This year has been a year of challenges and changes at our farm. My aged thoroughbred gelding, Mouse, has been beset with injuries for a large part of the year. Over the years I have come to realize that Mouse seems to be pretty accident prone and needs special herd dynamics management.
Unfortunately Mouse is a gelding who likes to herd the other horses and pester them to death until they finally react to the constant barrage that he throws at them. So, in order to protect him but still let him interact with other horses I needed a horse with a high tolerance for his “play behaviors”. Demetri, a young TB/Percheron cross, has been a wonderful solution to this dilemma about 90% of the time. The other 10% I just hope for a non-injurious outcome.
Both Demetri and Mouse regularly have what I call “thoroughbred moments”. These are the times when they run around like a bat out of hell, with lots of rearing, bucking, sliding stops, near miss crashes into one another and in general a lot of high energy play.
On April 3, 2010, they were playing very hard for several minutes and everything appeared to be okay. Then Mouse started to herd Demetri and backed him into some trees. Unfortunately, Demetri kicked Mouse in the LF knee. It did not break the skin, there were no real abrasions, and it did not appear to be a very bad injury. Mouse barely limped after the impact. But, since you can never be to sure of anything so I caught him checked him out and gave him some oral Traumeel anyway.
The next morning Mouse’s knee was about as large as a football, so I had our vet check him out and after the exam he expressed the opinion that it was badly bruised, but no broken bones or tendon/ligament damage and in a few days he would feel fine.
Well, a few days later Mouse was not fine, he had started limping on the RF. So, I had the vet back out and he noted that Mouse’s ringbone seemed to have flared up dramatically from compensating for the left knee. Well, things just kept sliding downhill from there. Two weeks later, more x-rays and exams and we got diagnosed with mechanical laminitis and very thin soles. The soles of his feet were extremely thin, the LF was only a few millimeters thicker than the RF. To further complicate matters we were having a wetter than normal beginning of summer.
Because of past ulcer issues Mouse is not a good candidate for Bute therapy. We were able to give him Bute paste a few times, when his pain was very high. But he would immediately go off his feed for the whole day, so this was not a good option for him.
Interestingly enough when his pain seemed high he would put his head against my chest and seem to seek TTouch ear work. When he had enough of the ear work he would raise his head high and I would stop. From the start I incorporated TTouch in our treatment plan. I would start with Clouded Leopard, Raccoon and Abalone ttouchs on Mouse’s neck, back and shoulders with hot packs, I would then cold hose his legs and slightly towel dry them, then start the Python lifts with cold packs and end with a lot of Raccoon ttouchs on the cornet band.
I did the ttouchs in the mornings for about 30 minutes each day; early on I found the morning time was when Mouse was happiest accepting the work. Keeping a previously very fit and active thoroughbred happy while in recovery can be somewhat challenging!
Fast forward to late August 2010, finally, four months later we are released to start in- hand walk work. He was sore in the arena just walking around so we tried glue on shoes which created more lameness. I then tried several boot options with inserts, but the inserts appeared to be too much sole pressure for him. We ended up using Renegade Boots – in the very largest extra wide size they made. These boots worked and helped him stay comfortable when he was in the arena or the paddock.
After figuring out the boots, we began in incorporate turns and large ovals into his in-hand walk work. I then began to ask him to walk through the labyrinth each day to see how he managed. Was he bending equally on the left and right? Was he relaxed during the event? Did his breathing or pulse change? Did his length of step change? Was he able to take one step at a time? Did adding a body bandage change anything? Was he able to back over one pole partially buried? Could he walk over the poles of the labyrinth?
The first few times Mouse clearly indicated that he found it more painful to turn to the right. He would limp severely and pivot his body swinging his hindquarters to the left. There was no bend through the ribs, his breathing became shallow and he was stressed. In that one turn he would become head high and hollow in the back. Over the next few days I started to notice subtle changes and improvements. I began to think that if he had a little tougher and thicker sole he might be able to progress more rapidly as he would be more comfortable.
I was advised to try an old sugar-dine remedy to toughen his soles. I felt comfortable doing that as I had used this remedy many times in the past with great success. This time however, I was met with disaster. The sugar-dine mixture crept up the poultice during the night and severely burned him from the cornet band to the lower fetlock. These burns caused their own litany of problems, and a lot more nursing care. Although the sugar-dine did toughen his soles, it was a very expensive and highly painful event for Mouse.
I was back to cold water hosing, ice and heat, and lots of TTouch through the special burn cream bandages. After the blisters started to heal and the skin became less raw and irritated Mouse was again okayed for in-hand walk work.
We continued our daily walk work assessment through the labyrinth. As Mouse continued to improve and became stronger I began to add a few trot steps and started to lunge him using the TTEAM lunge oval incorporating our whole arena. He added the canter work himself, a few steps at a time, when the trot work was too hard. After a few weeks of lunge work, I had him rechecked and got the go ahead to start ridden work. Then a few weeks later, on October 4th Mouse got a full release to go back into full work.
Four days later, I took him to a clinic with Jane Armour. Are you shocked??? All of our lessons were at the walk. We started with some simple yet correct leg yield and we were able to progress to walk pirouette. After months of time off, doubts, fear and “what-ifs”, I am happy to say that I have my riding partner and master teacher back.