get? If it takes 3 riders in a class for it to count, and a rider pays for two fillers, they win no matter how poorly they ride and then “qualify” for the finals. They could be woefully unprepared to actually compete at those finals. Doesn’t it also lessen the thrill and prestige of qualifying if basically anyone that can get a couple of fillers can qualify?

Of course I’m playing devil’s advocate here and sounding pretty hypocritical. I can’t honestly remember, but I’ve probably qualified at least once with a filler in the class, and I’m grateful for that filler, and I probably will another time to come. I want shows to be successful so I want the medals to fill. If we made more stringent rules about fillers, would we only have a handful of riders at the end of the year who have qualified for our medal finals? It’s a double-edged sword.

I don’t see how we can ever eliminate the role of the filler in smaller, local shows, but I would at least like to eliminate the lowering of fences for fillers. If a filler can’t be found that can do the specified height, then the filler shouldn’t fill. It may seem like you’re helping the winning rider by filling the class at all costs, but I don’t believe you are. You should qualify at the height you will ultimately jump at the finals. You have to be prepared to show at those finals. You have to belong there.

But I DO understand that in most cases the rider that qualifies really is prepared and really does deserve to be there, it’s usually just necessary because there aren’t enough riders at the shows to fill the classes. That’s a problem with our local shows or with the economy or something—I don’t know. If I think about all this some more, I might just change my mind and flip-flop on everything I’ve just said.

I’d be very interested to hear what other people think about this topic.

You may be wondering why I haven’t written in so long, well it’s time, even if it is unlucky 13. When I last wrote, we were thrilled to have Wall-E join our family and were anxiously awaiting spring so we could ride both of them. Well, the winter turned out to be a total nightmare. Last winter when the ring was too hard to ride on, I took Max on trail rides throughout the entire winter. We’d get snow and it would melt and I’d hit the trail. This winter, no go! The snow never melted! It was so icy and dangerous that I didn’t dare ride him or Wall-E. We did take them on a trail ride or two, but nowhere near what I was able to do last year. I really couldn’t wait for spring.

I also had surgery in November and wasn’t able to ride at Sandy Point Stables for a couple of months. During that time, I thought long and hard about the money I was spending there when I had TWO to ride at home and two kids going to college next year. It was very hard, but given the balance I still owed Jay from last year’s shows, the extreme disappointment that I endured at last year’s RI Finals, and the thought that I could work on my own horses with a simple reachable goal of taking them to at least one show in the summer, I decided to stop taking lessons and not show with SPS in 2011. Sooo hard. It is an addiction, after all.

So this horrible winter finally came to an end, the snow and ice finally melted from the ring, and we changed the clocks for daylight savings time. Time to saddle up! I rode Max in the ring and although his head was high at the canter and he was snorting a bit, he seemed to remember a lot of what Nora had been working on with us at the trot. Wall-E, on the other hand, was not the quiet, docile pony that he evidently was last summer. I honestly think that he was a malleable toddler when Nora started riding him and over the winter had grown into a punky, defiant teenager. The first time I took him in the ring, he screamed his head off for Max, bucked, reared, bolted, spooked—you name it, he did it! By the end of the ride he was much better, but no way was I going to put Jamie on him for a while.

Me on Wall-E

I asked my sister to help me with him and she rode him a couple of times while I rode Max. That worked better. Max was going pretty well and Wall-E was doing really well at the trot with my sister. She’s good at teaching horses to bend and to frame up. After one of our rides we took the two of them up the dirt road. The road was covered in golf ball-sized rocks. My sister was very concerned that they would get stone bruises. I didn’t think so because I had ridden Max on the dirt road all last year with no problems. But sure enough, two or three days later, I went to ride Max and he was slightly off. Two days later he was really off. So, figuring it was a stone bruise I gave him a few weeks off and just rode Wall-E. He got better with the screaming and didn’t buck or bolt or spook anymore. I started working on cantering him. He would either go really fast at the canter or trot really fast. Lots of work to do, but he is so darn cute and sweet!!!

