What is Wrong with Sundance?

Sundance has been not feeling good for a couple of months now, so on Tuesday I hauled him down to the vet for my mom. 

I rode him all summer long, since he was the only one I had to ride with TC doing mostly ground work at the time. Mostly I rode him on the tracks and on the trails, I even took him out to HBR, the local trail facility, to walk on the flat road there.

But then this fall we noticed that he was losing weight and topline. I was surprised because he really was in more work than normal (which has been no work for a few years since my mom stopped riding). I stopped riding him in early November and we fed him more and more. Soon he was eating more than TC!

Poor naked pony

We had the vet out in early December for blood work and it wasn't great. He was anemic, showed low protein, and had a few other values that were pretty off. We redid his diet, adding a bunch of alfalfa for the protein. And he continued losing weight, so we did another round of bloodwork that didn't show much improvement. He had also started laying down more often, like many more times per day than usual and at odd times for him. So on Tuesday we took him down to the internal medicine specialist. 

She warned us at the start of the appointment that we were unlikely to leave with real answers. Her theory, which was the same as our local vet's theory, was that he had protein-losing enteropathy, essentially that his gut was leaking protein and that's what was causing the topline loss and the loss of weight. It can be caused by a myriad of things, including inflammation due to chronic NSAID use (nope), infection, lymphatic issues, and even cancer (lymphoma). 

He was truly horrified to have cold
alcohol dumped over his shaved bits

She ultrasounded his gut on both sides, looking for thickening of the walls of his intestines. His small intestine was very active and was dropped, meaning she saw a lot more of it than she expected. That's a sign of colic/intestinal pain. But the actual walls seemed fine. She went back into the large intestine and that's where she found some thickening in the wall of the cecum. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, she normally sees them like 3-4x thicker than normal and his was only slightly thicker. So she was comfortable saying that lymphoma was unlikely at that point. PHEW because cancer has taken enough people/animals from me this year. 

We also did abdominal x-rays to look for sand and/or stones, just since he was there at the clinic and it was convenient. Nothing showed up, so that was good to rule out. 

He's been such a good kid's pony 
this year (hopefully not just because
he has been feeling bad)

Like she warned, it was kind of inconclusive. There's no clear reason why what is going on is happening and unfortunately because the only abnormalities are in the cecum, the only way to really biopsy that area is to send him to colic surgery, which would be ridiculous. 

The plan then is to just start treatment. He is going on an all pellet diet so that the cecum doesn't have to work as hard. He's also going to get a tapering dose of steroids for a month. And he is going to be started on an antihistamine since he does have some allergy issues that she thinks could have triggered the inflammation. 

Then we wait. He gets bloodwork done in two weeks to see whether anything has improved, and he gets a recheck on his ultrasound in about a month. 

The younger kiddo is going to be so much bolder
and scrappier a rider than the older one, trying to
convince her to hold on was a no go

We're hoping that just one round of steroids and taking the pressure off of his cecum will be enough to kind of reset his gut. Although some horses need to be on low dose steroids for the rest of their lives, and figuring out the dose is really tricky because if you dip too low, you kind of have to start over because the symptoms start back up again. 

I really feel terrible for the little guy. He's only 20 years old, and for a Morgan that's basically only middle aged. It's been really sad to watch him lose weight and topline this year. He was always a round little guy, we called him an air fern! 

Fingers crossed this all works out and he feels MUCH better soon!

Draining Rico's Abscess

Well, on Friday, the vet came out for Rico's abscess and we were able to drain it! My vet was WAY faster than I was (I live 45 minutes away from the ranch + post Thanksgiving traffic) so by the time I got there, it had been drained already. That was actually great, because it was described as "like a geyser" and to be honest, I am not interested in watching something like that. 

The vet thinks that it was about the size of a tangerine on the inside, which is truly disgusting and enormous. I can't believe my poor boy was dealing with that for so long! He got his inoculations in October, so it was brewing for a while. Luckily, this explains any weirdness that he seemed to be exhibiting this fall, so as much as this was terrible for him to go through, I'm glad it was this and not him deteriorating. 

He and TC are so cute together, before
this he was nickering at TC but then after
this he bit TC, then whirled around and
threatened to kick at us (???)

Right away, Rico seemed to feel MUCH better, I actually caught him cantering around in his pasture riling TC up in the afternoon. He's very itchy still, and he kept inching the gross opening toward me as I scratched him. The protocol is antibiotics to keep it from getting infected, rinsing it out with antiseptic twice a day, and washing the skin under it. If it gets scabbed over, we'll have to soak the scab off, since we want it to heal from the inside. 

