Victoria
Early in the year my horse Tass broke his splint bone while already trying to heal from some torn tendons he got while he was out on a lease. In the late summer I began to trot him for five minutes everyday. As the months went on he began to get stronger and stronger.
In October he colicked. After staying in his stall with him all night he pulled through. He was my eventer before he got hurt and before I out grew him. But after his injuries he has taken a liking to something called Polo Cross. He enjoys the sudden changes in how the game goes much like when he was an eventer, because he gets board easily (typical thoroughbred). After the colic I've been having trouble keeping the proper weight on him. But once again he is back on the road to recovery, happy and eager to work and we even jumped for the first time yesterday.
This story probably isn't the most triumphant you will read but it's been quite a long, hard year for my little man and he is a resilient one and always bounces back. I just though he deserved something nice for the new year.
*********************************************************************************
Sarah
This year has been full of ups and downs for my 7 year old Appendix Thoroughbred and I.
In the very beginning of the year on a Thursday afternoon, he sustained a serious leg injury to his left hind cannon bone. The vet said he would most likely never be able to compete again and we would be lucky if he would ever be sound again.
We had been a team since I purchased him as a 3 year old. We did everything from competing in futurities to competing regionally, and then being recruited for my college's intercollegiate team. This was going to be our first year competing in the intercollegiate level.
So of course this was a major shock and heartbreak for us. I was worried about his health and well being so much that first night that I got no sleep. The next morning I stayed out of school and watched over him the entire next few days all day. It was during that time that I made a promise to myself and to my loving man that I would do everything in my power to get him back to normal the best we could.
The next few months were rough, but my wonderful vet was supporting us and watching over us the entire time. The therapy went throughout the summer. It started out as baby steps, such as hand walking once around the barn, to eventually getting to the end of the driveway and back. Some days were better than others. But I could not be more proud of my sweet angel because he always pushed himself as far as he could.
Seven months went by, and finally, the day had come; it was time for me to get on his back for the first time in what seemed like forever. I was nervous and he was more nervous than I was. But it happened fairly smoothly and tears came flowing from everyone's eyes as they saw us doing what was thought to be impossible.
Four more months have gone by, and we just competed in our first local dressage show and finished in 1st place in our division. Before the injury we were doing 2nd level and this show we only did intro, but we are taking it very slow. Every day is a new day to make progress and we are both enjoying proving everyone wrong who had doubts. His x- rays are clean and we are cleared to compete in the 2014 intercollegiate year! I love my sweet boy so much! I'm crying now just reliving this amazing journey :). Thank you for allowing me to share our story.
*********************************************************************************
Madison
This year my best accomplishment with my quarter horse Skip was winning the dressage high point trophy at the Vermont 4H State Horse Show. It was especially important to me because two weeks earlier, Skip was injured by barbed wire in our large pasture, after a tree took the fence down during a storm. His back legs were shredded and I was crushed. The poor guy spent the next two weeks in a stall on heavy pain killers and antibiotics, and when the vet cleared him to travel in a trailer, I decided to take him down to the show just so I could continue to have him with me to care for while I was there with my family. The show lasted for four days... And for the first three, he wasn't trotting sound, so I scratched every class. He was so sore and stiff. It was the most disappointing show I've ever been to; I walked and hosed and stayed with my horse with the torn up legs while everyone else won ribbons and looked sharp and had a great time. On the last day of the show was the dressage tests, what was supposed to be the highlight of our show, and we had been working on our tests all summer. No dressage for us. Or so I thought. Skip trotted sound that morning, and a spark of hope flared. We scratched our higher level tests and entered in one lower test, without much cantering because he was still stiff. We had never ridden that test before. I memorized it as I got dressed and tacked up... And I can tell you, I was NERVOUS.
Somehow, my amazing horse managed to ride one of the best tests we've ever done: we scored a 72. At 4H shows, it's not uncommon for the judge to speak to you after a class or test about your strengths and weaknesses. The dressage judge was an old horse woman.. A tough judge. She gave me the best compliment possible. She said, "that is precisely how that test is supposed to be ridden." She also noted Skips legs and asked me about his injury, telling me, "your horse must love and trust you a lot to give you that kind of performance with an injury like that."
There was no way to beat that. I did a single class at that show, and it was the best one I could've ridden. I know Skip gave me his all despite not being healed or ridden for weeks. We won the trophy for dressage high point, and it's a reminder to me that throwing up your hands and quitting when times get tough is not the way to achieve great things.
*********************************************************************************
Courtney
My special achievement with my horse isn't anything fantastic to most people, but it took me over two years to get there. On June 9th, 2011 as I was leaving the house for a riding lesson on my OTTB gelding, Rocky, my dog tripped me and I broke the 5th metatarsal of my left foot. While the initial prognosis was six weeks of no riding plus physical therapy, the break didn't heal the way it should have. I also didn't receive the best of care from my doctors resulting in two surgeries, more physical therapy and living with severe, constant pain. I was able to find a new and better doctor, who removed a too large screw and replaced it with a plate and pins. Unfortunately during this surgery it was discovered that there was damage to some tendons and ligaments from the fall. The doctor was worried I might not be able to walk again, much less ride.
After many weeks, I was able to very slowly walk down the barn aisle. I was able to do this without a knee walker and used just one crutch.
Unfortunately I lost my job during all of this, and had to go from full board down to rough. It now meant I had to go twice daily, feed, turn in/out, and do my horses stalls myself.
It took me FOREVER every day, because every 5 - 10 minutes I had to sit for 10 - 15 minutes between weakness, pain, and just plain exhaustion. My horses were so good to me, far better behaved than I had any right to expect them to be. I certainly wouldn't have blamed them if they got fed up with me and just took off, but they could not have been more patient, and more perfect. My gelding would let me loop my arm around his neck and help me walk to and from the barn. My mare, who isn't very tolerating of PDA, would let me lean on her halter and scrunch up her huge 17hh stride into this tiny, slow little thing I could keep up with.