Max wasn’t getting any better so I tried bute for a few days and he showed no improvement. Lots of people started saying that maybe an abcess was brewing but I really didn’t think so. No heat, no pulse, no swelling and he wasn’t THAT unsound. Wall-E needed a Potomac booster so I asked the vet to take a look at Max when she came. She started out just feeling his leg but he is so sensitive to anybody touching his legs that she couldn’t tell anything. We jogged him and she flexed him and he was pretty head-bobbing lame at the trot. She started blocking him. No change after she blocked the foot. No change after she blocked the ankle. So she decided to go straight for the high suspensory. He trotted off sound. There was no denying it—it was a high suspensory injury. My heart sank. Nickleby was retired because of a recurring high suspensory issue so I, of course, thought the worst. The vet guessed that he did it running in the field with his play-pony. She said that it was going to require 6-9 months off. In 9 months we’d be back to winter and no daylight savings. We were basically going to lose an entire year. He’s be 15 before I could re-start his training. If it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and this dog wasn’t getting any younger, would I have time to teach him to jump without thinking he had to win the race? The dream of being able to show him as a hunter was looking more and more impossible.

How long can my streak of bad luck keep up? (Remember one of my earlier posts that talks about my luck with horses?) Isn’t there ever going to be a time when NOTHING goes wrong?

I was so depressed that night that I went to bed at around 7pm. I had posted the news on Facebook and the next day I got a bunch of really nice messages with stories of horses that had high suspensory injuries and were back to jumping and competing. The vet did say that a front suspensory injury is a lot less severe than a hind one and has a pretty good prognosis. My friend called me and told me about her mare that had a platelet procedure done and was already back to work after only a few months. There is hope.

The next day I rode the pony. My daughter wanted to see how he was progressing and if she felt comfortable, she wanted to try riding him. Right off the bat he freaked out on the crossties and then stood on his hind legs and walked around like a circus pony when I tried to get on him. He’s not a bad boy, he’s just a baby that gets confused. Once I was on him, he was very good. Jamie felt comfortable enough to get on him and trot around and she did really well. She fits him perfectly and he looked really good.

Jamie on Wall-E

But she did admit she was slightly nervous on him and wasn’t ready to canter him. I know that he needs to be ridden as close to daily as possible. I just can’t do it with the crazy schedule that I keep with work, my kids, my websites, and working at horse shows. My boys have karate and baseball and cub scouts—it gets overwhelming! My sister said she could ride him occasionally but really not more than once or twice a week. I am torn now. I love him. Max ADORES him, but if I can’t ride Max for a whole year and I’m not riding at Sandy Point, I’m not sure that I want to be riding a very green pony as my only ride. I was looking forward to playing with him as a side project to Max—not my only project. My calves barely touch his sides. And at some point, his owners are going to want me to pay for him or they will need to sell him. He was an investment for them. I don’t have the money right now and with Max’ vet bills, my next few judging jobs will be paying for those, so I see no time when I’ll ever be able to save enough money to pay for him.

Enter the wild card. My mother’s boyfriend Barry, who lives in Florida, has a 5 year-old quarter horse that he wants to find a good home for. ”Rusher” is a chestnut with 4 white legs. Barry told me that he was finer built than the quarter horses he prefers and may be better suited to go English over Western. Barry had a bad fall from him (on what he explained was a freak explosion that the horse had never shown any signs of doing before) and wasn’t going to be riding him anymore. I happened to be in Florida on business when my mother was down there visiting Barry, so they picked me up and I spent a couple of days with them. I got to ride the QH. He was really cute and sweet. He had been gelded late so he has that cresty neck with big eyes and a huge forelock falling down his face. I really liked how he was in the field when I walked up to him and he has chrome that can’t be beat!

"Rusher"

Chrome!

But it was nearly 95 degrees when I rode him so it’s hard to tell how he would be on a windy, cold day. I was also using a Western saddle and bit so it was really difficult to judge how he would be as an English horse.

Riding Rusher in 95 Degree Heat

Barry offered to give him to me for free and even offered to ship him to RI for me. So would he be better than a green pony for me to ride? I’ve never had a QH before or would even consider one because I’m such a hunter/TB fan, but would his temperament be a welcome change of pace? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a horse with sturdy bones and strong, hard feet? Wouldn’t it be easier to deal with a horse that you could light a firecracker under and he wouldn’t do anything? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a horse that I could let a friend ride on a trail with me while I rode Max? Max is almost 15 and has had a physically stressful career, he will be retired long before this QH will have to retire. Can I gamble on a horse that is such a question mark as far as whether or not he can even jump? And what would I do with him if he doesn’t work out? The market is so tough right now to sell a horse or even to find a home for a free one! Or should I just get a boarder and go back to showing with SPS? I wish I could afford 3 at home, but I cannot. So many questions! I have to do some serious thinking.