By the weekend, the swelling had gone WAY down and he was feeling more and more normal. He's actually really good about rinsing it out and getting all the nastiness washed out of his neck below it. He has been pretty nervous in the barn and wash rack though, so I've been relying on bribery. I think he's gotten more cookies in the past few weeks than he has got in the last year or two. 

We're expecting it to take about 1-2 weeks to become more normal and close up. I'm so glad that it's just cold and that there's no rain in the forecast for at least a week since it'd just be so much grosser to deal with if everything was wet. 

Two days before we drained it? I
won't post pictures of it now, it's gross

All in all, I'm happy that he's feeling MUCH better, and mostly happy that this was all that it was. Hopefully he has a very uneventful winter/year ahead since this is all the stress I can really take as we get closer and closer to his 30th birthday in February!

Rico's Tough Weekend

Rico had quite the weekend! He's fine by the way, just had a tough time. 

Clipped part of his neck is an abscess

Last week I had to call the vet for Rico because he had a lump on the right side of his neck and was struggling to put his head down low enough to eat his food. The vet thought it was scar tissue from his vaccines and advised me to give him bute for 3-4 days to help with the pain as he worked through it. It worked, and then he went back on his normal equioxx. We thought his body would kind of break up that knot of scar tissue over time, but then on Friday morning it was ENORMOUS. 

The vet came back again. We clipped it and ultrasounded it, turns out it's a HUGE abscess. It was 2.5cm in from his skin, so we couldn't drain it yet. So I was advised to put him back on bute, keep his food higher off the ground, and then just wait. She told me what to look out for and so every day I've been squishing it lightly, waiting for there to be a softer part of it so that we can drain it. She thought it'd take 1-2 weeks. Hopefully it won't be too long. 

It was definitely caused by the flu/rhino vaccine that we gave him a while back, and this is only the second time in her whole career she's seen a vaccine do this. Of course it had to happen to my horse who is almost 30 years old, and who needs all the calories he can get so can't be not able to eat. 

Speaking of calories

Then on Saturday morning, I get a text saying to come down ASAP because Rico is fully losing his mind about something in the hills. 

Apparently he refused to eat or drink all night long and hadn't eaten his breakfast (although he'd gotten some water into him). By the time I got down there, we were debating taking him to the vet clinic to get him away from whatever was scaring him and maybe put him on an IV. Again he can't just NOT eat with this abscess and with the vet wanting him to gain a smidge of weight before winter. 

I pulled his haynet out of his stall and took it down to the part of the pasture he seemed to be happiest in. Then also brought out a bucket of water to hang for him. We were able to get him to eat soaked grain (so that he got some water into him) and eventually he did start to nibble at his hay and drink some water. 

TC says WHAT ABOUT ME, also yes he's muddy

Jealous

Throughout the day, we'd bring him more hay, grain, and water and he slowly started to calm down more and more. And probably felt better because he wasn't so hungry. 

TC stayed nearby, although it was because he thought that we were just having a super cool picnic in the pasture and he was mad that he wasn't invited to eat any of the food. I did end up bringing his lunch down for him to eat by Rico, as well as a bucket of water for him so that he'd be encouraged to stay with Rico. 

TC thought that was SUPER fun, even when Rico stole his hay.

TC's version of sneering is so wholesome

That night, we fed them both out there and filled the water buckets too. Rico slowly got more and more comfortable over the course of the weekend, he hasn't yet gotten into the stall except to eat a little bit of grain, but TC has kept him company in his picnic area with them both continuing to be fed and watered out there. He at least seems calmer now and TC is being a good companion for him, sticking close. I'm still not sure what he saw up the hill or what happened when he was last in his stall, we checked the cameras and there's nothing that makes it seem like anything serious happened.

Hopefully Rico continues to feel better and hopefully his abscess is getting ready to be drained soon. Poor guy deserves to feel his best! I'm at least glad that we don't have a lot of rain in the forecast, luckily he can hang out in the pasture for a while longer. 

Another Opinion + Injections

One of the reasons I decided to take TC down to my somewhat local vet clinic to get injections was so that I could get another set of eyes on him/his x-rays. And, of course, to get the injections done in a more sterile environment. It gets windy at the ranch so I wanted to make sure that we didn't unintentionally introduce anything else into his joints.

