So, we brought in vet number two. I think he suspected navicular the moment he met Colt. Colt is a big boy for a Quarter Horse, with pretty little feet. Feet that were popular in the show ring, but not terribly practical for a horse this size. We did much more analysis, watched Colt go, flexed him, x-rayed him. I was in tears, this wasn’t just my dream horse, Colt was the best thing that ever happened to me, all my childhood wishes come true. I remember the vet saying there were a lot of things going on here. Some of the lameness was compensation for pain elsewhere, but we’d start by addressing the navicular. He prescribed isoxoprine, bute, egg-bar shoes with HUGE wedges and training to get Colt to use his hind quarters more and relieve some of the weight on his front end.
We got a very reputable farrier out who fitted his feet, put him on the meds and hoped. Colt looked so miserable, but he didn’t limp quite as bad. I should add at this point that this barn offered zero turnout. The owners let their own horses out to play a couple hours a day at most. Every evening, I’d go to the barn and try to get Colt to move around in the indoor. I’d give him a few minutes to see if he wanted to “play” then put him on the lunge and force him to move. It was painful to watch.
Eventually, we ran into the situation where Colt needed to be reset and our farrier, while very competent, was so unreliable that I felt I had no choice but to switch farriers.
Farrier number two was TERRIBLE. Colt pulled one of his high heeled shoes off. I told this farrier what the vet was trying to accomplish, but he blew it off. He replaced the egg-bars and wedge with normal old shoes and insisted the unevenness was nothing to worry about (at this point, Colt had one foot much higher than the other and the one that was lower to begin with had had quite a bit of hoof wall ripped off with the shoe). I rode Colt for two weeks and we went to our first show of the season. I thought Colt rode well. He felt pretty healthy; at least he wasn’t limping. It was a long day for us and he was beat by the time we got home. The next day he was obviously off again. He went from bad to worse. Vet number two wouldn’t return my calls so I resorted to the vet a friend at the barn was using. She was great. She came right out and poor Colt had to go through all the same routine… flexing, blocks, x-rays. She didn’t think the navicular changes were that severe and took them to a clinic with her where other vets agreed. Still, Colt got even worse until he wouldn’t even get up in his stall. I don’t remember specifically what finally got him up and moving. I know we tried muscle relaxers. It may be that the Legend this vet put him on finally started having an effect. Colt got more comfortable, but never stayed completely “sound” for more than a few days at a time. We didn’t get to show even one more time that year.
In August, the guilt over him being locked in a stall overcame the hope that we’d be able to show so I took him home. He’d developed a crusty, fungus sort of thing in his forelock that wouldn’t respond to anything. The vet looked at it and recommended some different potions, but nothing helped. My gut feeling was that he was so miserable he didn’t have the ability to heal (I didn’t know enough to call it a compromised immune system). He was home a week and a half and the fungus crust was gone.
Colt responded well to being home. I had two old ladies from my childhood (a Shetland pony and QH cross mare) and a young, obnoxious Paint that I’d hoped would someday become a kids’ horse. I converted part of my barn into a run-in because it was too close to the property line to build an overhang for him to lounge under. I wanted him to be able to move around no matter what the weather.
A trainer friend of mine had advised that I take some weight off him to minimize the stress on his feet. By this time, I’d found a farrier that would work with my vet and Colt moved more evenly, although he couldn’t really do the big hunter under saddle stride he could when I bought him. Other than that, he improved significantly over the winter and in spring I took him to the barn where I’d started taking dressage lessons. He liked the work, but again the turnout was limited. We started showing in the AQHA shows in the spring. This is a story for another time, but he was a nut-case and darn near killed me every show. We just did hunt seat equitation and hunter under saddle classes. In the HUS classes, he figured out that when we changed direction and tracked right, he was almost done and would just flip out when we had to canter. Around this time, I met someone I was crazy about and eventually married. I don’t know how many heart attacks my husband Ron survived.
To make a long story short, Colt’s behavior drove me to hook up with a trainer who helped us work through all the issues. We stopped riding dressage because it didn’t seem fair to Colt. One day, I was asking him to step into the bridle, the next I wanted him to stay off my hands. The rest of the show season was like a dream. We even were champion in our division under both AQHA judges at the NYS Fair. Showing at the Fair had been a dream all my life and we’d kicked butt!
