Good News, Everyone!

Zahra is back on track! After two weeks living at the farmhouse, eating all her meals out of the trailer, she now self-loads. There's still plenty of follow up work to be done to ensure the lesson sticks, but we're on the right track.

So, with her new found trailer loading skills, we went down to see the amazing lameness guru, Dr. Doug Langer. He confirmed my suspicions while assuaging my fears-- yes, she's sore in her stifle. But, he sees this all the time in young horses, so that was the good news. He injected it, told me to return to work as usual, and if there is any lingering pain after 2 weeks, come back and we'll try something else. He said the best thing for this sort of weakness is WORK! Cavalettis, hills, hard ground... all of it! 6 days a week! With the complete lack of rain, there is no shortage of hard ground here in Southern Wisconsin, so I won't feel too bad about taking her on that trail ride tonight...

On Sunday, I had a great clinic with Janet Foy. Z tried to run away with me any time I asked her to yield off my left leg, but Janet worked through it so that we won the battle. She told me to buck up and quit being so nice her! She said "These warmbloods are not like thoroughbreds... they are more like baby crocodiles!" That's exactly what I needed to hear-- I tend to baby a horse too long, not wanting to dial in the pressure until I'm absolutely certain they are ready. Well, Zahra is ready.

Zahra's first injury

Horses will be horses. And when they get cocky, they think they know better than you do. Zahra and I had a great groundwork school / photoshoot at Jon and Mary's new water complex. She was galloping through the water, off the "small" banks (Training/Prelim size), and was generally feeling full of sass!

When I felt that she had done as much as she needed, I started slowing her up. As she's trotting, she dropped her head to get a mouthful of grass, and I thought "Oh why not, she was so good..." Then she stepped over the lounge line, and I thought "crap." So I gave a yank and tried to reel her in, but the lounge line no longer had any leverage, so she pulled the opposite way and began trotting away from me. I ran after her, trying to slow her down, but she knew she had me and picked up the canter. I lost her, and she galloped for home, popping over two barbed wire fences along the way.

When I caught up with her back at the barn, she was standing quietly, a small, steady stream of blood squirting out her hind leg. We hosed it off really quick to see how big/deep it was, wrapped it up really tightly, and called the vet. 5 stitches later, she's as good as new!

I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have gotten off so easily. I had images of War Horse running through my mind as she galloped away from me, but instead, she got away with nothing more than a glorified scratch!

Lessons learned:
Even when the horse is being super, there is no room for sloppiness.
Zahra will probably tuck up her hind end a little better next time.

Bodywork

First and foremost, let me say WELCOME to the newest member of the O'Shea Eventing Team. Nicki Butler is a certified Reiki masseuse, as well as preparing for her Masterson Method certification. She is also a fellow member of the WDCTA State Board, and my great ally to bringing eventing back into their de facto mission!

I asked Nicki to come work on Zahra because of the tension we were feeling in our flat work-- specifically her continuing inability to pick up the right lead consistently. She's happy to pick it up while jumping, but not on the flat. We've tried lots of tricks, but as soon as she figures out how to sneak past them, to the left lead she goes! Or cross canter if pressed...

So Nicki evaluated her. First we did a quick lounge each way, and she confirmed my suspicion that it was the right hind that was weak.

We returned to the barn and she began running her hand along the "Bladder Meridian." The Bladder Meridian is one of the most often treated meridians on the horse. It is located along each side of the spine and contains some of the most important Acupuncture points in the body. Anytime Zahra blinked or reacted in anyway to the touch, Nicki would pause, or run her hand back over the spot again. Zahra began the session quite nervous... assuming Nicki was going to cause her discomfort in some way (needle pokes or something). She put on her "baby face" of nervousness when we began working on her right side, so Nicki would switch back and forth constantly, until finally about halfway through the session, Zahra began to relax into the bodywork. She snorted and yawned and pawed the ground as she released the tension in her body, section by section.

Nicki gave me several exercises to work on with Baby Z before our ride each day. I got a chance to ride Zahra once after the session, and she felt FABULOUS!! After a weekend of running around with friends (Congrats to Adam and Amanda for destroying the Door Co. Half Marathon!!), I am very excited to get my hands on that horse!! 

Why I hate the Doctor (or, why I love my vet)

I have a confession. I hate going to the doctor. I know a lot of people hate going to the doctor, but usually it has something to do with fear. I'm not afraid of my doctor, she seems really nice. I just wish going to the doctor was a little bit more like going to the vet.

I'm an eventing rider, so I'm no stranger to pain. If I fall off a horse, I'm not going to go running to the ER-- I'm going to get back on and finish my ride! So when I finally decide a pain is troublesome enough to call the doctor, I expect results, not a run around.

The set up to this story is I tweaked my knee out polka dancing last December (don't look at me like that--polka dancing is awesome). When I called in December, the nurse told me R.I.C.E: rest, ice, compression, elevation. It still hurts. So here I am, 3 months later, finally saying "Ok. Time to go see the doctor."

