Carling/Brooksy's Castle.
As with the majority of my horses, Carling was an accident really. A friend of ours said they had a horse up for loan and, well, we agreed to take him. We knew he was in a bad state, but we weren't prepared for how bad. He was skin and bones, covered in rain scald, scars and mud fever. He got off the trailer and just hung his head on the floor. When we put him in the field, instead of getting excited about there being a new friend to play with, all the horses gathered around him and let him graze in peace by himself, almost as if they understood how low he was feeling. We didn't even know if he'd make it through the night.
Luckily, he did. He got lots of tlc and much needed food, including a red blood cell supplement to bring up his red blood cell count he had immunosupression, I guess is the best way to describe it. But he did get better, slowly but surely. The worst part in a way was just how genuine and trusting he still was. He'd been jumped and hunted in this state, been forced to wear a saddle that was far too tight(he still has bald patches along his spine from the saddle sores) and had been put in a paddock with a pony that had actually killed another pony. They thought that because Carling was bigger, the pony didn't bother, but he hasn't got a nasty bone in his body and didn't defend himself from the batterings the pony gave him. But still he didn't let any of this affect his trust in humans and still is the most honest, genuine horse I've ever met. After a few weeks, he started to put a bit of weight on, and we started riding him gently..
That's when we noticed the lameness. Or not so much lameness, but the weird way he moved, especially in trot, stretching out his back leg almost in a pacing action. When we looked closer, it was obvious something wasn't right. His hock was twice the size it should be and looked lumpy and knotted. After being checked by a vet, we found out that his flexor tendons had twisted and flipped round, an injury that could only be corrected with surgery and even that wasn't guaranteed to work. It was an old racing injury and although it looks ugly and will be with my for my life, it just means he's unable to jump or turn sharp corners or circles.
That's really the main part of Carling's story, but it doesn't end there. Being a TB, he's definitely a liability at times and has put us through quite a few scary moments! Just a few months later, he came in one day with a small puncture wound. We put some sudocrem on it and thought nothing of it, until the next morning when we came up to find his leg twice the size it should be, swollen up to his knee. We phoned the vet who conformed what we thought..it was infected. He told us that if we had called even half an hour later, if the swelling had gone past his knee, that would of been it, the end. He was on box rest for six weeks and had to be injected everyday, but he was lucky, very lucky. There's been a lot more sticky moments, but I don't want to bore you with all the gory details..absesses, more infections, lumps and bumps.
But here he is now, 5 years later, looking like a completely different horse than the one that arrived in May 2008! Maybe this year I might even take him to a few shows, do a few best turned out classes, maybe even ridden hunter horse, ridden veteran or re trained race horse...we shall see! And(after a dare from mother) I am determined to teach him to be ridden tackless, the big dope he is, if I can manage to overcome the issue of his stupidly high withers...
Sparkie's turn tomorrow! ;D
Beth, Sparkie, Carling & Jack :) xxxx
omg beth i never realized how much he had been through! well done for everything!
ReplyDeletehe's been through a lot, bless the old man!
ReplyDelete