Oh, snow.

Okay, at this point I am just laughing. I know some of you will poo-poo the karma thing, but you have to admit, my karma/luck/circumstances have been pretty questionable this week....!

This morning, I was taking the trailer back up to the barn so I could drop it off and pack hay and supplies into it. I would not have had the trailer except for that I needed to make the emergency trip to the dealer last night to have them repair the hinges on the door that broke off yesterday. I thought about taking the trailer back last night, but didn't think that I would be able to make it up the slippery mountainside with all the mud and warm weather we had been having. What I did NOT count on was the fact that overnight, the temperature dropped and it started to snow. A lot. At home, we had a dusting, so I didn't think much of it. But at the barn, there were at least six inches. I started up the hill thinking that it wouldn't be a problem, I had trailered in horrible weather before and it had never caused me a problem.

What I forgot about was that I used to own a tank of a Dodge Durango, which was the sturdy all-weather vehicle I used for all of those snowy endeavors. I didn't think about the fact that this is the Dodge Ram, with very WIDE tires and an unweighted bed. It's still heavy, but it doesn't handle the same in bad weather.

When I got about halfway up the hill, all of the wet mud from yesterday has turned into a sheet of black ice underneath all of the snow. My truck, despite being in 4-low, shuddered to a stop and then started to slide backwards. I slammed on the gas, I slammed on the brakes..... I had nothing. I was rapidly accelerating backwards with a trailer down a mountainside with a serious 14 degree grade to it. I had a cliff on one side of me, and a steep hill on the other. Behind me, I couldn't see or tell what was in my way, and I was reaching higher and higher out of control speeds. So I did the only thing I could do to stop the runaway freight train. I jackknifed it. Into the hill.





I got lucky. The only damage to anything involved was caused by my sway bars, which punched into my bumper when I jackknifed, and to my muffler, which is now hanging sadly. My trailer is completely fine. Thankfully, a few friendly neighbors and Jen's husband found me and helped rescue me. It took four men and four hours (in the 14 degree weather) to finally get my rig up the hill. I've never burned so much rubber in all my life trying to spin my tires up the mountainside.


Thank god there wasn't a horse in the trailer. I think I would have died.


We are STILL set for an early AM departure tomorrow. If I can, you know... get out of the barn driveway and everything. I am pretty sure that after today, I never want to live anywhere snowy ever. Ever. Again.

Some Very Good News, and Good Times

Well I have some very good news! After reviewing the ultrasounds taken two weeks ago, and the ultrasounds taken three days ago, the vets have concluded that the lesion in her LH is resolving so well on its own that they felt the PRP was unnecessary - she is rapidly healing on her own! Sweet!

On Monday, I tidied Gogo all up (it was too cold for a bath, but she got a serious grooming and her face all clipped so as to not look too skanky for the vet... I believe I am the only one in the world who makes my horse look nearly show-presentable for the vet), and I packed all my stuff in order to head right from Tufts up to New Hampshire, where Daun and a fantastic foxhunt awaited me. Early Tuesday, I cleaned her up, threw on her nice sheet, put her shipping boots on over her bandages (this is a nifty little trick I just figured out... thin no-bows and bandages apparently fit nicely under shipping boots, which is great because she pulls down bandages in the trailer unless you offer some other kind of protection), and off we went by 7am in order to make it in time for our 9am appointment. We were a little early, so Gogo had to hang out in the little holding stall for awhile:



She was like ummmmm what's this about? But of course, she's perfect for things like this, so she stood quietly and peed a lot when another gelding came in (perpetually in heat, of course).
Dr. Provost and Dr. Chope came in to meet me after a well meaning but sort of confused 4th year vet student took our info (although I admit, the story is pretty complicated), and we did a lameness evaluation after discussing the case. She trotted out still fairly lame in both hinds, moreso in the left (they gave it a 1.5 to 2 at the trot on a straight line, and didn't rate the right hind), but it's a definite improvement. We moved on into the room with the treadmill and ultrasound, and Dr. Chope ultrasounded both hinds extremely thoroughly - we did both hinds pretty much from right below the point of the hock all the way down to her hooves, and it took at least an hour. Again, nothing of interest was found on the RH, except for some tenosynovitis in the digital shealth of the superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT). Essentially, she has some inflammation of the tendon sheath, which is filled with synovial fluid (which is really fascinating... the body is so efficient and fabulous when it works normally!). On the LH, she still has the small lesion in her SFDT, and some tendonitis and tenosynovitis, same as the RH, except the RH has a little more swelling than the LH. However, the lesion looked remarkably improved for just a week and a half out from the previous ultrasound - essentially, it's healing itself quite rapidly. We scanned the entirety of both legs, and it really is just localized to that one little area, which is great. The vets expect it to resolve itself just fine, and for the tendonitis/tenosynovitis to resolve with some more anti-inflammatories (namely Surpass). When flexed, her fetlock on the LH was painful, which was a little weird. We took some x-rays of it just to be safe, and found nothing remarkable, so it's possible that she either strained the fetlock, or that the way the leg was being tweaked was painful due to the ouchy tendon. The last thing of concern was her back. They were a little worried that her lameness level was a little more than it should have been for this type of injury, but it's possible that the tendons just hurt like hell, which wouldn't surprise me, but the other thing it could be is her back. She was pretty sore, not in a muscular way though... right over her spine, mid-back. It's possible that she either was overcompensating for the legs and stressed it, or perhaps torqued it while out on XC... or maybe she was sore from her recent vaccine reaction? Who knows. We didn't explore it further at this time, but I will have Dr. A the chiropractor look at her on Tuesday and see what he thinks about it. Whatever it is, it's pretty much a given that it's probably going to require stall rest, and we're already on stall rest, so there you are. We're going to put her on some methocarbamol and see if that helps.


This was the basic write-up:

"Upon presentation, Gogo was bright and alter. A physical examination was preformed and revealed that her vital signs were all within normal limits. A lamaness examination was performed which showed a 1.5 out of 5 lamaness (0=sound and 5=non weight bearing lameness) in her left hind and a 1.5 to 2 out of 5 lameness when she was trotted on a straight line. She was sensitive to palmation of the superficial digital flexor tendon distrally and resented fetlock flexion in the left hind. Digital tendon shealth effusuion was palpated in both distal hind limbs, with more effusion in the right limb than the left limb (you report this is an abnormal amount for her). She was also sensitive to back palpation in the caudal thoracis region.
Ultrasound of both hind metacarpal and pastern regions revealed a local lesion in the lateral aspect of the left hinmd superficial digital flexor tendon, between 38 to 41 cm from the point of the hock (proximal extent of the digital sheath). Enlargement was present. The margins of the tendon appear intact. Increased fluid and synovial thickening was observed in the digital tendon shealth in both hinds legs, indicating tenosynovitis of the tendon shealth bilaterally. All other structures were within normal limits. Her deep digital flexor tendons were measured and evaluated bilaterally and were nonremarkable at this time. Thus, Gogo has a focal subacute superficial digital flexor tendonitis and digital sheath tenosynovitis. In compasion to her previous ultrasounds, her superficial flexor tendon appears improved. The treatment for tendon injuries is rest and constrolled exercise, followed by a gradual increasing return to work with periodic sonographic monitering. Other therapies such as intralesional medication (PRP, stem cell, etc) or shock wave therapy may be beneficial. At this time, however, with the focal nature of the lesion and its apparent improvement, we do not feel that intralesional injection is likely to significantlyimrpove her prognosis over rest and controlled exercise. Accordingly a program is outlined below. Her digital shealth tenosynovitis is likely due to her tendon lesion in the left hind and/or strain. It should refuce with anti-inflammatory therapy. Radiographs of her left hind metacarpal phalangeal joint (fetlock) were taken and were nonremarkable.
Her degree of lameness is of some concern, as it is bilateral and possibly more severe than one mightg expet for her tendon lesion. However, as discussed she may also have a component of muscle or back soreless due to her slipping/competing/shipping and more recent possible vaccine reaction. Local nerve block may help rule oin or out a lower limb versus upper limb component. We recommend that we rest her for the tendon lesion and re-evaluate her lameness (possibly with nerve blocks) and tendon in 6-8 weeks. Additionally, re-evaluation by her regular chiropractor to assess her back comfort is recommended."