I've known this vet for a while, he was the vet who helped with Rico's internal pigeon fever years ago. He was happy to hear that Rico was being a loon the other day! The trees were being trimmed (far from where he lived) and he was galloping around the pasture bucking. Then he would canter over to TC (who was trying to be a good companion and standing by the fence) and he'd bite his face, then run off again. 

TC says "where are we???"

Soon after we arrived, poor TC got yet another lameness exam, which was great! Although the more vets that say "hey this horse is actually pretty sound" the more I feel insane. But he did have this amazing app that evaluates lameness based off of video (I was going to ask what it was and then decided not to because I don't think that's good for my mental health) and it did note that he was weaker in the left hind x right front diagonal pair. And on a tight circle on hard ground, they could make him the tiniest bit lame on the right front. That tracks with everything we've seen so far. 

He then did a neuro exam, which I was a little surprised by, but ended up being a good thing. They went in tight circles and halted and walked up and down hills. By that point, TC was having kind of a good time, he was shockingly good for the tech who was working with him. Normally he's trying to be a clown. Don't worry, he got plenty of clown time while we were in the clinic, he found a resident who thought he was very cute and was barging around touching all the equipment to make her laugh. 

After the exam, I got to show the vet the slough of x-rays that TC had had in the past two months. He spent quite a while going over them with me, which was SUPER helpful. So far only OG vet had seen all of the rads, as I just sent the hoof ones to my local vet. 

Then he realized where we were

These were the notes I took from the x-rays and the lameness exam:

- TC is weaker on LH x RF diagonal, LH does not want to reach as far forward, RF is more hesitant. 

- TC is very slightly neurological, he's a little too comfortable standing off balance (doesn't correct himself) and when going downhill, seemed to struggle to figure out where his RF was - he reached a bit too much. Very mild, not unsafe, thought it could very easily be his size + muscle weakness rather than an actual neurological issue. 

- His feet do look like they have improved, vet agreed with my OG vet who thought his feet were pretty bad in early Sept, agrees with my local vet that his feet are better now (not perfect), agrees with my farrier that it will take time to continue to improve. Wants more heel and thinks that the pads he has on and the trim that my farrier is doing will get us there. But he also said that there's only so much you can do sometimes. 

- His hocks and pasterns weren't as bad as my local vet thought they were. Said the same thing as OG vet - that he has shockingly clean joints for this large of a horse at 14yo. But he was happy to inject them to help him out, but suggested injecting hocks, coffins, and just the RF pastern joint. The LF seemed okay and given that he came up more off on the RF, he figured we could do that one first. 

- His neck might be a problem. Saw the C6/7 rotation, but also an anomaly in C6 where one of his transverse processes seems to be shorter/smaller than the other (can't tell which one due to it being an x-ray). This can cause issues in the soft tissue nearby. Also saw some narrowing in the joint at C6/7 but no remodeling, suggesting that if it is his neck, it's at least not a severe case because it hasn't caused remodeling. 

The conclusion on the neck stuff was this: I am well within reason to chase down his neck with a CT scan to look for pinched nerves. This would easily explain all the issues I've had with TC, such as balking and muscle wasting. However, this involves general anesthesia and would just be to get a diagnosis. The vets these days are seeing more and more of this and new treatments are being developed, but it would be a long road ahead potentially requiring surgery. There's no major reason to go that route immediately given that he's pretty sound and isn't showing more than extremely mild neuro symptoms. The vet suggested instead that we could inject C6/7 on both sides and maybe also C5/6. If he DOES have neck issues and he just needs neck injections to remedy them, that'd be great!

So, we discussed the injections quite a lot, both limb and neck. In the end, I decided to just do his limbs at this appointment with Alpha 2. Two spots each in his hocks, both front coffin joints, and the one pastern joint on his RF. There is still enough leftover where we could do his neck at a later date. And I'll tell you why.

Sleepy boy, he snored quite a lot

The reason why I decided to do it this way is that I could see two realities...

1. TC has a neck issue. There are nerves being pinched and it's causing him enough pain where he's unable to use himself properly and slams on the brakes frequently when he feels unbalanced or when he feels the pain. He's more forward in the winter just due to the cooler weather and maybe the softer ground helps too. Treatment is potentially just neck injections, possibly surgery, or it could mean that he should be retired (at least from dressage, if not full retirement). 

