It all started with a buckskin pony...

This is Bella. She has made some cameo appearances on my blog before. She was the precious pony mare I owned before Maxwell. Bella is very special. Not only because she's a gorgeous pony, but because she is the common thing that brought horses into people's lives at the right time for the right reasons. Let me explain.

When I moved to Florida in 2011 I was hurting BAD from horse withdrawals. I answered a craigslist ad for someone needing a rider for a couple of large ponies. You never know exactly what you're going to get when you answer craigslist ads. And really, it gets a whole lot more sketchy when you add horse folks into that mix. Anyways, I was desperate, and I showed up. 

I got the tour of the farm, met the farm/pony owner Kristina, her husband Jason, and their adorable son. Kristina took me around to meet the two ponies. Naturally, as everyone does, I gravitated to Bella immediately. How could you not, with those striking black points and those mysterious dapples against that gleaming buckskin coat!? I got on her and it was love at first ride. For sure. Bella would go on to be bought and returned two times over that next year. 

The second time she returned, Bella became MY pony. I loved her, I spoiled her, I enjoyed her. We overcame many obstacles. Bella was NOT an easy horse when Kristina got her. There were very few moments when she was easy. But the times she was, she was unstoppable. There wasn't anything this pony couldn't do. Why then, would I ever consider NOT owning her? The answer was quite simple. I had goals. I had aspirations. I wanted to get back into the show world. Sure, maybe me and pony could get along in some lower level jumper classes. But I kind of wanted to dabble into the hunter ring. The ring where suitability would work against us and no matter how perfect we were, we would likely never place together. I needed something my size. Of course, if I could have owned two, I would have kept Bella and ventured a search for my next mount. But that just wasn't the case in my situation. 

Enter Maxwell

Baby Maxwell haunted me on Facebook for almost a month. I had just posted Bella online and started marketing her for sale, ready to start my quest of finding a new mount. I couldn't stop coming across him online, in facebook groups, he just kept popping up over and over again every time I logged on.

One day, I got a facebook message from Summer. It seems that perhaps my perfect pony had been haunting her online as well. She had known I had a crush on Max because I had commented a few times asking a couple basic questions about him. I wasn't ready for him, as I still had my pony, but boy would I like to own him once that was squared away.

One thing lead to another, and I set up a time to come meet Maxwell. I remember the date very well. April 3rd 2015. It was a Friday. The next morning I got out to the farm just as the sun started to rise. I gave my pretty pony one last good bath. I gave her kisses. We walked around the property. And a tearful me walked her up the trailer ramp. I was going to bring her to Summer's and bring home Maxwell. I sobbed the whole drive there. Thankfully, Maxwell's bright and happy eyes met mine as we pulled up Summer's driveway. Thank god for Maxwell. If I had simply been dropping off my pony to her new home, and had been bringing nothing home in return, the whole thing would have been a hell of a lot more painful.

I am so very blessed to have been connected with Summer. For her to appreciate Bella for all that she is, just as I did. I could not have asked for her to go to a better place. In return, I got a very special horse. I've never been the type to be all "horse of a lifetime" but if that's a thing, then he is mine. Maxwell is my dream horse. Not the dappled gray 17.2 hand monster Warmblood I envisioned. But instead a very average 16.1 Bay OTTB. I wouldn't trade him for the world. But that's not where this story ends....

Enter Aiden

Aiden's story isn't mine to tell. But the truly magical part that Aiden plays in this story is how he is now forever apart of this big circle. Kristina has been looking for that one horse who just completes her. A little bit of talking here and there lead me to connecting Summer and Kristina. If someone could match a horse and owner up best, I knew it was her. It just so happened that Aiden was looking for his one true person. He's not officially hers (yet) but it looks promising and he completes the circle.

It's really amazing the type of relationships and connections that a cute little buckskin pony can create. I've met two amazing women (and a pretty kickass trainer, too) on this horsey journey! I've met two people who will forever be friends, family, my biggest supporters, just all round amazing people. I'm forever thankful to have my heart touched by that little firecracker of a mare. Without her I might have never gotten the chance to get back to riding, owning, and loving the horses that I do now.  

For those of you who didn't follow, here's the flow chart:

Bella Pony--Owned By Kristina--then to Me.

Bella Pony Owned By Me--then to Summer.