The program from here? Two more weeks of handwalking, 10 minutes twice daily, and ice boots for 30 minutes a day (this last part is just because I can, mostly). She'll also have 10 days of Surpass, followed by a week within, then possibly more Surpass depending on the swelling. She'll increase by 5 minutes a week for the following two weeks, getting 15 minutes of handwalking twice daily and then moving up to 20 twice daily. Then, I can sit on her again (yay!!), walking slowly for 15 minutes daily, and eventually building to 30 minutes daily over the course of four weeks. About two weeks into that, I can start to put her together again, and do some minor stuff at a medium walk. So in about 8 weeks, we'll re-evaluate her sonographically to see where she is. If she's looking like it's healing appropriately, she can start to trot for 5 minutes a day, and building by 5 minutes every two weeks until we reach 20 minutes. Then we can add canter in 5 minute increments. We'll recheck her regularly via ultrasound during her re-legging up. And this is all very tentative, of course, and it just depends on her, so it might change.


And the rest of my two-day adventure was AWESOME! Not only did I get to see my fabulous friend Ali, who is my very good friend from college and who is currently attending Tufts for vet school, but I also went from Tufts up to visit Daun and see the big Brego, and go on what we expected to be a totally fantastic foxhunt. Well, of course it being the perfect New England fall, the hunt got called because of rain. D'oh! However, that evening she and I took Brego and her mare Hobby over to the gallop track in the woods, and let them rip. Or well, we let Brego rip! Daun had me get on him (that's so freaking sweet!) and take him for a spin around the track. He tested me a little bit ("now do we REALLY need to go faster than a canter? I'd really rather not leave the mare thanks") but after some encouragement (whack whack!) he really opened up for me. Man that dude can FLY! I really would have NEVER expected such a big guy to be capable of speeds like that, but it's clear he's no ordinary Perch. It was getting dark so I didn't get the chance to take him over any jumps, but perhaps that day will come! He looks so cute and fuzzy from the outside, but he's got a big ego and an attitude to match. He is a seriously cool horse. It was pouring the next day, as expected, but she and I still got to squeak in a ride at the fairgrounds, which was great fun. Plus, they stuffed me full of super delicious farm food, what could be better? Daun has been a fantastic big sister-type to me all this past spring and summer, really and truly. She encourages me, challenges me to think outside the box, gives me fantastic advice, and cheers me on through thick and thin. Daun, you're awesome. AWESOME. Seriously awesome. And thank you.


And now, it's back to the grindstone of daily work, until it all ends on the 15th. Now that I've realized I really AM leaving, suddenly I'm very sad about it. I mean, this place has been my life and home for the past 10 months, and these people my family. I know I can't even begin to afford to stay at a low-salary position like this any more, but moving on is always sad. I actually already have a potential job lined up in Michigan, one that sort of fell into my lap and might turn into something special, but then again it might turn into nothing at all at this point. We'll play it by ear, and I'll have some more details about it when I know them. We shall see.


Good news, good news, good news.

American Eventing Championships 9/13/09: Day 3.... the Injuries

I am sorry for my complete and total silence for most of the past week. I've been insanely busy (we hosted a schooling show last weekend for CDA so we had to scour the facility and it was exhausting), completely exhausted (keep crashing at 8pm on accident only to wake up at 1am mad as a hornet), and really, in all honesty, just sad. Really sad. I haven't felt much like writing. I've spent the better part of the week trying to compose myself and nursing Gogo nonstop 24/7, and I'm feeling a little bit better, but it's not easy. I've not yet hit rock bottom - that would be a permanently crippled horse - but I can see it from here!



After our amazing XC run, I was feeling on top of the world. Sure, she didn't seem to negotiate the footing all that well - which was odd to me, but stranger things had happened - but I jogged her on the way back to the barn to make sure, and she was sound. All systems go, I thought. Alex and I bathed her, and I took her out for a nice long, well-deserved graze while Alex did her stall. She seemed very pleased, and I was delighted to find that I had moved up into 6th (our leader after dressage with a 25 accumulated 60 penalties XC, at the dreaded fish of course - oh noes!). Because of the nasty, nasty scurf she accumulated on her front legs under her wraps from two weeks before that we hadn't quite been able to get rid of yet, I made the decision to liniment her but keep her open for the time being, and to come back later and wrap her when we took her back out for a walk. I am VERY glad now that I did this, as the visual of big legs was what alerted me in the first place to the problem. Had I wrapped her right away, I would have not known until the next morning that there was a problem. Alex and I wandered off, me still on cloud nine after the run, and we checked scores, looked at XC pictures, went shopping, watched some more stadium, and then headed back after awhile to wrap her and take her for a walk. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, and I started setting up plans for things that needed to be done for stadium the next day - I planned to braid that night, I needed to polish my boots, I needed to clean tack, unload more stuff from the trailer, get my other showclothes, etc. And then I walked into her stall and stopped. "Wow, she is really stocked up," I said. That didn't seem right.

