The Other Horses

I haven't talked about the other horses in my life recently, so let's dedicate a post to them.

Rico
Guess who is maintaining his health while off the antibiotics? Rico! Which means that he's officially recovered from his peritonitis and internal pigeon fever. It was such a rough winter for him, and I'm so glad he pulled through. Not only that, but he's been called fat by the vet! For a horse who was seriously underweight for a good amount of the winter, I'm glad that he's fat. But he's now going on a diet, poor Rico.

Neck-wise, he is doing quite well on his prevocox! I'm waiting to ride him for another few weeks (and honestly I have NO time to ride him anyway, I mostly just give him pets and carrots when I see him), but he's finding it much easier to turn his head right, and has been playing with Riot a lot more.

Even if he's not rideable, I'm glad he's feeling more comfortable. He already gave me so much, I don't need to have him rideable forever, I just want him to be happy and healthy and live a nice long while in his pasture.

As much as I'd love to do this again on him, I'm just glad we got
to do it at least once!

Stretch
So if you remember what happened last year, you'll be surprised to find out that Stretch made it through the winter. About a year ago, we found out that Stretch was falling (narcolepsy) and injuring his neck. He started showing neurological signs and we were told by the vet to either put him down, or we could give him a steroid to try to calm down his neck to reduce the neurological symptoms. The steroid is really dangerous, it can lead to severe foundering. We took the chance, braced ourselves to put him down, and he was fine.

It happened again over the summer. A few times. We kept just telling him hey we'll do the steroid but the second you're not comfortable, we're putting you down. The vet said that he wouldn't make it through the fall, through the winter... and he's fine.


Well, mostly. He has figured out how to sleep without falling, he puts his nose over the extra stall door and sleeps, so then if he falls, he gets caught and can get back up before he goes down. But for an older horse with lots of problems, he's doing well.

The vet came out recently and found that he was mildly laminitic. I was worried when my mom called me to tell me about that, since I thought it might mean we have to put him down. She said no, just that we have to pull him off his pasture until the grass dies because it could make him worse- it's very mild and we caught it early. I guess he was kind of crippled-looking in front of the vet, and then when the vet left and my mom gave him a little turnout time in the grass out front (since he's locked in from his pasture but she's still giving him like 45 minutes in the front grass), he was running around totally sound. WTF Stretch, you're making the vet think that we're doing you a disservice by keeping you alive.

So he's getting a shorter period of time on shorter grass, and is going to get some new grain without sugar in it. But other than that, Stretch continues to live a questionably long happy life. Here's to many more days/weeks/months/years with him. He's a character.

Stretch and Riot, they're friends, I swear!

Riot
My dad is gearing up for this year on little Riot. My plan when my future with TC seemed very questionable was to get Riot in shape for trail trials, but with TC being my main ride again (and I'm SO happy about that, even if doing a trail trials and a short endurance ride sound soooo fun, maybe one day), he's just been hanging out.

But now that the time has changed and we're hopefully done with this crazy rain, Riot is going to get his butt back into gear!


Mystery Horse
My mom is considering buying a horse this year! She hasn't had a horse of her own in years and years. Growing up, she had this awesome little Morgan mare, Princess, and ever since has had questionable horses. Dandy, who we lost in the last few years, was a hot little quarter horse she owned after Princess, and he was just a bit too much horse. He was never dangerous, just very energetic and kind of a pain. I loved him!

Then she got my hand-me-downs. She rode Stretch for a long time, and then when Stretch started having neurological issues last year, she switched to Rico. Rico is the most perfect horse ever, except that she thinks he's too lazy for her, and too big. And we really don't know how rideable Rico is going to be for the kind of trail riding my parents like to do (it's not a ton, but they like to trot and canter a little and Rico probably can't really climb hills, let alone canter up one).

So fingers crossed that she finds the perfect horse this year or next!