2. TC's neck is fine, all of this has just been a combination of everything creating a vicious cycle starting with his feet. His feet started to get uncomfortable, so he braced in his neck and back, dropped through his thoracic sling, and then couldn't move forward. This caused the balking behavior and because he wasn't using himself properly, the muscle wasting. The neuro stuff we saw at the appointment was a red herring because he's just too weak to properly support himself right now. Treatment is to fix his feet and do some injections to make him feel better in the meantime so that I can bring him back to work. 

Getting his feets all cleaned up

I've been very careful with this process to not do too much at once. We started with the diagnosis, moved onto his feet, then nutrition, then bodywork, and now injections. It's been really nice to see what is helping - for example, he does seem more comfortable after his feet, which I wouldn't have known if I'd done the injections before fixing his feet. Same thing with bodywork, I noticed a difference in his posture afterwards so I feel confident continuing. 

So at this appointment, if I were to inject both the neck and the limbs, I'd not be able to rule out either of them. 

For that reason, we decided to start with just his limbs and save the rest for his neck later on. I asked the vet how long I should wait to see an effect. He said well, if TC were lame, it'd be pretty immediate - within five days of the injection he'll be feeling better. But I'm looking at behavior that has been reinforced for years and I'm also looking at his topline to grow, which takes time and consistency. Although I do hope when I bring him out on Sunday (which is when we can start back to work), he drags me all over the arena because he's so forward and happy that his joints feel better. 

We agreed on at least two months to slowly bring him back (further) into work before I make the decision on whether to bring him down for neck injections. And looking at the calendar, I'm on vacation for the last half of January, so we'd actually be looking at more like three months. I'd likely make the decision before my vacation and then make the appointment for after my vacation. I'd rather not inject his neck and then leave the country just in case there were complications. 

I hopped on him with his cavesson
and surcingle on in order to warm up
the other day - used the kids' reins!

So we did the limb injections and TC is resting unhappily at home because he's locked on his paddock to rest and because it's supposed to rain today. He hates it, he probably thinks this is some horrible reality show that he's been put on to get in shape and lose weight (he's down 67lbs! From 1457 to 1390), like the biggest loser for horses without the abuse, although he'd like to speak with the producers. 

Meanwhile, I'm trying not to be too concerned. I had thought that we'd ruled out his neck... but I also couldn't believe that it wasn't his neck. But also every vet on the planet is obsessed with necks right now, so is this like when you buy a new car and see that car everywhere? He has full range of motion with his neck and is never careful about shoving his face into all sorts of places, but he also does struggle with steering/the connection in a way that suggests neck. But he's also a friesian and they seem to be born with extra stretchy ligaments. 

I think I've already decided that if it is his neck, I'm not interested in going to the extremes - I won't put him under anesthesia. But I will inject it, as much as I'm hoping it isn't his neck at all, and that these injections we just did fixed it all, I am kind of glad that we have at least one more option to try later. 

Dynamic Duo

Yesterday was the appointment I'd been looking forward to, where my farrier and my vet got to have a forced hangout session. If you remember, my farrier had already come out to bring his toes back and things had been seeming a little better. 

Enjoy this weirdly cropped photos of TC and the
two sprinklers I got for him

He's like... are you serious?

The vet arrived first and the first thing I had her do was pull blood for a metabolic panel. He's gained a lot of weight on not a lot of food in the past year, so I want to make sure that we catch anything we need to catch. 

Then, we took x-rays of his feet, this time she also did views from the front to check his balance. When my farrier arrived, we had just been talking about how the balance looked much better in his feet than the previous x-rays. We spent time comparing each one to the previous x-rays and noted that his left front was worse than his right, but that both left and right were better now after he got re-shod. 

We then discussed next steps for his feet - TC didn't have quite enough foot to take any more off and one recommendation that my vet brought up was putting frog support pads on him. This would allow his heels to grow, which is what we need to encourage for his angles to get even better. My farrier had an example pad of a 3D printed pad she's wanting to use for these cases. It has a hole in the pad right behind the toe, meaning that the horse's hoof can dry out a bit easier.

This one he started out skeptical of as well

Considering it might be okay

My farrier said that basically TC's pasture is the worst possible scenario for his feet. The soil is clay out there, so in the winter its squelchy mud that balls up in their feet and then dries, putting a ton of pressure on the sole. If we don't pick all the horses' feet out all the time, we risk their feet basically caving in on themselves. Then in the summer, because in California we have an insane dry season where it doesn't rain from April through November, the ground hardens up to the point where large cracks form. 