Back to Max. The vet came today to do an ultrasound. The news was better than expected. He clearly has an injury to his suspensory, but she saw nothing major, not even a lot of swelling. She felt that platelet therapy or shockwave therapy wasn’t warranted. She thinks that we should immediately start his rehab with 10 minutes of walking as many days as we can, adding 5 minutes each week. Then in 60 days we will have her come back out and see how he is doing. She said it would be more like 4 to 6 months than 6 to 9 months. Good news for a change!

There’s still so much to think about….

Wall-E

While we were there we also fell in love with a kitten that was looking for a home.

Kobe "Smitten" Kitten

We said “YES!” to both the pony and the kitten.

A few days after Christmas, I borrowed a trailer and drove up to Mass to pick Wally (the pony) and Smitten (the kitten) up. [The pony's full name is "William Wallace" but we decided we would call him "Wall-E". My daughter also renamed the kitten "Kobe" but we still call him "Smitten Kitten" occasionally.] I had Gilly and Max turned out when we pulled in the yard with Wally. I put Wall-E in the stall, brought Max in and put Gilly straight on the trailer and brought him back to his home. I felt bad for him at first but when I saw how eager he was once we got to Smithbridge, I knew he would be fine. He was going to be turned out with his old pasture buddy again.

Right away, Max was excited about Wall-E. They were sniffing eachother through the stall bars and were very interested in eachother.

We turned them out and they ran around together and played together. Max was visibly happier than he has been since Nickleby died.

Once they stopped running around, Max actually let him eat hay from the same pile as him. Occasionally, he would lift his head up and touch Wall-E’s side as if to check that he was real. It’s really cute.

It’s been a month now and they are best buddies. They run and play together and bite-fight and stay right by eachother’s sides. They are almost a little too attached so I know we are going to have some separation issues. We have been unable to ride either one of them because of the incredible amounts of snow and ice that are on the ground. We can’t wait for spring so we can start working with both of them. I did ride Max once while Gilly was here and he was really good. Sound and quiet and framing up pretty easily. We are really hopeful that we can take BOTH of them to some shows this year…..THINK SPRING!

To see more photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=311765&id=530927639&l=e30525124c

Nicholas Nickleby

All day Thursday Nickleby was completely fine. Friday morning I woke up and went to feed him and Max, and Nickleby was hanging his head and panting really hard. I’ve never seen a horse breathing that rapidly. I took his temperature and it was normal but he had zero interst in his feed, was looking at me with panic in his eyes, and his breathing was so rapid—I knew it was something bad. My first thought was heart failure. So I called the vet immediately. She asked me if I thought it was laminitis or colic and I told her I didn’t think so. He was walking okay and his feet had no heat. I didn’t think it was colic either because there was a normal amount of manure in his stall and I actually watched him manure. He wasn’t lying down or biting his sides or anything like that. She came in about an hour.

When she arrived, his heart rate was 80 and it’s supposed to be 30 and his temp had climbed to 101.4. She told me the heart rate was a very bad sign. She listened to his heart for a long time and then listened to his gut and his lungs. When she was done, she told me that she thought he was colicking very badly and was just a very “stoic” guy. She explained that the presence of manure wasn’t a method of eliminating colic because there can still be manure in the intestines past the block. She decided to sedate him and do a rectal exam to see if she could find a blockage. She could not. She then said that she would put a tube in his stomach and see if there was any pressure. She told me that pressure was a sure sign that there was a blockage.

As soon as the tube went in, a yellowish brown liquid came squirting out of the tube into the bucket. She looked at me and shook her head no. She told me that she was 99.9 percent certain that his intestine was twisted and that it was very bad. She said the only option would be surgery but at his age and with his heart rate the way that it was, that wasn’t an option.

I was sort of in shock for a minute or two and asked her if that meant we should put him down immediately, and she said “yes”. She said she could do some things in the truck while we made preparations but she said that he was in tremendous pain and was just being very brave about hiding it. We called my daughter and my two neices down to come say goodbye. They were stunned. He was fine just yesterday. There were lots of hugs and lots of tears and then my two little boys asked if they could come down and say goodbye too.

After they left, we walked Nickleby out to TP’s meadow and put him down right next to TP. It went very fast. There was no question it was the right thing to do.