Slowly it got better, and soon enough I was able to just take 1-2 sitting breaks during the hour it took to care for them each time. Soon after that, I could play with them in the round pen for a few minutes at a time. Things were really starting to get better. There was just one problem.
I was getting, and still get now, the most horrendous and severe pains in my foot that have literally knocked me to the ground. On one particularly terrifying occasion, I ended up beneath Rocky in the round pen with no one in ear shot. He stood like a rock, pun intended, and let me use his legs, mane, and halter to get back up. I had to lean on him up a hill into the barn, and my wonderful Thoroughbred stayed with me every step of the way. That incident tore cartilage in my knee, also on the left. Yay.
The pains have gotten no better. There have periods where they get worse. There is no warning, and it doesn't matter what I'm doing. Sitting, walking, swimming, sleeping etc. nothing makes it better when the pain comes. I have to grit my teeth and wait for it to pass. Sometimes it's one pain, sometimes it's thirty. It can last for a second or several minutes. The most frustrating thing is that I have gone an entire two weeks without pain, doing nothing different, and then it comes back.
While I have yet to sit on either of my horses, or any horse for that matter, the one thing, the ONE thing that I was able to check off my 2013 resolutions was to take my horses on a walk. On one particularly amazing, I'm sick of this so I'm gonna grit my teeth through it day, Rocky and I went for a 1/4 mile walk. A 1/4 mile. We haven't been able to do it again, but I'm hopeful. Between Rocky and I both we're a bit of a sorry pain. He's sore, I hurt. I'm physically and emotionally exhausted by being in pain all the time, but we have each other.
They told me I might not walk again. I took my horse on a 1/4 mile walk. They told me I would never ride again. That's next.
I want to win this halter for Rocky because for one thing, he is and always will be my special horse. I've had him for over 8 years now and he has been the one constant in my life. He took such amazing care of me through the worst of it. He's been through some rough injuries as well and he's been quite sore lately, and I want this for him to remind him that he's something special, he deserves a leather halter as beautiful as he is.
*******************************************************************************
Noelle
2013
has been a crazy year for me. I started the year feeling like I was finally
figuring things out more, as I’d only started riding english in late summer 2011.
I thought that I’d get to ride my horse Chester, an OTTB, in a few more
dressage schooling shows and even have a shot at placing. I thought maybe I
could even start jumping later in the year. None of that ended up happening.
Chester died of colic on February 22nd; he was 8 years old, born in
April 2004. I didn’t ride a lot this spring since I didn’t really have a horse
to ride and was still getting over Chester dying.
In early May I
started riding a horse named Whiskey. Whiskey is a palomino saddlebred/cross
and he’s probably a year or two younger than Chester was. Whiskey hadn’t really
been worked with a lot; in fact, this year is probably the first year he’s been
ridden more than twice a year. When I started riding Whiskey I put a western
saddle on him because we weren’t quite sure how he’d act at first. I started
riding him english in late May, and had probably been back in the english
saddle for 2 weeks when I broke my arm.
It was a cool
morning in early June about 50-some degrees. I noticed while brushing Whiskey
that I couldn’t get him to pick his feet up for me to pick them out. I didn’t
think that was a big deal though. I led him to the arena and tried to get on,
but he wouldn’t stand still at first. Again, I didn’t think it was a big deal,
the weather was cooler. I made him stand still and he stood still long enough
for me to try to get on. I had my left foot in the stirrup and my right leg
halfway over his back when he took off for no apparent reason. I hung onto the
reins for a split second trying to slow him down, then fell off. I just
remember lying on the ground screaming about my arm, which turned out to be
broken, I did try to stand up, but couldn’t. My riding instructor came out of
the house; she saw a white tail go by the window fast and started heading out
to see what was going on. I got up and then my mom pulls in totally by
coincidence. I managed to walk to the barn and sat down on the brush box for a
bit, then got back up and walked to my mom’s car. We went to the emergency room
where it turned out I’d broken my left arm up high, near the shoulder. I had
surgery on my arm, ended up with a plate and screws in my arm and didn’t ride
for most of this summer.
I finally started
riding again in about mid-August; I rode in a western saddle until late
September. When I first started riding again, I was a bit nervous and it took
me until October to get most of my confidence back. I rode a lesson horse for a
few weeks and then one day my riding instructor told me I was riding Whiskey. I
rode Whiskey in the round pen until sometime in October. I did fall off of
Whiskey again in November. He startled at something and stepped sideways and I
didn’t have my heels down far enough and landed flat on my back. I had the breath
knocked out of me but I got back up, caught my breath, got back on, and went
past the same spot again.
My biggest
accomplishment this year is getting back on after breaking my arm and not just
riding again but getting on the same horse so I could become a better rider. I
think this year, I’ve learned a lot: first, before you get on; if you think the
horse is going to do something stupid, make sure somebody is holding the horse
while you’re getting on. Second, and this strikes me as ironic, so far this is
the year where I’ve improved the most as a rider in really just the last 3
months or so.
********************************************************************************
Alex
I got my OTTB straight from the track the day after her last race. I am an eventer and my goal was to do the haunted hunter pace in October with her. However, she's rather accident prone and we had quite a few obstacles. This included running through the fence, cutting her head, lameness and last but not least severing her artery (which alone put us back 3 months) Sad to say that we didn't compete in the haunted hunter pace. But she was back jumping 3'3" by early December. Biggest accomplishment we've had. So proud of my mama.
No comments:
Post a Comment