Maxwell--Owned By Summer--then to Me.

Aiden--Owned By Summer--then to Kristina.

It's a hard circle to follow, but it's there. It would be easier if I had a piece of string and push pins to put all the connections together. But you guys get what I mean <3

Today I wanna talk to you about something disgusting

Summer Sores.

Do you know what those are?

I had heard of them a few years ago, working at the farm. There was a pony who developed one inside his sheath and also in the corner of his eye.

What's a summer sore, you ask?

Many people are still in the dark about these nasty, sometimes dangerous, very hard to heal sores. They aren't common everywhere, and here's why:

Summer sores develop thanks to the nasty larvae stage of Habronema or Draschia. A summer sore starts out as an innocuous injury. I'm not going to try to put into words what is so brilliantly said by Kenneth Marcella, DVM, so here it is:


"The specific skin condition known as "summer sores" occurs when stomach worm larvae are deposited on injured or irritated skin tissue or mucous membranes . Moist areas of the body—such as the eyes (e.g., conjunctiva, medial canthus, nasolacrimal duct), commissure of the lips, ears, ventral abdomen, prepuce, penis and urethral process—are at risk. Areas on the limbs, especially from the fetlock to the coronary band, are frequently prone to mild cuts, scrapes and trauma and thus can also be susceptible to summer sores. Parasites (e.g., ticks, flies) also can irritate the horse, and the animal's subsequent rubbing and scratching can damage skin, allowing entry to Habronema or Draschia species larvae.This is an abnormal step in the usual life cycle for these worms and where problems begin. These "out of place" larvae cannot grow into adult worms in these locations but can induce a severe local inflammatory reaction characterized by intense swelling, ulceration, redness and itching. These lesions tend to grow rapidly and usually cause horse owners to seek veterinary advice within a few days."

It has been my understanding, from my own vet, that these worms feed on the flesh, necrotizing it. You'll see what I mean when you get to the photos.

Anyhow, I first observed a small cut on Maxwell's coronet band on 08/04/2015. I didn't think a whole lot of it. No heat, no swelling, not sensitive. I treated it as such, putting Nu-Stock on the wound and *trying* to keep the flies out of it (this never works).

Taken on 08/04/15. See, not too bad. I was a little nervous about it, but not too bad. Treated as a wound for a little while longer. At one point I thought I had an abscess blow. Nope, not quite. The odd thing about that theory was he was 100% sound throughout the entire thing.

 8 days later, I started getting very nervous. It seemed every day I saw it, it was NOT healing. This was a classic sign of a summer sore, folks. When you have a wound that seems to not heal, or seems to be getting worse and not better, it's always a good idea to get the vet involved. This is what it looked like the night before I called the vet:

Yeah. That's not pretty. I was really starting to panic at this point. Other common summer sore symptoms include bleeding that doesn't stop. What many of these articles forget to tell you, is that these larvae have a unique ability to prohibit the blood from clotting. So you're stuck with rotting flesh and no clotting. A big, stinky, scary, bloody mess. And this, everyone, is how summer sores can get dangerously out of hand, very quickly. The time between the first photo and the second photo was 8 days. EIGHT DAYS. 

I called the vet, and told them over the phone I was fairly certain I was dealing with a summer sore. Three other horses had them on the property, so I knew the worms were present. I'm still mad at whichever owner had a horse that wasn't dewormed. Some of the horses aren't on the same schedule, and we had had two new arrivals to the farm around the time that this started to happen to horses on the property. **GET FECALS** and deworm your horse as your vet reccomends. It's also notable to add that a fecal doesn't always show what is brewing in your horse's stomach, so my vet also recommends making sure you deworm with something broad spectrum like Equimaxx or Quest Plus. 

So Brandon Equine came out the next afternoon on short notice *thank goodness* lanced it open, removed all the damaged tissue, cleaned it out really well, and gave me a "summer sore mixture". I'll give you the secret ingredients. Nitrofurazone, DMSO, Dexamethasone, & Ivermectin all mixed within the jar of Nitrofurazone. Slop it all in and around the wound, put gauze on top, and elasticon around it to keep the gauze in place, and the wound protected.

16 hours after the vet, this is what it looked like. A totally different wound. This one was pink and healthy, not gushing blood and looking disgusting. I was absolutely amazed at the difference 16 hours after being cleaned and medicated did for this wound.