So we took her out, and handwalked her for half an hour. She was dragging a bit, and I thought maybe she just had a hard time compensating for the footing, but that didn't make sense because the footing really was quite good. So why had she struggled with it? The little bit of fill in her front legs, which is normal for her, disappeared within a few minutes of walking, but her hind legs didn't go down. In fact, they seemed if anything bigger after half an hour. They weren't particularly hot to the touch - they were of a normal warmth at the time - but I still felt weird about it. "Maybe we should put her on the lunge and see if she just needs some more movement to get them to come down," I suggested. We grabbed my lunge line and whip, and went to the warmup behind the front stabling. She was slow to walk off, and not seriously abnormal at the trot, but then I asked her to canter. We were going left first, and she pinned her ears and reluctantly cantered off, which is totally not like her. She dragged off into canter, and wouldn't push underneath herself at all. When I brought her back down to trot, she wasn't right, especially on that right hind, but the left didn't look too good either. I gave Alex, who was standing at the rail, a rather pained please-tell-me-I'm-imagining-this look, and she joined me on the inside of the circle. We switched directions, and when I asked her to canter again, same thing - made a nasty face and reluctantly dragged off, only this time, she hopped painfully around in the canter, doing half-tempis with her back end (and spending a good part of it just cross-cantering) and propping pretty hard off the right hind. Back at the trot, she just wasn't right. Tell me this isn't happening, I thought. She's never been lame before.

"Well... let's coldhose," I suggested. Nope, that didn't help. Now, after lunging, the legs were both hot and bigger than ever. "Well... let's put her under plain wraps for an hour or two to see if that helps," although I knew it wouldn't at this point. We left her for awhile to go seek out some food for ourselves, and watched all the laughing competitors headed up to the start of the Competitor's Party and the dog show. One look at all of them, and I shook my head. I didn't want to be around anyone at the moment except for Alex. I didn't want people coming up to me and asking how my XC went. I could see myself saying, "Awesome! But I broke my horse!" We went for Thai instead, which was delicious, but I spent most of my time trying to compose myself - I cried the whole way there and back, and I never cry. Just the thought that I had broken my horse having a blast out on XC was enough to break my heart. I'm bummed that I missed such a great party, but there was no way I could have kept my composure. At 8pm when we came back after dinner for nightcheck, sure enough, the legs were still hot and even bigger than ever when we took the wraps off. Lowelle (our friend who I used to show against last year in Area 8, and who I stabled with) showed up, and she and her husband were amazing. The girl across from us had a horse going Training, and she let us borrow her enormous ice boots, the kind you dump as much ice as you possibly can into. This is why I love eventers - she and her father were leaving for the night, and they were just like yeah sure, use them, that ice is melting and won't be there tomorrow so use it up! Hang them up when you're done, see you in the morning! It was a struggle to get the boots on and filled with Gogo so uncomfortable, and it took all four of us to do it. She was a perfect angel once they were on, standing completely still for 45 minutes just munching hay while Alex and I sat outside her stall listening to the live band play. When we finally took off the boots, no change in the legs. They were still hot and now painful to the touch. Feeling horrible, I decided at this point that the only thing left to try was an overnight poultice, so we did her up with some A&Js and some paper carry-out bags we had taken from the Thai restaurant (of course I had to forget SOMETHING), and left. It was 10pm by this time. She was munching hay and looking mostly unconcerned, but she flinched and pulled her legs away when I wrapped them. I didn't sleep well.