AND, to add insult to injury, TC loves water so so much, that if it's hot, he will play in his water bucket. To the point where I had to move one bucket away from the barn because he'd flood his shavings (we call this his chaos bucket) AND I got him a big bucket that I fill up from time to time out in his pasture so he can waste well water (we call this his XL chaos bucket). But because he has pads on (necessary to keep his feet comfortable on the hard ground), it means that his feet get wet 2-3x per week and then don't necessarily dry out enough. 

So we think that these frog support pads will help with that. And I might need to take away at least his XL chaos bucket, maybe even find a way to keep him from playing in his other bucket. I feel bad considering that though, he loves it so much. 

Then it ended up being his favorite

Just a happy boy and his flower sprinkler

In addition to the feet, I figured I had a vet and an x-ray machine on the property, so I had her x-ray his hocks as well. The other vet thought he had good range of motion and didn't think that the hocks were involved at all. But he's 14 years old and I just figured that we should take a look. 

I'm glad we did, because his joints do seem pretty good for his age, but there was enough remodeling where she thought that injections would help him out. We also saw some mild remodeling in his coffin joint and pastern joints. I asked her, if money were no object and we wanted to give him the best chance to come back, what would she inject? 

She said that she'd inject all three of those joints with a biologic (she quoted me Alpha2P?), that this could give him a boost through rehab. I agreed, but she wanted to wait until she got back his metabolic panel, plus I don't think she had all her stuff there. So I asked her to give me a quote for it, which she sent last night. 

He was surprisingly gentle with it

He just wanted to hold his nose on it

Oh no, man down!

I do feel better I think. We are getting his new pads on in early October and sometime in October the vet is coming back out for all the horses' dentals, so I might consider doing the joint injections and maybe look at his front feet again then. Or I'm considering taking him offsite for the injections, my barn is clean but a clinic will likely be cleaner. Plus why not get a fifth vet involved?

My goal is to just throw everything at him for the next 12 months, whatever I think will bring this horse back, let's do it - special shoes? sure, injections? go for it, bodywork? absolutely. Because the alternative is full retirement soooo we may as well try everything one last time. Maybe this winter will be the first one I fall off of him because he feels so good! I'd be fine with that honestly. 

TC's Muscle Wasting: A Possible Answer

Well it's been a minute. But rather than jump into too many updates (Rico is great, my job is great, my people are great, TC you will hear about shortly but he is also great), I wanted to share a critical update. 

He is the light of my life even if we've
just been hanging out mostly

Five years ago I started chasing down an issue that TC and I were having as we were showing at Third level. We were scoring as high as I'd ever scored at the level but he looked *terrible* and he felt even worse. I called it muscle wasting, he seemed to not be able to put a topline on despite being in full work. He also exhibited a lot of balking, refusing to go forward, always slamming on the brakes. 

I chased this down pretty aggressively for years, sliding into insanity as I would receive answers that didn't quite fix everything in addition to a lot of gaslighting. I had trainers telling me it was normal for horses at the mid levels to struggle so we just had to get through it. I had people tell me it was his breeding, or just to keep pushing through and trusting that dressage would put a topline back on him. 

But something felt wrong, and I ended up listening to my horse and quitting dressage, last year we did a little bit of jumping (which he enjoyed but then once again the balking started), then this year I quit riding him very much at all.

The ranch remains casually beautiful

It was weird though, every winter he seemed to get better, which sometimes coincided with something that made a lot of sense, so I'd run with it, but every spring/summer, things would get worse again. I'd try and try again, then would seem to figure out what it was over the next winter only to be disappointed again. 

This year, I decided that I wanted to give myself one last year to try to figure this out. If we couldn't do it, I planned to bite the bullet and fully retire him, let him live with other horses at a different facility, and move forward with buying a new horse (likely a little Irish horse since I've come to love them). I gave him from April until now mostly off, doing primarily a postural rehab plan that I came up with (it basically combined Jec's 55 corrective exercises with some very basic dressage and some basic bodywork stuff) and waiting until mid summer when things were at their worst to see a new vet. I had been worried that nothing would show up in the spring. 

Enter: a new vet (not pictured)

This vet came to me highly recommended for his fantastic approach with cases like these. Mysterious cases where the horse is totally sound and fine and just needs a good beating (aka something is wrong but the prey animal doesn't want to tell you because then he'd be even more prey-like). We had already seen three vets who said that he was sound and fine. But this vet was different and I'm so grateful we went! 

First, we started with the most comprehensive exam I've ever seen, he did a full lameness exam (shocker, TC is sound) and then full range of motion tests for each leg. 