The last month and a half have been taxing. Rain, mud, dirt....none of those are friends to a big gaping wound on a coronet band. Add to that the very real risk of reinfection from the larvae, and I was a hot mess. Wrapping this thing isn't easy. See my last post. Wrapping for a month and a half caused a nasty case of thrush to develop. If that's the price I have to pay...well...that's what has to be done. 

9 days later, this is what I had. A gorgeous, clean, scary but healing wound. The damage these things can do is really amazing. I mean, look at how small that cut was when this all started. Jesus. It still blows my mind to look back and see how far it can go. And to see some very troubling stories online about what happens when you keep thinking you can handle it... YIKES. They're no joke! (taken 08/23/2015)

I am so very blessed that my horse stayed sound and happy throughout this entire ordeal. We still rode and lessoned. My biggest obstable was keeping the damn thing clean and fly free. Swat doesn't do squat. If you can figure out a way to wrap the summer sore, please wrap it. There's no other way. I couldn't leave this thing unwrapped until THIS WEEK. That's right, over a month since it all began and I can JUST now leave it unwrapped. I still cover it with Wound-Kote spray and slather Swat over top of it. You can never be too cautious about flies. Especially once you've had to deal with a summer sore!



Finally I can see a light at the end of the tunnel...the summer sore story is almost over. I am so very lucky that there was minimal damage to Maxwell's hoof. We have a few weird spots right below it, but overall, the hoof is there and it's fine. The coronet band is slowly reforming. Animal bodies are truly amazing if you give them the right kind of care to heal!

Taken 09/17/2015

99 Problems...and Thrush is One

I've been getting quite excited with the progress that Maxwell's disgusting summer sore has made over the last month. I've got to take a picture of it this evening so I can finally do the post about the whole ordeal. I've been waiting to have an 'after' picture. Those suckers take forever to heal.

Anyhow... I've got quite a predicament in the same foot as the summer sore now. Ugly nasty deep sulcus thrush. It also appears that he's got it along the grooves of his frog as well. I'd like to pretend that he didn't have thrush and it just popped up randomly late last week, but I'd probably be lying. Anyhow, he's got quite deep grooves around the frog on this foot, and it seems I probably wasn't aware of the thrush until it was exacerbated by my constant need to wrap above below and around the hoof, including the sulcus, in order to protect and help heal the summer sore, which is smack dab right on the coronet band.

Okay, so the frog is a wreck, the sulcus is deep and getting deeper, and I nearly fainted when the smell of that 'death' came floating out into my nose. I cried a little for my guy when I stuck the pick in the sulcus and he had some choice head movements to make, to let me know how it hurt.

The foot was kind of dirty here, but focus your eyes on the crack between his heel bulbs, and how deep it goes, and how it extends...this was almost hoof pick deep and very tender. There are also a couple holes in his frog. Agh!!

So the next adventure is going to be the treatment of this nasty case of thrush. I'll be soaking his footie tonight and begin some intense treatment on it. The farrier suggested Thrush Buster, but I wasn't able to get any at my local Tractor Supply, which never has anything in stock, so I opted for No Thrush which is a powder. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, but I've heard good things. My heart broke for my poor baby when I came out and cleaned out the foot and saw he had been standing in urine soaked bedding. This is something that they often do when it itches and hurts, because the ammonia in the urine soothes it. This also does NOT help the thrush, obviously.


OH Baby Max....


In other news.....stay tuned for a special post coming up soon. It's absolutely amazing, to the point of giving me chills, the way that things come round full circle.

Maxwell's auntie Summer got us a very special surprise which means the absolute world to both of us. Here it is:

A beautiful & hard to come by Cavalor pad personalized with Baby Maxwell's name!

For those of you who don't know, or haven't read past posts, Summer is the wonderful woman who dedicates her life to caring for OTTBs and helping make connections with horses and owners to find their forever homes. She pulled Max off the track and only had him for a short 30 days before I came along and scooped him up! She also now owns the wonder pony that was once mine, Bella. 

A little Update...

Well, Maxwell has passed by his 6 month retirement from racing anniversary and is doing so well!