At 4am, I left Alex still in bed, and went back to check on Gogo. This was the final moment of truth concerning whether to pull from the competition, although I already knew what the answer was going to be. There was no way she'd be okay, as I suspected bilateral bows on both hinds. Unless she had made some sort of miracle recovery in the night - highly unlikely - she was done for a good long time. I didn't even have to unwrap her. I touched her legs through the bandage, and she pulled sharply away. That was it, we were done. I gave her a 500lb dose of banamine - all I had on me at that moment - and slunk back to the hotel feeling utterly miserable. When we got up shortly thereafter, we headed back to the showgrounds and went directly to the show office, where I told them two things: "One, I need to withdraw. Two, I need a vet." A vet from Wisconsin Equine was right there, so we only had to wait a few minutes for her to get down to the barn while we washed the poultice off and coldhosed for a few minutes. She watched her jog, but hardly needed to even see it. She was so uncomfortable at that point that she was lame at the walk in both hinds, even with the banamine/poultice/coldhosing. The legs were a little bit less swollen than they had been the night before, probably thanks to the banamine, but they were still bad. She jogged out horribly, and was rated with a lameness of 3/5 in her right hind, and 2/5 in her left. Ultrasound on both legs confirmed the suspected tendon damage that I had figured it was, given the location of the swelling. (Oddly enough, the swelling in both hinds was localized to the tendons only, so as least I knew her suspensory wasn't involved... I would have killed myself if it was! If you are not completely familiar with all the major structures in the lower limb, I suggest you dissect some legs. You won't forget where ANYTHING is in the leg EVER again, and it will REALLY be helpful in determining injury location! Not for the squeamish though... as you can see by the photo though, I was having a GREAT time with my Crocodile Dundee knife! I even still have a navicular bone from that dissection that I carry around as a talisman.) Anyway, yes, ultrasound showed some damage but it wasn't anything like I expected, given her level of discomfort. Her LH, the one she was less lame on, had an enlarged SDFT (or superficial digital flexor tendon), which was indicative of a minor strain but nothing more. There was no real fiber disruption anywhere, which was great. Her RH, on the other hand, did have some minor disruption of the fibers in the DDFT (deep digital flexor tendon, which runs behind the SFDT) and some distention of the check ligament as well, which articulates with the DDFT. The good news was that most of the swelling was just superficial edema, which is pretty painful but not damaging unless you don't do anything about it.



Maybe that can give you a better picture! Here is the ultrasound, although don't expect me to be able to tell you too much about it. I'm balls at being able to tell anything about ultrasound pictures, although the one thing that is obvious to me here is that the SSDF is indeed larger on the left than on the right.




The one picture is just of her RH; the smaller circle shows where the damages are. The other picture is a comparison of the two. The vet said don't mind the crazy squiggles in the smaller circle for the damages on the RH... apparently her machine was being sticky!

The preliminary prognosis for these injuries? Good. The vet said at this point there is no reason to think she shouldn't make a full recovery, and go on to compete at whatever level she is destined to reach. We caught it pretty immediately, and were very aggressive with cold therapy and anti-inflammatories immediately after the diagnosis was made (and everything I did the day before helped a bit too, I hope). The problem at this point? How I was going to get her safely home. The last thing I wanted to do with fresh tendon injuries was to bounce my horse around on a trailer for two days. But we had to do what we had to do, so once we were packed, we coldhosed her again, wrapped her hinds and put shipping boots over them (she pulls down plain wraps in the trailer, and we didn't want that either!!), gave her 2 grams of bute, and loaded up, making our very, very, very slow and careful way home. I stopped to check on her several times, unloading just once to walk her for 5 minutes and offer her a drink (which she refused). I unwrapped her to look at the legs, and while they looked better, they were still very, very ugly. I snapped a few pictures at that time, and will show you them as soon as I upload everything alongside pictures I took two days ago, to show the difference already. It was a miserable, long day of driving - every little bump or curve and I cringed. At some point during the day, I got a text from a reader who is my friend on Facebook, who has a place north of Chicago, offering me somewhere to keep Gogo for a little bit if the drive back wasn't an option. I love my readers. Really.

