HeresHoping
Well-Known Member
I have a large, broken chestnut ISH. He is the love of my life even though he has broken my heart on oh, so many occasions. You may recall that three months after I got him he sat down in his field and according to the venerable powers that be at the AHT, had crushed his lumbosacral joint, torn his left hind suspensory ligament and had less than 50% chance of any sort of recovery.
After a discussion with my own vet, we concluded that less than 50% chance was not 0%, and 9 months to a year off, field rested as much as possible, he could possibly be a happy hacker. He is a nice horse - very scared of some people, admittedly, but he had been beaten over the head with a broom by a gaggle of equine dentist students and sticks and groups of people caused a bit of panic at times.
He took to his field rest - such as it was, being out all day and in at night because we're short of fields in the Fens, with gusto. He was never dangerous on the end of his headcollar, although we had one or two incidents where he hooned, hurt himself and chased his fieldmate with ears back and teeth barred. We ran the arcequine programmes whilst this was going on, though, and within a couple of months he was field sound, happy, and even rolled right over. In fact, I was going to start some work rehab in December.
However, come October, when he had a new neighbour and an increase in the amount of activity around him, he started to get very agitated and began to panic in his stable. His weaving got frantic. Come November, he was in a flat spin panic, wouldn't go in his stable, weaved, sweated, rolled his eyes and screamed. I'll never forget those screams. The fireworks had sent him over the edge and I had to get the vet out in the middle of the night on the Saturday after bonfire night. He had spent the last two weeks sedated at night. But, sedation wears off and by morning he'd be petrified again. He could hardly settle in his field, either. Every noise would have him quivering in panic. By the 15th November, it all came to a head. I couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear it. I called the vet and said come and do the deed, please. He'd made himself hopping lame on the front with all the weaving and seeing him trying to climb out of his stable every morning just made life impossible.
On the off chance, I also sent a rather presumptuous message to _GG_ . Just as the vet phoned back to say 'when?', I heard back from that wonderful lady, who, let's face it, knew nothing of me other than my HHO moniker and an occasional contribution to posts and therefore had no reason to respond. So last Friday, doped up to his eyeballs in case his claustrophobia caused us an accident, a very woozey Larry Longlegs, usually known as Binks, was loaded onto a hired box and a very lovely friend drove him and me some 150 miles to _GG_'s fields.
He was let off the other end after a quick rug change and after a brief trot around with his tail in the air, he was introduced to his new friends. A few sniffs, a roll in the mud, and they were off. My heart was in my mouth, would he hurt himself and start chasing? Absolutely not. He came back over the hill with his ears pricked and tail flying, flanked by his two new friends and started to graze.
And he has been as chilled as a chilled thing ever since.
So thank you. From the bottom of my heart.
After a discussion with my own vet, we concluded that less than 50% chance was not 0%, and 9 months to a year off, field rested as much as possible, he could possibly be a happy hacker. He is a nice horse - very scared of some people, admittedly, but he had been beaten over the head with a broom by a gaggle of equine dentist students and sticks and groups of people caused a bit of panic at times.
He took to his field rest - such as it was, being out all day and in at night because we're short of fields in the Fens, with gusto. He was never dangerous on the end of his headcollar, although we had one or two incidents where he hooned, hurt himself and chased his fieldmate with ears back and teeth barred. We ran the arcequine programmes whilst this was going on, though, and within a couple of months he was field sound, happy, and even rolled right over. In fact, I was going to start some work rehab in December.
However, come October, when he had a new neighbour and an increase in the amount of activity around him, he started to get very agitated and began to panic in his stable. His weaving got frantic. Come November, he was in a flat spin panic, wouldn't go in his stable, weaved, sweated, rolled his eyes and screamed. I'll never forget those screams. The fireworks had sent him over the edge and I had to get the vet out in the middle of the night on the Saturday after bonfire night. He had spent the last two weeks sedated at night. But, sedation wears off and by morning he'd be petrified again. He could hardly settle in his field, either. Every noise would have him quivering in panic. By the 15th November, it all came to a head. I couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear it. I called the vet and said come and do the deed, please. He'd made himself hopping lame on the front with all the weaving and seeing him trying to climb out of his stable every morning just made life impossible.
On the off chance, I also sent a rather presumptuous message to _GG_ . Just as the vet phoned back to say 'when?', I heard back from that wonderful lady, who, let's face it, knew nothing of me other than my HHO moniker and an occasional contribution to posts and therefore had no reason to respond. So last Friday, doped up to his eyeballs in case his claustrophobia caused us an accident, a very woozey Larry Longlegs, usually known as Binks, was loaded onto a hired box and a very lovely friend drove him and me some 150 miles to _GG_'s fields.
He was let off the other end after a quick rug change and after a brief trot around with his tail in the air, he was introduced to his new friends. A few sniffs, a roll in the mud, and they were off. My heart was in my mouth, would he hurt himself and start chasing? Absolutely not. He came back over the hill with his ears pricked and tail flying, flanked by his two new friends and started to graze.
And he has been as chilled as a chilled thing ever since.
So thank you. From the bottom of my heart.
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op I am so glad your horse has found somewhere he can be happy.