We still have moments. Those are to be expected. But we're starting to work as a team. Sometimes he gets a bit stubborn, acts a bit grumpy, but overall once he gets into a routine, he's happy to work and goes around like a good little TB. We still have many moments of disconnection, but it seems we are having many more moments of connection, too. The most recent photos were taken from a video during our lesson this past weekend. What an improvement Max is making! It's funny, we drilled the flatwork for 20 minutes before we started jumping, and it was the moments between the jumps that we had our best flatwork for this lesson! Anyhow, without further ado, here is my special boy starting to make some forward progress!

 He's always been good about reaching under himself, but you can see how much more engaged his hind end is, and he's working over his back. No false frame, just a natural lower headset because he's using his body as he should. So proud of how fancy my Maxwell is looking when he and I 'get' it!

Well, hello folks!

I'm writing to let you all know that I haven't forgotten about this blog! I recently started a new job so I've been focusing a lot of my time and energy into that. I have also been focusing a lot of my time and energy into Maxwell, as we're currently battling a Summer Sore! Don't worry he's two weeks in on treatment, and we're headed in the right direction. I think my next blog piece will be outlining his recovery from the summer sore. I didn't realize so many people from up north had no clue about summer sores. They can get nasty AND dangerous if left untreated/undertreated. Stay tuned!

SUCCESS....we hope!

I'd like to give an update on Maxwell's nutrition! Things seem to finally be going in the correct direction for my lovely horse and I couldn't be happier!

As I stated previously, it was glaringly obvious between my horse's actions and the opinions of several equine professionals, that Maxwell has been suffering from hind gut issues. His manure quality increased about 75% when he was transitioned back onto Cavalor Fiberforce. However you could still see the long stem fibers in his manure. Something was happening between the stomach and the end product, to cause my horse to appear full of fiber but not really absorb anything great from his food. His body re-activeness, resistance to right side bending, and general discomfort in the hind guy region of his body all had my alarm bells ringing. He was generally more sucked up in this region and just never looked 'healthy' in the area.

It was recommended to me to give Succeed a try. I'd had a LOT of people tell me not to waste my money, that there is nothing to the meds and they won't fix anything. And for a while I thought the same thing. Big, expensive gimmick. Finally a boarder who swears by it told me to look it up again, that she believed there was a money back guarantee.

Maxwell is officially enrolled in the 60 day Succeed Challenge. For $210 you get 60 oral syringes of Succeed paste. In addition to that, you get 10 free oral syringes for the loading dose period. Maxwell is on his third day of the 60 day trial (just finished up the loading dose period) and is already showing improvements.

It's really too soon to tell a noticeable difference, but so long as I follow the trial rules, fill in my provided journal, and take before and after photos, I can get my money back at the end of the trial if I'm not happy with the outcome. However, typically it takes Maxwell 30 minutes-1 hour to finish his food. On day 1 (after having 5 days of double doses) he finished his dinner in about 15 minutes. This is HUGE for us.

Anyhow, I'm trying not to hold too much optimism to this stuff working, but for a risk free money back guarantee, I figured it was worth the money to maybe see a difference in my horse's body condition. Yesterday he had his first manure pile that actually had formed PELLETS instead of soft alfalfa poop.  This puts his manure at ab 85% increase in healthiness.

Here's to hoping!

I'm starting the works of a reevaluation of Maxwell's overall diet in the coming days. Nothing huge, just some tweaks to remove unnecessary/un-liked by Maxwell foods, while saving money and increasing calories! Stay tuned!

Here's Maxwell being the special flower that he really is...He was sniffing and licking the roof, so nonchalantly...

Poles

Yesterday was a (fairly) productive ride for Max. We rode out to the front arena and I hopped down and put out some trot poles. Max had done maybe 5 rounds through trot poles ever before yesterday. He never really grasped the concept and continually skipped, hopped, or creatively figured out some other way to not step on them. I decided we were going to go back to working on some basics.