And as hard as it is to not worry about hurting the feelings of the one that has passed, it was time to turn our attention to the one that was left behind. We had tranqed Max before we led Nickleby away because he would now be all alone in the barn and I knew he would not do well with it. My sister asked me if I knew anyone that might loan a pony to us. I did. I called Bonnie Smith, the owner/trainer at Smithbridge Stables in the next town over. I explained my situation and she told me that she had just the right pony and she could be over in half an hour. Her trailer happened to be hitched up so it was no problem for her to throw the pony in and drive him over. People amaze me with their kindness when you are most in need.

So before I could even go sit down and catch my breath, I drove to a spot to wait for the trailer so that she could follow me to our house. Once she arrived, she told us that the pony was named “Gilly” and that he was a 14 year-old quarter horse that had only grown to 14.2 hands. He was a trail horse from Block Island but he had gone to her because he was losing weight. Evidently the other trail horses were pushing him away at feeding time and he was not assertive enough to get his fair share of grain. She told me that he was walking sound but was not very sound behind for anything more than that. She said he was very docile and easy to get along with in the pasture, and wonderful on the trail. She said we could keep him as long as we needed to, and if it didn’t work out, she’d come and get him back. She refused payment for shipping. When my sister thanked her, Bonnie said that I had helped her out many times so she didn’t hesitate to help me. A good lesson for kids—when you are nice to people, they will want to be nice to you.

"Gilly"

So we put Gilly in Nickleby’s stall, gave him some hay and watched what would happen. Max and Gilly touched noses without squealing and kicking, so it seemed to be going fine. After a few minutes we decided to open the stall doors and let them out into the pasture. When we did, Max did this weird thing where he circled around and around Gilly as if he was herding him away from the barn. He threatened him a few times too. After 10 or so minutes of this, they eventually started grazing in separate spots in the field.

Max & Gilly

Later when I went back to put them in, Max was standing next to the barn and Gilly was way out in the pasture. Bonding was not happening. I think Max was looking for Nickleby. My sister thought that Max was herding Gilly away from the barn to protect Nickleby. Max was definitely looking sad.

The next day I tried putting them out in my field, but Max just ran around and around and looked longingly at the barn as if he thought Nickleby might still be in there. He ignored Gilly for the most part. He kept looking into the shed to see if Nickleby was in there. Then he would run around again. So I had to move them back to the other pasture near the barn. I put some hay out for them in the hopes of getting them to eat nearer to each other. It seemed to work out okay.

Max Ignoring Gilly

In the afternoon we took them out for a trail ride. I rode Max and my daughter Jamie rode Gilly. Max hadn’t been ridden in a few months and it was also the first time we had been on a trail ride with another horse, so he was a little goofy. He jigged and jogged and shook his head like he was heading to the starting gates. But he relaxed eventually and we had a nice ride. Hopefully it helped to bond them a little more. It will be nice to have people go out on the trail with me.

When we rode back to the barn, Max pulled me in the direction of TP’s meadow–whether he knew that’s where we led Nickleby or he could smell him, I’m not sure. I just know he was insistent about going out there.

After we got back, we fed them and put them away for the night. Then I had to walk over to my pasture to get Max’ blanket. As my sister and I walked over that way, Max stuck his head out and whinnied very loudly. I think he thought we were going to bring Nickleby in. Breaks your heart.

So we know it will take a week or so for the two of them to become friends, but I’m sure they will. For now, he isn’t alone. This gives us time to decide what we want to do. Should we buy a pony or small horse to keep? Should my sister buy a horse for herself? Should we take in a boarder? Should I board Max at a place with an indoor for the winter? Lots to think about. For now we just need to absorb it. It happened so fast it hasn’t really sunk in. On October 1st we had three horses and now we have one. It’s just hard to believe.

So I am glad that TP has Nickleby with him now. They belong together.

But as I posted on Facebook, my body is healing, my mind is healing, but I am waiting now for my heart to heal…

So after a week, I got on him and he was definitely off. I hopped right down and gave him another week off. By this time, the cut was almost completely healed, but there was a hard, boney lump under it. I got on him again and he was still limping. Not 3-legged lame, but slightly off. I made an appointment with the vet to have him x-rayed.

The vet came and she felt the lump. He pulled his leg away—obviously still pretty tender. We put him on the lunge line and he was a little excited. Why wouldn’t he be on a brisk, windy, fall day? So between leaps and bucks and short bursts of speed, I got him to trot. The vet and the vet tech were more impressed by how he moved (“your future adult hunter!”) then about how off he was. In fact, she said she only saw him limp every few steps, and barely at all.