After the show season, Colt had a few months off, then we went to this trainer’s barn to prepare for the upcoming show season. Within days of arriving, Colt hurt his left front. My trainer took care of him, hosed it and wrapped it, but he stayed lame. She introduced me to farrier number four. Colt was 80% better within 24 hours and within three days was moving better than he had since I bought him. This farrier took the time to show me all the problems he was trying to address (Colt was twisting his RF as he pushed off on it, wrenching it with every stride. Plus we still had the club foot, contracted heels, etc). Over the next few months, we did some experimenting. Colt couldn’t handle a solid pad over his sole, but was uncomfortable without any pads at all. We ended up with a funky “spider pad” (I think) which worked wonders. We called them Colt’s “sneakers”. Now that he seemed so much happier on his front end, it became clear his hocks were bothering him significantly. We started injecting his hocks and he’d move great for several weeks. We had an awesome show season. At the end of the year, Colt was champion or reserve in every one of his events in our division. We even experimented with the QH Congress! It was becoming pretty expensive to keep him pieced together and my trainer felt he wouldn’t hold up under another year of showing. I absolutely refused to sell him. I brought him home again and started riding a friend’s stallion, planning to show him the next year. Somehow, it wasn’t the same riding another horse. I didn’t want to ride if I wasn’t riding Colt. In addition, I’d resumed my dressage lessons while Colt was on vacation and it was becoming pretty clear to me that this was the discipline I really wanted to concentrate on.
Colt came home for good and I managed to keep our beloved farrier. We started concentrating on dressage in the spring. I hauled him back and forth to practice in the ring and take lessons where I used to board. Colt was pretty happy, although we never did convince him it was ok to go to the bit. We did several schooling shows and after a couple of judges commented that he almost looked “off” behind, I had to deal with the fact that it was time for him to retire. About the time I was dealing with this dilemma, a beautiful black ATA mare was dropped into my lap and I was distracted for the rest of the winter. In the spring, I started riding my new mare, Bea, more. She wasn’t supposed to be sound for riding, but she was happy to be working and looked very comfortable at walk, trot, canter. She brought me from an intro-level rider to a solid training level. I bred her this past spring and while she’s due she’s teaching me some first level concepts. She was a beautiful mover and when I had shoes put on her last Spring, she moved even better. While Bea worked at teaching me to be soft and quiet, Colt hung out with his buddy Junior for the summer. At the end of the summer, I stumbled onto the UDBB (www.ultimatedressage.com). What an unbelievable resource! I was devouring everything I could to improve my riding and here I could even ask questions! I learned so much! This is also where I read my first posts on “barefoot”.
At the end of this same summer, my nieces started coming out to learn to ride on Colt. This was the perfect job for him. He had to go around on a lunge-line, mostly walking, for about an hour once a week. He got lots of attention and treats and seemed pretty happy. I was still keeping his sneakers on him because he was obviously more comfortable. He stumbled once in awhile, but he’d always done that. Ron had a place leveled on our property for me to ride, so I tried Colt a couple times in the fall. He was a little squirrelly about the new sights in our “ring” but seemed happy to tote me around. His tripping was starting to make me crazy, though. I don’t know that we trotted more than once or twice and it always ended with a huge stumble.
Once it got to be the pre-snow mud season, we couldn’t keep shoes on him so we pulled them. Of course, we immediately had a freeze so turnout became ridiculously hard and uneven. He was so obviously in pain, it hurt to watch him. We were now nearing Christmas time and for a gift to myself, I talked to all my horses through an animal communicator. That too is a topic for another day. I’ll just say that it was mind-boggling and I had no doubt she was actually talking to them. Whether she always interpreted their thoughts 100% might be up for discussion, but she told me things that only those horses could have known. She told me Colt said all four feet hurt and that he wanted some sneakers. She could not have known I called his special pads sneakers!
Anyway, the researching to see if animal communicators could possibly be for real warmed me to a more holistic way of treating animals. As I read more threads on the UDBB, my wheels slowly started turning. The reports on horses transitioned to barefoot sounded too good to be true, but I figured I didn’t have much to lose. I started reading, reading, reading. I visited web-sites, asked questions on UDBB and sent email to some of the current experts in the field. The philosophy made so much sense and so many of the stories described horses just like Colt. I had promised Colt I’d get him some “sneakers” next time the farrier came, but ultimately I kept him shoeless and had Bea’s shoes pulled, too.