We finally pulled in to Alex's house at around 11:30pm, and we promptly coldhosed again, rewrapped her, gave her more bute, and tucked her in tight with Polly's blankie on:



I managed to secure one extra day off from work to give her a day to stabilize, and Alex and I enjoyed one last day together, although most of it was spent cleaning stalls, caring for Gogo, and worrying about her. Then at 8am on Tuesday, we loaded back up after more coldhosing and with more bute on board, and headed out for the long, miserable drive back to CT. It wouldn't have been miserable except for the fact that a) my horse was broken, b) I had no more company in the car, and c) I was leaving Alex behind. We finally pulled in at around 8pm, promptly coldhosed some more, loaded up with even more bute, rewrapped, and crashed, both of us. I had to be up working the very next morning, which is why I've been struggling all week. I've been utterly exhausted. I just never caught up with my sleep after that first 4am morning on Sunday.



The program for the past week has been this:

Sunday 9/13-Tuesday 9/15: 2grams bute 2x daily, 5 minutes of handwalking daily (split into two handwalks of 2.5 minutes each + 10 minutes handgrazing each), coldhosing 3x daily for 20 minutes each, ice boots 1-2x daily for 30 minutes each, Surpass rubbed into each leg 2x daily, keeping legs wrapped whenever they aren't being coldhosed or iced.

Wednesday 9/16-Sunday 9/20: 1gram bute 2x daily, 5 minutes of handwalking daily (split into two handwalks of 2.5 minutes each + 10 minutes handgrazing each), coldhosing 3x daily for 20 minutes each, ice boots 1-2x daily for 30 minutes each, Surpass rubbed into each leg 2x daily, keeping legs wrapped whenever they aren't being coldhosed or iced.

And then a new schedule for this week:

Monday 9/21-Sunday 9/27: 10 minutes of handwalking daily (split into two handwalks of 5 minutes each + 10 minutes handgrazing each), coldhosing 2x daily for 20 minutes each, ice boots 1x daily for 30 minutes, Surpass rubbed into each leg 2x daily, keeping legs wrapped whenever they aren't being coldhosed or iced.


So far, she's being a very good patient, except for when she's not. I put a chain on her to handwalk, just because she's very fit and very put out by the fact that she's not going outside, and she didn't like that AT ALL. I never use a chain on her because I don't need it, but I figured I better to be safe. She showed her immediate displeasure by refusing to graze unless I took it off. She also, when I led her back to her stall the second night back after coldhosing, tried to rip her head out of her halter, which she knows not to do. She got a pop from the chain for it, and she shook her head, sat back hard on those tender tendons, and LAUNCHED into a capriole, landing IN her water buckets with both front legs. We both got completely soaked, she bend a bucket all out of place, and I freaked about her legs. Thankfully, she seemed no worse for the wear afterwards. Mares.

She seems to have resigned herself to this boring new routine though. She doesn't wear the chain anymore, and isn't walking around in her stall in an annoyed way anymore. I think she knows she's hurt, as she's being very careful with herself. She was very unhappy about not going outside at first, but she seems okay after she realized she really just isn't going to get to go outside when everybody else does. We also moved her from her regular stall (inside with no windows) to the empty stall on the end (with TWO windows!), and she is much happier there. She had her feed reduced to 1.5lbs Gro N' Win split into 3 feedings, with one handful of barley at each feeding still. She gets about as much mediocre hay as she can eat, as it has hardly any nutritional value in it (what IS it with our crappy hay this year?) and it keeps her busy and not fat. We removed the DMG, and once her electrolytes are gone she'll be done with those too for now. I also added Smartflex Repair to her PM grain, in pelleted form. I have a feeling it's probably not going to do anything - tendons are very avascular structures, how on earth is that stuff going to get there? - but at this point, it can't hurt. After a week of meticulous care, her legs look a lot better already. I will put up some pictures as soon as I upload.


I feel horrible. HORRIBLE. If only I had known on XC. If only I could have pulled up. If only, if only, if only. It's all what if's and why's at this point though. Why did this happen to her? You guys all know how much I do slow conditioning work on pavement. Her tendons should be made of iron at this point. I do all that specifically to prevent problems like this. And you guys all know how incredibly fit she was. Tendons fail when muscles are too fatigued to take the brunt of the work, but this wasn't a care of that either, because of the slide. But how did a little slide create such damage? Was she fatigued from the long journey? Maybe. Maybe something was already wrong and she wasn't lame and therefore didn't clue me in until it was too late? I doubt it, but you never know. She slipped at Huntington too, why? It was a different slip, but was it a similar thing? Did she do something then? Is that indicative of a bigger problem?

