Set back

Maybe it’s only my experience, but an active life with horses seems impossible without a wandering success curve. Possibly if you have a couple pasture pets that don’t have much work to do except to eat and poop it’s not so striking, but try to use a horse in a discipline of any serious sort and my guess is you are going to have some trouble moving ‘forward’ so to speak from time to time.

Many “Green” readers know I have been struggling finding sustained soundness with Khaleesi for a coupe of years now. Finally I may have found some answers and she has come right at the trot for some trial rides and I’ve been cautiously optimistic that maybe she is finally strong and sound.

On a parallel page, Wyoming the mustang has also been on a slow road over the past few years to carrying a rider confidently. She came green broke needing some miles and experience, but after some rodeo antics, planting her feet and a habit of laying down on the trail when she decided she was finished trying to do the job she was hired for, I went back to the drawing board and her education was on pause until I had the toolbox for her.

That toolbox has been slow in coming together but this year it appears my skills have fallen into place and Wyoming has gotten under saddle and out on the trails. I’ve been able to ride her with confidence and she has been doing great in the woods.

Finally!! Forward!!

How wonderful and encouraging: two horses I have struggled to keep moving forward for different reasons both gaining forward momentum.

Then this week:

Setback

First a perfectly sound and healthy Khaleesi goes to a trim and shoe change and ends up unsound and mysteriously lame.

The next day I took Wyoming for a solo trail ride (our fourth) and contended with the worst refusal/feet planting I’ve had since bringing her back to work. We got so stuck I dismounted and decided moving forward on foot was a better decision than world war 4 with her; because in war nobody wins.

I wasn’t afraid, and I tried everything I knew to drive her forward. She would back, she would turn, she would bite at my stirrup, she would kick up her hind leg toward me in the saddle, she would buck, but she would NOT walk forward one more step. I wasn’t willing to turn around but I also wasn’t willing to take us down in a ball of flames.

It felt like a week of failure

The setbacks came on the heels of such great promise made it all the more disappointing. Nothing is as dangerous it seems as daring to hope.

These are the times- if any- I feel like giving up. It’s not so easy to get rid of a horse on the same afternoon you are ready to quit which is probably a good thing. It’s literally harder to quit than to just keep feeding them.

Forget getting to a 100 mile ride. I feel stalled out at the barn. Why am I locked in a stall? God am I on the totally wrong track? Should I sell them and move to Haiti and teach violin to children in poverty? What am I doing so wrong?

Thankfully I suppose though it didn’t feel so at the time, some of the things I’ve gone through in recent years have shown me that even when everything appears desperate and hopeless, it isn’t. The darkness is most cold and bleak before the dawn. No great story is a straight line to victory. I’ve seen God take the things that in that moment I was sure meant my life could never be good again, and turn them around into something unimaginably beautiful.

You just have to keep walking the trail in front of you.

So I looked at the chaos and the setbacks around me and knew if it isn’t good, it’s not the end. So this cannot be where I should stop. And probably it will require some patience before any turn around is apparent. But this one thing I know:

God is good even when everything else isn’t.

It’s been about 2 weeks now as it’s been difficult to find the time to write, but with some help from good horse friends I came to the conclusion that it was a pasture switch from about 6 weeks ago that could be the culprit of the hoof problems.

My usual field had been eaten down and was descending into a weedy mess this summer so I moved the mares to work on the field. Unfortunately this meant they went from a field they had to do a lot of foraging for the good grass (but were not malnourished!) to a lush pasture. Because it isn’t my normal field for them and was somewhat temporary it wasn’t set up well which meant for them to get water and to have enough dry field to get out of the low area of swamp (bad for hooves) they also had way too much pasture to access. This made for unlimited lush grass and over time it seems this began to bring on early inflammation of laminitis signs in the hoof- probably for both of them.

Though the nutrition balancing I had done and the composite shoes had gone far to bringing Khaleesi back into soundness, the grasses worked against us and I think it was the farrier visit that revealed it because he trimmed just enough hoof to expose the sensitive inner and inflamed laminae closer to the surface. Also the nails going into the inflamed region though not through the laminae (she wasn’t sensitive to any single nail) but the pressure of all the nails compounded the sensitivity.

I brought her into a stall, then a paddock, and then once the other horses ate down a small runway field she moved out with them on mostly hay. Within a couple days she came sound again and was her happy self.

I took her on a couple trial walks and then a short but mostly trotting ride where she was comfortable and sound the entire time. For the moment she appears to be strong and a few pounds lighter which I knew she needed as well.

This also emphasizes the fact that this horse needs more careful pasture management. She had put on some weight but wasn’t getting fat pockets yet or a hard neck etc. the vet and my trainer friend said don’t worry too much she will drop them when she’s back in more work and winter is coming. She was not dangerously obese. But the grasses and the time of year and the lighter work load as I spent more time with the mustang came together to create a perfect storm of inflammation that I want to avoid in the future. It could be a bigger key to my lameness struggles over the last couple years as well.

As for Wyoming, the solo ride was tough for us but we did finish well. It is possible she also was struggling barefoot with inflammation and sensitivity carrying a rider similar to Khaleesi.

She is also on limited grass and more hay for now and next ride I brought a friend on Khaleesi to help. There was a discussion about the ride as we crossed the road that looked like backing up and small bucks in the highway. I wondered if a logging truck might be coming soon and it wasn’t the easiest way to begin but I decided it was unlikely I had served my entire purpose out on this earth and I don’t think this was the way I would be taken out so stay in the moment. So I kept breathing and got it done without panic. Thank God no traffic came during that few minutes in the road.

Once I convinced her that up the trail was her only option and the rest of the ride was uneventful and she was calm and willing.

I haven’t taken her out solo again yet but I will. It is ok for the moment that I’ve had companions to help build more willingness and confidence. The potential inflammation in her feet may explain why she has begun to question going out. Hopefully as this reversed she will be more comfortable and willing.

Either way two weeks later my set backs don’t seem so bad, and there is a dawn over the horizon. I’m glad I didn’t sell them and give up. The best stories come with some struggle and challenge, the path to the end is rarely so straight and clear.

No matter how dangerous, I still have hope.