So, here's how I see the differences between my doctor and my vet:

1.) I have to tell the doctor what is wrong with me. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know what's wrong. You're the doctor, you tell me. When my horse is acting funny, my vet figures out what the hell is going on, going to great lengths, up to and occasionally including ultrasound, MRI, and designer drugs.

2.) I am not in a lot of pain. On the frowny face scale, I'm maybe a 4. On the Hyperbole and a Half pain scale, I'm only a 1. Nonetheless, it is a very inconvenient pain. My knee clicks when I go up stairs, and it freaks me out, so I walk up the stairs awkwardly to avoid the click, which is now making my OTHER knee sore! It also clicks when I post the trot, but I ignore that, because I'm not going to stop riding even for a day for the sake of this wussy knee injury. When an injury is not life changing, the advice is to take 2 ibuprofen and call her in a month. But I want to make this injury to actually be dealt with! In order to be my best, I must be sound! If I tell my vet "I don't know what is wrong, but something is wrong." We will find it and we will fix it!

3.) I'm in my mid 20s, that means I'm like an 8 year old horse who is fully trained in its sport of choice (eventing, for me). It's time to inject my hocks! Get me on a maintenance program of Adequan! At least tell me to throw some glucosamine in my oats! My vet would never say to a sore hock "Oh, give it some bute and wait a month. We'll see how it looks then."

4.) Doctors seem very afraid of alternative medicine. I asked a doctor once about chiropractic and he basically said it was just a bunch of voodoo. Given how much acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic help the most elite equine athletes, why are we still thinking its a bunch of phooey for people? Horses don't understand the placebo effect!

5.) Of course, to give my doctor some credit, she did assign me to some Physical Therapy to strengthen that knee, and I will try really hard to follow the therapist's advice, but if they say "No riding in the jumping length stirrups" or worse "No riding" that would be really tough for me to listen to! When a vet says "3 months stall rest, then hand walking, then light riding, etc..." I follow it to the letter of the law!! It is hard sometimes to treat ourselves as well as we treat our horses, isn't it?

And, finally,
6.) My vet bills are going to give me ulcers, sending me back to see the doctor. (Unless GastroGaurd will do the trick??)

A Tough Decision

I’m currently between great horses. My first real competitive partner, Sgilti Lightfoot, has officially retired, despite my best efforts to hold him together a little bit longer. Genetics finally won the long drawn out battle, and in June of 2010, I officially retired my first FEI partner at the young age of 14. Meanwhile, in May of 2010, Streetlight Manifesto was born. “Puck” is by the Elite Hanovarian stallion Sir Caletto, out of my OTTB powerhouse mare, Wolfnbankersclothn. At the GOV inspection, he received Premium status, with excellent comments from the judges. My personal favorite was “It is surprising, given his jumper pedigree, but this colt has an excellent trot!” Puck is now a wonderful looking yearling, and I can’t wait for the future with him, but the future is still a few years away…

Wolfn at Otter Creek Fall 2011. Photo courtesy Xpress Foto.

Wolfn was supposed to fill in the gap. She came back from motherhood a little calmer and a little wiser, but still fiercely capable of anything. It was such a joy watching her dressage really come together this year… from my trainer Alex Gerding politely asking “When is the gray horse coming back?” to breaking into the 30s at Training level at her last couple shows. And cross country? This girl was a machine! She loved to go fast, and talk about scopey! She wasn't even trying til it was 4'. She was and is everything I want in an event horse: brave, enthusiastic, and extremely rideable. Sgilti used to make the Intermediate jumps ride like a hunter course, and he doesn’t hold a candle to Wolfn’s athleticism.

So, it was with great sadness that I finally came to grips with the fact Wolfn could never be the eventing partner I wanted her to be. She has an old racing injury in her foot—she broke her sesamoid bone while she was on the track. They gave her time off, everything healed up, and back to the track she went! When I did her pre-purchase, I knew the injury was there, but everything looked good in the x-ray, so away we went.

But horses are complex creatures, and the x-ray did not tell the whole story. Soon after we got her, we began to have major problems with trailering her. Over the years, to try and accommodate her, we put on and took off several different types of boots and wraps. We put her in a stud stall, an open stall, a box stall. We tied her. We let her loose. Nothing helped. Sooner or later, she’d lose her mind, and start viciously kicking the trailer as hard as she could. When we finally arrived at the show, my nerves would be shot, her legs would be bloody, and there’d be a new set of dents for the trailer guys to fix.

It took me until this fall to realize these things were connected. I never gave a second thought to that old track injury, but suddenly it dawned on me. Old injury. Arthritis. Even if it doesn’t affect her on a day to day basis, it must be the reason she went crazy in the trailer. Like the old football injury that can predict a rainstorm, it doesn’t have to hurt to be an issue. The vibration of the road through the trailer must have tickled that injury, and she was going to do anything in her power to make that irritation go away!!

So, I'll have to hold out hope she passed to Puck all the traits that I love about her. In the meantime,  I’m going to Virginia to go horse shopping. I need a horse that I can get going and build up to the 2* level, paving the way for Puck to have a smooth road to the 2* level… and beyond?
Stay tuned!