And the big one: would shoes have stopped this slide? In a word, no. Has this been a slip backwards when she pushed off for a jump, I'd say maybe she could have benefitted from additional traction of some sort. But what happened is that when I gave a half-halt on the wet grass with the concrete dirt underneath it, she had no purchase when she brought her hind end underneath her, and slid with both legs underneath herself. She caught herself quickly and went on just fine, but a plain shoe would have been just as slippery, if not more so. 1100lbs of sliding horseflesh is not going to stop for a piece of metal, just considering the sheer biomechanics of it. And as for studs, they would have either stopped the slide or they would have severely exacerbated the injury. She would have either come out of it fine or with serious damage to perhaps not just her hinds but to all four legs, or to her hocks, back, or worse damage to her tendons from the sheer torque of her feet snagging in the ground while her momentum carried her body onwards.... or she would have fallen. A studded horse went down on Prelim just the day before. A studded horse went down at Old Chatham too in my division. A shod Metro went down with me while schooling XC once, just a freak thing, and no sooner had I gotten back up than another shod horse in our schooling group went down too. They are big animals... who are we to think that we can do it better than nature? That is how horses and riders get killed. Studs are good for providing a little extra grip when a horse is pushing forward. Studs are VERY, VERY dangerous for anything other than that. To me, their negatives far, far, far outweigh their positives. I am not, nor will I ever, consider nailing metal to my horse's feet. They are far too beautiful to ruin. I WILL, however, be looking into possiblities for alternative footwear. The problem is, what IS out there? Boots fall off, don't fit well, rub, aren't designed for jumping, and are bulky. Glue-on boots are a PITA and aren't dressage legal anyway (WHY you would need boots in dressage though is beyond me). Glue-on shoes are a possibility, as they are removeable and reuseable. They are still a PITA to apply though, and aren't failproof. And would they REALLY change anything in the event of a slide like this unless I added studs? I can't imagine running a full XC course with studs. I think I'd give myself an ulcer freaking out about them the entire run. I feel much, much, MUCH safer with a barefoot horse.

The problem with the equine limb is that it is designed for a certain amount of slip to prevent damage (hence the dangers of studs). So a little slippage is actually desired, versus a limb that just glues to the ground when it touches down. It's just when the slip goes too far, or a rider is involved, one who is idiot enough to not know there is a problem and to keep pounding on their poor, poor mare over the rest of a grueling XC course. I really feel horrible. I don't think I'll ever not feel horrible for it. The best I can do at this point is do everything in my power to help her recover from this as best I can. If I am lucky and diligent, someday she will forgive me for my trespasses on her life and safety and comfort.

Poor, poor Gogomare.

I'm in Chicago, Trick!

We made it! Last night, Gogo and Alex and I pulled safe and sound into the Lamplight Equestrian Center after a long two days of travel. Really, it wasn't nearly as long or miserable as I expected - in fact it was really quite a lot of fun.

On Tuesday, I woke up early and scrambled around trying to get all the last of my preparations done. I was a little waylayed after Shan discovered I left my shipping boots outside and they had gotten covered in dew - d'oh! - but after a little lovin' from the dryer everything sorted itself out and we rolled out of the farm at around 8:15am or so. It was REALLY FOGGY!



But it lifted and the drive through PA was gorgeous, albeit reallllllllly long:



Gogo and I stopped at a highway rest area around 1:00pm or so to unload and go for a little walk. I'm pretty sure there isn't any other horse in the world that I would do that with, but Gogo always hops off the trailer and looks around with mild interest, and that's about it. She wandered around with me, ate some grass, drank nearly a full bucket of water, and let a family with kids fawn all over her.





I love the one with the Pet Area sign, she looks so quizzical. The drive was loooooooooooooooooooooooooong, and as we drew closer to Alex's house we of course found THIS waiting for us:



It poured so hard I literally had to pull over, which I NEVER do. I just couldn't see the road at ALL. And when you can't even see the white lines, well, you know.