He snorted and pranced back into the barn—obviously not in a lot of pain—but there was no question that we were going to x-ray it. She took several shots and then had me come over to the monitor and see them. She showed me a dark line running down his splint bone. That, she explained to me, was a fracture. There was also a small piece that wasn’t connected at all. It was very hard to believe that a relatively sound horse was walking around with a fractured leg.

The vet explained that if you could choose the best bone to break for a horse, this one was it. It is non-weight bearing and really doesn’t do anything. She compared it to an extra finger that is no longer used. She told me that these tend to heal really well and the horse is generally just as sound once it heals as it was before the injury. She showed me that it had already started to calcify and that it was in perfect alignment. She did say that the chip was something that we would want to keep an eye on, but she felt that it was in a great position and was already starting to heal correctly. There is a possibility, she warned me, that the chip could try to work itself out through the skin, or it could move until it was irritating soft tissue (ligaments and tendons), but she didn’t think that was going to happen given its current position and the fact that it was already starting to fill in with bone.

The treatment was 30 days off. Not stall rest, but try to keep him from running around. I don’t have to wrap him or hose him or anything. I have to apply a topical anti-inflammatory cream to it twice a day. At the end of the month we’ll x-ray him again and see where we are.

So I’m not that freaked out about it. I think I would be if he was 3-legged lame or if the treatment recommendation was stall rest. This I can live with. It’s also sort of good timing. I am having surgery November 2nd and won’t be able to ride for 8 weeks. We can heal together.

So I guess my training updates will be replaced by vet check updates for the time being….

As you know, TP is 30 years old. He has Cushings disease and he has had bouts of laminitis. When he first foundered, it took some pretty heroic efforts to get him comfortable again. But my sister, her husband, and the good vets at Ocean State Equine were able to get him turnout-sound. He had another tough spell when he pulled something in his hind end, but that too, he managed to recover from. But at the start of this fall season, his laminitis spiked up again. This time it was really bad. He was very clearly uncomfortable and acting depressed. He usually enjoyed playing bite-fight with Max but he was no longer fighting back. He would cower and squeal rather than fight back or run away. Some times he didn’t want to step over the lip of his stall door to go out. It was hurting my sister to see him like that. Then the blacksmith came out and didn’t want to trim him because he was afraid it would hurt TP too much and that TP might fall down.

TP

TP's Amazing Jumping Style

It has to be the hardest and worse decision a pet owner ever has to make. Is it time? Is it worth putting him through more pain to try to hang onto him for a few more months? Can I really say goodbye to him?

So one day my sister asked me to check on TP and let her know what I thought. How bad did I think he was? How much pain did I think he was in? I left work early and got home around 1pm. I walked out into the pasture and watched TP walk around. He was very obviously sore in his front feet. Really sore. I looked around for Nickleby and I didn’t see him. I walked over to the shed and found him in there. He had white foam streaming out of his nostrils. He was choking.

I’ve seen horses choking before but I’d never had one of my own doing it. I knew that you could do something with a hose, but I wasn’t sure what exactly. I called the vet immediately. They told me to try squirting water at the back of his throat with the hose and see if that forced him to cough something up. I hung up and did it several times over the course of about 20 minutes. Nothing was coming out at all. No hay, no grass, nothing but that white foam. So I called the vet back and told them they needed to send somebody. They said they would be there in about an hour. I stayed with him out in the field. I could tell that he was able to breathe okay, but he was still choking pretty badly. That’s when I took a glance over at Max. His right front leg was blown up like a balloon from about the knee down. Great!!!

Let me backtrack a bit. Several days ago, I brought the horses in for the night and noticed a 3-inch cut on his leg about half way between his knee and his ankle on the outside splint bone. It seemed pretty superficial but it was a gash. I didn’t think it needed stitches and he was walking sound, so I cleaned it carefully, hosed it for 25 minutes, smothered it in Furazone and wrapped it in gauze and a standing bandage. The next day I did the same and wrapped it in vet wrap so he could go out. On the 3rd day I put alum-guard on the cut and didn’t wrap it. He was jogging sound and the cut was healing nicely so I wasn’t very worried about it. Until now.

I brought all the horses in and cold hosed Max’ leg while I waited for the vet. When they arrived, they examined Nickleby, asked some questions and prepared a tube to put down his throat to try to clear the blockage. The tube only went down about 4 inches before she encountered the block. She said that she couldn’t believe how hard it was. She said it felt like a baseball or an apple and not anything like grass or hay, which is normally what causes a horse to choke. We asked everyone we could think of if they had given him an apple, but no one had. She tried several more times and wasn’t able to make any progress with the tube. She looked at me with this shocked expression on her face and said that there was nothing else she could do.