Our warm up started out kind of frustrating, honestly. Max has been displaying some real discomfort going to the right in smaller areas (circles, tighter turns, etc). I opted to start the warm up going left so that we maybe warmed up a bit before going to the weaker, troublesome side (as we typically start with the trouble side). It would seem that going from 4-5 rides a week, to a week off and having only 2 rides so far this week, that my horse has a bit of speed in him. He's still a saint, but much more horse than he was in the first weeks of his restarting. We worked a couple laps around the ring to warm up, did a few circles, and switched over to the right. Cranky pants. Cranky cranky pants. We had a few kick outs and general signs of discomfort. I didn't push the envelop with him too far, but I did require him to finish his right side warm up. It is my thought that between his hind gut not feeling the best (ongoing issue that seems to wax and wane) and dealing with HUGE angle changes to his feet, which in turn caused some discomfort in the back end, that Maxwell is just sore, and frustrated. We finished the trot warm up and took a breather.

The focus of our ride was to work transitions and strengthening the hind end & back muscles. I asked for the trot (going to the right--the bad side) and he was a lot less objecting to it this go-round. This leads me to think he's just stiff and resistant. We worked on trotting over a single pole on the ground. I don't like to drill my horse on stuff too terribly, so every couple of times we do something, I either divert his attention to something he really enjoys doing, or give him a break to just putz around. Sometimes I play improv, especially with an intuitive horse, as my previous and this one both seem to be. If my horse wants to offer his own idea on something, and it's safe, I generally go with it. I've learned this to be a nice release for them. It's not something that's done often, ONLY when they're on their 'reward' time. We trotted over the single pole and he offered me a really nice right lead canter on the back side. I just sat and went with it. I look back and remember how much trouble the right lead was for us during our first few weeks of riding. It was really nice for him to have an idea, and to offer me that lead. We had a nice rolling soft canter. I love Maxwell's canter. If there was a horse to teach me to sit the canter (guilty of the hunter hover/half seat) it's this one. We took a break, switched directions, and did the same going the other direction. You win Maxwell.

After the dreamy canter time was done, we went back to work. Trotting trotting trotting. Max seemed to have quite the quick trot today. Not the floaty soft trot that I know he is capable of. I knew we were going to have a couple wonky rounds over the trot poles based off how the trotting was going, and how he'd done with poles in the past. Clink, clank, clunk. We hit every single one. Bet he doesn't make that mistake twice, I say to myself as we came back around again. Hop, hop, JUMP! Somewhere between a canter stride and a hop for the first two and a half, followed by a half jump and full jump between the last two. CREATIVE Max! Onward we went. This time I sat the trot. If there's one thing I've really learned, it's that your seat is your magic wand. While still forward, I could feel his strides coming up to the trot poles. I could give much more subtle cues on the outside, which translated to much BIGGER cues to him about slowing down and thinking through the trot poles instead of rushing to get past them. He clipped the first one, but had a nice pretty flow over the next three. We had a much nicer tempo coming off of them, and I decided to keep him going for one more round before he got a break. The trot was suddenly soft, his head was down, he wasn't balancing with his neck. He was under himself and using his back to get us through the mess. We had a gorgeous flow through the poles and he got lots of pats and a nice walk break.

I forgot how much fun trot poles can be with green horses. It seems so monotonous, especially with a seasoned horse, but for the greenies, it's so very rewarding. You feel just how awful it can really be to go over them when you're disjoined, and feel just how amazing it is when they put it all together. I used to have a BLAST taking Bella through raised cavaletti. She could lengthen her stride with the best of them when really asked. That took a LOT of work, and if you don't keep up on it, you've got to start all over again. One day me and Max will try raised cavaletti. I feel like we have a lot more trot pole work to be done before that point, though!

We ended the ride with some transitions between walk trot and canter. It's quite amusing when the horse picks up on a pattern. We walked until we were straight with the trot poles. Trotted the poles. Halt. Walk. Canter through the turn. Halt. Trot. Canter over single pole. Halt. It was funny though, because I could tell which parts of the exercise Maxwell liked, and which he didn't care for. He offered the right answer to cantering over the pole, and the halts. He hates trotting (who doesn't?). I'll have to remember to spice it up and make it more random next time.

Anyhow, we had a fun ride. My poor guy was quite the sweaty mess when we were done. I'm sure he's feeling the burn in his back end after all that. He hasn't had a centralized ride where we target one area. I think we're going to get on more of a riding program now, and plan for 2 days of targeted riding, 1 day of a light exercise hack, and 1 wildcard day, where we either get a lesson, have a jump day, or hack out on the trails or in the field next door.

I wish I had some pictures to share, however we were on our own for this ride!