But the storm passed, and the sun even came out. We pulled into good old Chardon, OH at around 6:30pm, and brought Gogo into the barn to have a blissfull reunion with her old friend Sinatra. Now, I think I should mention Gogo hates geldings, chesnuts, and Paints. Sinatra is a chesnut Paint gelding. But apparently, when Gogo is in VIOLENT FLAMING HEAT, chestnut Paint geldings that you used to get turned out with and beat on a long time ago are the best things ever after a long hard day:





Of course, that adorable-ness came hand in hand with nonstop squatting and peeing, probably allllllllllllllllll night long. Nice. They settled in, we fed dinner and then her later night check, and crashed, ready to wake up bright and early the next morning.


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Man that whole waking up the next morning thing SUCKS sometimes! Neither of us really wanted to get up when the 5:00am alarm went off, but we somehow managed to crawl out of bed by 5:45am or so, lol. We fed, finished packing, and then tossed Gogo on the trailer for another shuffling around - Alex and I still had to go clean stalls at the barn where she works, so we brought Gogo with us and turned her out in the big grassy field to let her move around and stretch out before yesterday's long, long drive. Now, Gogo's not friendly to other horses. In fact, she'd really rather just kill any horse that comes remotely near her. However, she and Alex's mare Polly used to go out together, and they fell in LOVE. CRAZY MAD MARE LOVE. Or at least Gogo did, Polly was more like "uhhh..." at the time. Polly is currently at the facility where Alex works, so we figured that they would love to go back out together for a little while and have a happy reunion. And just look at Gogo's reaction to when she sees Polly:



Totally anticlimactic at the end but look at her wheel around and scream!! You can't hear it very well, but she was nickering to Polly the entire time. At some point, however, Polly decided she was not going to play turnout anymore, so Alex had to bring her in before she started running. Which of course, got Gogo to start running. So I had to bring her in and put her in one of the empty stalls in the lower barn, which she did not like at all, but she finally stopped hollering for Polly and settled down and ate some hay. Unfortunately now that she's seen Polly and had friends for 2.5 seconds, that's ALL she can think about now! We don't normally let Gogo have friends of any sort because a) she likes to EAT them and b) she then gets abnormally and irrationally attached to them. Oh, Gogo, why....




Back on the trailer at around 10:00am, and after about 10 miles Gogo FINALLY stopped screaming for Polly. We continued from there, and the drive was totally fun and felt a lot shorter because I had Alex there with me to keep me company. At around 2:00pm, we decided we needed to stop and let Gogo go for a walk, at another truck stop of course:







Again, I am pretty sure Gogo is the ONLY horse in the world I would do this with, but then again Gogo is the only horse in the world I would actually take this far on a trailer trip because she ships so easily. Any other horse would have had a really hard time. Gogo really just took it all in stride.

Finally, we pulled into Lamplight at around 6:00pm Chicago time - PHEW!! We unloaded (and Gogo then started screaming hystically, looking around for Polly, although she thankfully quieted when she realized Polly wasn't anywhere to be found), unpacked what we needed to unpack, unhooked the trailer, let Gogo roll in her stall and have some dinner, and then took her for a nice long walk around the Lamplight grounds, up near the dressage arenas where everyone was schooling.




We bumped into some of our readers - hi guys, you know who you are! - who Gogo then promptly tried to kill in perfect Gogo fashion, not once but TWICE as she spooked at a random piece of caution tape and went bolting sideways (and backwards) into their horses. Oops. The second one was my fault - I held up the caution tape and was rubbing her face with it, and she put her head down and got her ear caught in it. Yeah, I'd probably go backwards too! Thankfully all three horses got over the horse-eating tape, and Gogo was even friendly enough to bite one of them on the nose, what a sweetheart. I think she's feeling bitter because Polly is secretly in love with another gelding. We headed back to the barn to get tucked away, and she was fine and dandy later on at night check - her night check paper said that shortly before we arrived she had been taking a nap - and she ate with gusto, drank two buckets of water, and tried to kick her neighbor Tessie in the head. Nice!


We're up and at 'em this morning, getting ready to go feed. Today we'll do lots of handwalking, give her a bath and make sure she's all clipped and trimmed, walk my XC course, watch some Advanced dressage, get my packet and bucket o' goodies (show office was closed last night), and hopefully get to go see the Shedd Aquarium and Navy Pier if we get some time. The weather is supposed to be GORGEOUS all weekend, and I am VERY excited to see what my course has in store for me.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay AECs!! Come stop and say hello if you can find us, we're in the front tent!