We then went inside and took x-rays of all four feet and his entire spine. The vet did an ultrasound of his scapular cartilage, his bad stifle, and then he stuck an ultrasound wand up his butt and I was like..... alright. Sorry TC, I'll let anyone with a white coat do anything to you in the name of your soundness.

After his exam he was so happy to 
supervise the next exam

Finally we sat down and discussed what the findings were, he talked to me for 45 minutes! But right away he said "there is nothing clinically wrong with your horse" and I was ready to leave. In the moment before he continued I was like WELL OKAY THEN and had made plans to retire the horse fully and book a flight to Ireland. 

But he finished with "everything I'm seeing is man-made, and I think we can fix it." So I'm glad I didn't overreact (externally). 

He took me through all of his images -

1. TC has ECVM, equine cervical vertebrae malformation, essentially his C6 and C7 are swapped. However, TC is now fourteen years old (what! when?) and if this was going to be a problem it already would have. He has no clinical signs and this is not the issue. 

2. TC does not have kissing spine, his disc space is great and he shows no arthritis anywhere, his SI joint (rectal ultrasound) is normal as well

3. He has nothing wrong with his left stifle, which was his bad stifle for years

4. He has damage to his scapular cartilage caused by his saddle not fitting properly, although the vet thinks it's due to the postural collapse vs the saddle actually not fitting

So what is it?

Holy shit

It's his FUCKING FEET. Now, feel free to get all high and mighty (on your own, to your friends, not in the comments) but when I say no one ever really suspected his feet, I mean it. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but there was no real reason to suspect that this would be his feet. 

So I never chased that down. My farrier is a Journeyman farrier, she's a great farrier, his feet look great. I mean they're huge and friesian-y, but they look great. 

I have lots of feelings and lots of "should have" statements and some anger that I'm sure will come out about this that I will keep to myself. The point is that we have something that could possibly be an answer and that is all that matters. There's something that we can do. 

Circled is mechanical laminitis by the way

It makes sense. The horse is unable to lift through his thoracic sling due to his feet being painful in addition to the possible C6/7 switch that makes it harder for him to build muscle at the base of his neck. He then drops his wither, which slides his saddle forward into his scapula and also causes his back to spasm. The psoas and other muscles in his low back get rigid, causing all sorts of nerve stuff to buzz him.

It explains why he's better in winter (softer footing in his pasture, he can alleviate his feet by standing in mud), it explains why all the work I did seemed to work at first (building the TS) and then stop working (when he had to sit back on his hind legs and his back was still dysfunctional), it explains why I haven't been able to get a topline on him. And worst of all, it explains why over the years, it's just gotten worse, his feet have gotten worse and worse since he can't balance himself. 

And it explains that bodyworkers were finding it in his back end and thoracic sling, that vets were saying that he just needed more topline and he'd be good, that the chiropractor literally said that the base of his neck was tricky and he's just going to struggle with lifting it... it was like when three people close their eyes and are asked to describe an elephant and all describe very different things. No one was wrong. Just n one was able to get to the root of it. 

Mostly though, I'm so glad that I listened to this horse and stopped working him, because it seems like I preserved the rest of his body by doing so. The vet said the magic words "once you fix his feet and get him going properly, there will be no limitations, this horse could do the Grand Prix" and I felt more hope than I've felt in five years. 

The vet had some dogs and TC was
obsessed with them

Now, I'm not entirely insane, I know that I have had these epiphanies before, where someone comes along, says the word "thoracic sling" or "postural dysfunction" or "rectal ultrasound" and I'm like YES THIS. So I let myself celebrate today, but only after I texted my local vet and my farrier, who I am going to smash together like a child making dolls kiss. My vet is going to come out and x-ray his feet as he gets trimmed so that we can get him back in balance. 

But I know this could just be one piece of the puzzle. And I also know that I may not actually know until April/May of next year since we are about to enter winter and things always get better in winter. While the vet doesn't see any damage done, there is the emotional/mental piece of this for a horse who has been in pain undersaddle for longer than he was out of pain. And there's my piece of it, making sure that I continue to advocate for this horse and believe him when he says no. 

But I'm genuinely so hopeful. Could this be the start of TC's return to dressage? After all, Rico did his first PSG at 17 years old and his first Grand Prix at 18. I'm giving myself small doses of believing that the sky is the limit for my sweet gray horse. 

TC says "uh if that rude bay horse can
do it, so can I, obviously" to that

Anyway, hello again, maybe this will spur a real return to blogging (maybe not, work is truly nuts right now, I apologize). 