I was stunned. Here we were trying to decide whether or not to put TP down and Nickleby was going to die 2 days before TP’s next vet appointment when we were contemplating doing it? I was envisioning the excavator digging one giant hole and putting them both down together. I was figuring that we would have to do it that night because TP would not survive without Nickleby. We can’t even lead Nickleby out of his stall without TP freaking out with separation anxiety.

Then the vet said that we could send him up to Tuft’s to be scoped and figure out what it was. She said it could be a blockage, or it could be a tumor. I asked her if both of those scenarios would end up in surgery and she said yes. I told her I wasn’t going to do that to a 40 year-old pony even if I did have money to afford something like that. So once again she said there was nothing else she could do. Then she got the idea to tranquilize him, put the speculum on him and try to reach down his throat and pull the blockage out. With no other options, we gave that a try. She was not able to reach. At this point, Nickleby was very dehydrated and was running a fever. She suggested that we ship him up to her clinic and give him fluids and a muscle relaxant and hope that the block moved on its own. I was game for that.

Of course, I don’t have a trailer so I made several frantic calls to people I knew in the area that had trailers, and in just a few minutes I had several people offering to loan me their trailer and one offer to drive us up there. My brother-in-law took me in his truck to pick up the trailer and he drove it back to the barn and offered to drive him up to the clinic.

While I made these arrangements I asked the vet to look at Max. She also felt the cut was superficial and gave me 3 days worth of an anti-inflammatory. She wanted me to hose him twice a day, and then poultice and wrap him at night. She’d look at him again 2 days later when she came to examine TP.

When I loaded Nickleby into the trailer, I noticed that the white foam was no longer coming from his nostrils and that he had the sparkle back in his eyes. When we got up to the clinic, he seemed better. The vet scoped him and the tube went all the way down. No blockage. Everything in his throat looked clean and white and pristine. They decided to go down as far as his stomach to see what it was that had caused the blockage. That was pretty interesting. But all we saw was some old rough looking hay. No baseball, no apple. They gave him a big bucket of a gatorade-like mixture to rehydrate him and then some antibiotics to prevent an infection and we headed back home. 7 hours and $466 later, it looked like he was going to be okay. We were just going to have to feed him mush from now on. His grain would have to be soaked and he would have to eat soaked hay cubes from now on.

So I told the vet that my sister had made her decision and wanted to put TP down on Friday. The vet then told me that it was the right thing to do and that it was what she would do if it was her horse. If only she would have said that to my sister a week ago. It would have made the decision easier. But the vets have to stay positive and let you know all of your options and let you know that if you are willing, they will do whatever they can. So it was arranged.

My sister did not want to be there when he was put down, so she went to work and I stayed home and waited for the vet. I turned them all out in the morning and sat there and watched them for a while.

I brought them all in when the vet arrived. It went very smoothly and very peacefully, but it was very hard to do. Max and Nickleby did not neigh or act up when we led TP away, but when I returned from the woods without him, Max started to freak out. We ended up having to give him some Ace to calm him down. I moved Nickleby over into TP’s stall so he could be closer to Max. Nickleby and Max had never been the best of friends but now they only had each other.

So for the next few days, I thought that Nickleby seemed a little subdued, maybe even depressed. He was sticking closer to Max then he ever did and even whinnied when I took Max out of his stall and he never did that before. The saddest thing was when we would open the stall doors for the horses to go out into the pasture in the morning and Nickleby would hang out near TP’s door waiting for him to come out and join them.

Chris and her husband decided to clear the land near where TP was buried and make a meadow of wildflowers and flowering trees. They cleared 2 plus acres and planted seed. It’s going to be beautiful. TP’s Meadow.

TP's Meadow

We all miss TP and are sad about losing him, but we know that he had a great life and was happy. In some ways you wish that he was worse off when we put him down so that it was obvious what needed to be done, but I think this was way better that Chris didn’t wait until he was in terrible pain and unhappy. I know that we did the right thing for TP.

TP & Max Had a Love/Hate Relationship, But They Had Fun Together

TP Loved Chasing Dogs

TP & His Best Friend, Nickleby, Enjoying Retirement Together

We love you, TP. You will be missed.