TC’s Lump

So, I have consistently forgotten to post about it, but TC has had this odd lump on the outside of his sheath for a few months. It started off looking like a small bug bite. Then it didn’t go away and looked like a large bug bite. So I thought “poor TC, a bug bit him.” It wasn’t hot or bothersome, so I decided to wait and have my vet look at it at TC’s spring shots. 

That happened on Monday and we decided to snag it off while it was still small enough to do so without general anesthesia. It was honestly perfect timing given that he needs two weeks off to let it heal. I needed to take 6 days off of riding for Kentucky and my saddle isn’t working right now anyway. 

These two are so funny together

I gave the vet the go ahead and we sedated TC to an inch of his life, blocked his sheath, snipped it off, and sewed him back up. I say we, as the general we, meaning my vet and the vet tech with my mom excitedly watching and asking questions. I stood far away trying not to gag at all the blood pouring out of him. So. Gross. I am not a Gross Things Person. My mom made fun of me. She was very excited to have been invited and she asked lots of questions. She wanted to go to vet school when she was younger and got a degree in biology, so all things vet-related are fascinating to her. I did not get those genes, hence there being no pictures of this procedure in this post. 

TC gets two weeks off from working and the vet said to keep him stalled or in a small paddock so he wouldn’t run around. Um… wouldn’t… run around? In a small space? TC runs the most when he’s in a small space because he is a giant complainer about not being in his pasture. He snakes his neck and boings around the paddock, harassing Rico over the fence. When he has pasture, 99% of the time he quietly walks in and out all day long. Then very occasionally he'll quietly trot or canter out. 

When I described these two options to my vet, she agreed that keeping him off the pasture would do more harm than good, so he still has his pasture. He WILL be locked in if he runs around too much and he WILL be getting a part time job to pay his own vet bills if she has to come back out to stitch him back up if he busts his stitches. 

Love this boy

The only major downside of this timing is that we have a mounted archery clinic next weekend. I was REALLY looking forward to doing it with TC but it’s not as important as seeing my biomechanics trainer in person at the end of May and seeing Celeste in early June. So it was either now and only miss one clinic and eight days of riding, or do it at the end of June and miss more riding. And we’d risk it getting bigger. 

I did opt to spend more money (TC, that job, let’s go) and send the mass to the laboratory. In true disgusting biology lovers fashion, all three strong-stomached individuals stood over the mass after it’d come off, poking around in it to see what it was made of. I was busy trying not to vomit, but the gist of what they found is that it looked like a fatty lump. Gag. No thanks. 

Obviously gray horses get skin cancer more easily than others. TC has, so far, not had a single mass on him other than this one (and it didn't look like what my friends with gray horses have described, I have chosen not to google these things). As much as I would love to be the one gray horse owner who never has to deal with it, I’m preparing for it to come back positive for cancer. Luckily, my vet thinks that 1) there’s definitely a chance it isn’t melanoma and 2) even if it is, it won’t have spread or anything. So fingers crossed, but I’m not too worried. I’m just glad we got it off. 

The one picture you'll get, don't look
closely, I tried not to take too many

If we have to do this on occasion, that’s fine. It was relatively easy and painless for TC (well, he’s also on antibiotics and bute for a few days) and for my bank account (less than $1,000 and that includes the call fee, the removal, the laboratory analysis, and spring shots). Honestly, my biggest concern was how disgusting it was, if it comes back I'll definitely call her the moment it shows up to have her snag it off when it's very small. Now let’s just hope he stays quiet enough to not pop his stitches. At least he’s older and more chill now, I could not imagine 4 year old TC handling stitches well, I’m glad his suspensory didn’t need surgery! 

Paying for Peace of Mind

On Monday, I took TC up to my lameness vet. It had been 4.5 years since we last saw him, thank you TC! That has to be a record, actually. Not that we haven't seen the other vet, but I haven't had to haul him the hour north to the vet clinic, so that's nice. 

TC has actually been feeling great since he came back from his most recent stifle issue, but my lameness vet had never seen him about it and I also wanted to get TC checked out in general by a sport horse vet before I started putting on any pressure for canter pirouettes or piaffe/passage. 

I told the clinic that I basically just wanted a lameness exam focused on his left stifle, that it's going to be a very faint lameness because he is sound enough to ride. They asked me if I wanted any imaging and I said yes, probably ultrasound and/or x-rays. 