The day of the show I was very nervous and couldn’t eat. I went in the Classic, which is basically a warm-up class, and had a pretty poor round. I was not riding confidently and I was too slow. There was a halt and then an oxer and I was late getting Icy to halt and then didn’t have enough pace to the oxer, so I chipped it. On two of the lines, I went too fast and then the jump coming out of the line was snug. I got a score of 69—UGGHHH! Not even close to being in the ribbons. I was very upset with myself. Once again, my friend had a fabulous round and won the class. Believe me, I was very happy for her but also felt some pangs of jealousy. Why can’t I ride without getting so nervous??? Why is it easy for other people? I ride so well at lessons and then choke at shows!

So we did the course walk and I had it in my head that I was going to do just as bad as I did in the classic. For some reason, that took the pressure off of me. I actually didn’t care if I did poorly. If I did well, great, but I wasn’t pressuring myself that I HAD to do great. Besides, I fell off last year so just staying on was an improvement, right?

When I went in for my round, I felt okay. Nervous but okay. I had a great first fence and then turned to one of the lines that I had done too forward in the Classic. I steadied just enough and the line worked great. Then it was a left-hand turn to a very forward 6 stride coming out over an oxer and going right towards the spectator tent. I galloped up the hill and nailed the spot. Then I blanked out on where I was going next. At the last second I remembered I needed to rollback and by some miracle it worked. There was another rollback, and that worked too.

Ice Capade and Me at RI Finals

I remembered to get him going a little bit and not lose the “lick” and headed for the other line that I had over-ridden in the first class. This time, instead of angling it, I rode straight for two strides and then turned in a bowing line and it fit perfectly. Then I did a right-hand turn to the last jump and made sure to use tons of outside leg to not lose his pace. We did that one nicely too. So I knew it wasn’t the best round I’d ever done, but I felt like it was very decent and I hadn’t made any big mistakes.

Ice Capade and Me at RI Finals

As I came out of the ring, Jay looked at me and said “Better….” but I could read her face that she didn’t think it was all that great. Then the announcer said “And Mary Beth Masse jumps into the lead with a score of 82!” I couldn’t believe it. That had never happened to me and there were only 7 more horses to go. I was surprised because I thought my round was good, not great, and would have been more in the 78 range, but I was SO happy. My head started spinning with “I could win this!” thoughts. I started thinking about not having to go through this nervousness anymore. I’m never going to move up to the 3′ adults and I wouldn’t be allowed to show in the modified class ever again so I would be a spectator and take photos and enjoy it for once! People started crowding around me and telling me I was going to win. My friend started telling me I needed to stay focused. She said the judges already liked me so I didn’t have to do anything crazy, just be solid. It sounded so easy.

The judges announced that they would test the top 4. It was a really simple test. Jump the last fence (a vertical) rollback to an oxer. Trot into the forward 6 line (it would now be a 7) and exit the ring at a posting trot. Simple! The first 3 riders did their test well. I didn’t see any big mess-ups. I went in the ring and felt very confident. I got Icy going and had a perfect first fence. At this point, I felt I had a great pace and didn’t change anything as I rolled back, then I reached the oxer with no pace. I leaned forward hoping he would leave the ground, and he didn’t. We had the biggest chip you can possibly have.

The Biggest Chip of My Life

It was not Icy’s fault. He saved my butt. All I had to do was stick my outside spur into his side around that corner and it would have been fine. That’s all I had to do. Then I struggled to get him down to a trot (so that wasn’t very smooth) but did the trot in, 7 strides out very well. Even my posting trot out of the ring was really nice, with Icy framing up for me beautifully. But the damage had been done. I couldn’t believe I had done it again. When I was second at RI Finals before, I had a HUGE chip during the test too. But that time I was 4th when I went into the test and got moved up despite my bad fence. This was MUCH harder to take.

You can read it on my face (even Icy looks disappointed)

I felt dreadful. I felt like I had let Jay down big time. I felt like I had let Icy down. I knew that I had let myself down. I was so close and then let it slip right through my fingers. I wondered when I would ever be that close again, if ever. I wondered when I’d ever be on that perfect of a horse again. I would have rather just gotten 6th and not been that close to winning. After all, I went into the ring not even thinking I would get ANY ribbon. But to be in first place and blow it THAT big, was just incredibly painful and heart breaking.

I went into the ring for the awards and ended up 4th. Even if I had been 2nd or 3rd I would have been happier, but I couldn’t blame the judges for dropping me down that much. I would have done the same if I had been judging.

4th at RI Finals 2010

Jay didn’t hide her disappointment. She let me know that I had blown it. Jokingly, but still. I had disappointed her. Everyone tried to console me and it was nice of them, but I don’t think I will ever get over this. So many people told me how bad they felt for me. I did feel better knowing that out of 4 Medal Championship classes, 3 of the riders that were in 1st place going into the test didn’t win. So I guess being 1st after the first round is NOT a sure thing. You can never stop riding. You can never assume that it’s “in the bag”. So I will just keep on trying. My sister pointed out that I’ve now been in the top 4 twice so it’s only a matter of time before I do it. But there were several years between those two placings so it could be YEARS before I’m in that position again. And who knows who I will be riding next time. Max as a greenie? Or some other horse that Jay finds that I’ve only had a few weeks to get used to. I had hoped that some one in our barn would half-lease Icy because then I could pay for his shoes and still get to lesson on him once a week and show on him. Imagine if I could ride the same horse for a whole year (and one as nice as Icy) and then go to RI Finals? I think it would make a world of difference! I guess we shall see.

A week or two went by and then it fell into place and Ice Capade arrived at Sandy Point. He is a tall, gray warmblood with a very cute head and neck, so I was smitten right away. I had a lesson on him and it went well, but I had to get used to him. I wasn’t getting him to go forward enough—I hadn’t found “the lick”. My second lesson, however, was AMAZING. I hit every distance, the strides were easy, he was adjustable and scopey and when I got him in a frame, he felt wonderful. I was thrilled.

I showed him at one Sandy Point show before MHJ Finals just to get an idea how it would go. For some reason, I was extraordinarily nervous. I don’t know why. I was such a mess that my riding really suffered. I chipped a lot in the first class, then had a fabulous trip in the second class and went off course. I never go off course! My head was just a mess! I did better in the third class but still not great. So I was sort of nervous going to MHJ Finals. I knew Icy was amazing but I wasn’t sure I could combat my nerves.

The day of the MHJ Finals, it was very warm. Luckily there was a bit of a breeze, but it was hot. Icy was being ridden by a mini medal rider before me so it was nice that I didn’t have to rush in the morning. That helped with my nerves. I also was going to go early in the class, which I really like. I don’t like waiting around and getting more and more nervous.

We walked the course and it was a little trickier than it had been other years. There was one rollback to an oxer that concerned me, because I had problems with a similar corner during my last lesson, but I knew Icy could do it if I just kept my foot on the gas.

In the warmup round, I didn’t get the 4-stride line but the rest of the course was good. I know why I didn’t get the 4 strides, though, so I didn’t think it would be an issue in the medal round: When I was turning the corner to go to the line, the next warmup horse was heading straight at me and I just got distracted and had a very deep distance jumping in. I knew that wouldn’t happen in my medal round because there wouldn’t be another horse out in the ring with me!

Ice Capade Making Me Look Half Way Decent

When I did my medal round, I felt pretty confident and not very nervous. I went in the ring and got a good canter going and had a good first fence, then I had a nice second fence (I almost got left a bit but I think I stayed with him and it looked okay), then I went around the corner to jump the first jump of the rollback-to-oxer turn. I thought in my head that I wanted a conservative jump over the first one so that I could turn smoothly to the oxer. But I ended up too conservative to that jump. It wasn’t really a chip, but it was very deep. Then the turn to the oxer was great. I did the 4 stride very nicely too and had a slightly deeper distance to the last fence but I didn’t think it was too bad. I got a lot of applause when I did my closing circle and I was grinning big because I was so happy that I hadn’t let my nerves get to me.

MHJ Medal Round

There were 38 in the class and they were going to work the top 12 in a flat phase so I was just hoping to make the callback. I got a 75 and was third right after I came out of the ring. Then I had to sit there and watch higher scores push me further and further down. By the last few riders, the cutoff was 74.5! I didn’t think I would make it, but it held out and I made it into the callback in 11th place.

I thought my flat work was fine, but not fabulous so I wasn’t surprised that I stayed in 11th place. I was very happy to get a ribbon. I was actually much happier for my friend, who ended up with the highest score in the jumping rounds (an awesome 86!) and placed 3rd overall. She hasn’t been riding all that long and didn’t really believe that she was a contender. This proved to her that she really can ride and is a HUGE contender! I was very happy for her. So all in all, it was a very positive day and left me feeling pretty good about RI Finals.

11th Place at MHJ Finals