He's not easy to photograph

We got there... late. Apparently I'd put it in my calendar as 1:45 and it was actually 1:00, how dumb, but I was right around the corner at 1:20 when they called me to ask if I was coming and was there at 1:25 so they just hung out to wait. I just HATE that, pandemic brain has me completely stupid sometimes. 

No harm no foul though, we were there less than an hour because TC did not take one single off step. 

He doesn't like expensive supplements
but he IS sound so I guess I'll take it

They did a VERY involved lameness exam. He got palpated everywhere, we trotted him on a straight line on hard ground, then longed him at walk, trot, and canter in the arena in soft ground, we then came back and longed him on hard ground at the walk and trot, walked him in tiny circles, and flexed all four limbs. 

Not one lame step! I mean, at ten years old I'd *hope* he wouldn't take a single off step with flexions, but it gave me so much confidence that he's really okay. Better yet, this was the vet who did his suspensory injury and there's NO evidence of him being at all affected by that five years later. Both fetlocks in front dropped evenly and he did not respond to palpation. 

He said he didn't want to x-ray, didn't want to ultrasound, no legend, no adequan, no injections, nothing. My horse is sound and there's no reason to do anything else at this point. 

So did I just pay a bunch of money to my vet to hear that my horse was fine? Not really, my vet understood why I brought him to me. 

Slight issue with his pelvis

TC's left butt cheek is slightly less developed than his right, his left gaskin is a little smaller than his right, his left long back muscle is a little weaker, and even TC's left hind foot is a slightly different shape that suggests he doesn't weight it as much as his right hind. 

All of that led my vet to prescribe us a preventative health plan. He says that it's evident that TC has a symmetry issue and that I'm doing the right thing trying to figure this out NOW before he starts having problems with it rather than when he either gets an overuse injury on the right or that left stifle does blow. 

He thought the cause of the problem wasn't the left stifle, but further up in his pelvis, it's tilted left. He asked if TC had ever had chiropractic and I said yes but it doesn't seem to make a difference, so I switched to acupuncture, which I have felt made a difference. He said that sometimes chiro takes several visits to have an effect BUT that it depends on the horse and that his favorite chiropractor, who comes to the vet clinic once a month with limited appointments, could determine whether TC was a good candidate for regular chiro. 

Any time I take a conformation picture of my horse,
I want to ask him HOW DO YOU DO THE THINGS
THAT YOU DO? Because he is a very oddly put
together creature

He also agreed that TC could have more muscle development and he gave me a 30 day supply of Core Builder, the muscle builder that Rico was on at the FEI levels that this vet recommended. It's not cheap but it works and TC will be on it for 90 days. He then asked if TC was on vitamin E and had me increase that to 10,000 IUs.  He also wants me to send him TC's diet so he can recommend any changes. TC obviously didn't like the Core Builder (it's powder and he doesn't like his food to be wet, oh well, sorry pony, it's either that or you get it in applesauce inserted into your mouth). 

We talked about a fitness plan and he wants TC on the hills once a week from now on and I said yep, we can do that. And he also emphasized the need to trot him over raised cavalletti on a curved line. I told him we did some cavalletti but not that exercise, so we'd do that. 

I hate dis food

We hauled back and I took these pictures as a reference to where he is today. Kinda undermuscled. Kinda fat. Kinda uninterested in his new supplement (booo TC eat your food). I dunno, I think we're closing in on the missing piece here, but we're not quite there yet. I'm glad I can rule out stifle pain as the cause. 

I laughed with my vet a bit about this conundrum I'm in. Rico's topline looks amazing no matter what you do to him. I did NOT ride him well and he still looked pretty fabulous even when he wasn't going well. TC feels 10x better than Rico ever has and it's like I look at him funny and 20% of his muscle turns into flub. I know a lot of this is his breeding and conformation, but I want to make sure that's the ONLY reason. 

Checking Boxes

I keep getting busy and disappearing from the blogosphere. It feels like I'm a little bit living a lie with TC scoring so well in shows and then being so tricky at home with his condition and his throughness. I mean, he isn't lame, he loves getting out and doing his job. He just doesn't look as well muscled as he should for this level, that's really all it is. But it's consuming me. It's probably misplaced pandemic stress, to be perfectly honest. I can't control anything but I can control how my horse is looking maybe?

Some good moments among other not so good moments

We did get more news this last week from the vet. TC does not have EPSM. So with the last vet check, we've ruled out everything except ulcers. It's time to just give the ulcerguard time to work. I'll also be doing his first round of adequan (7 doses every 4 days) when I can get off my ass and order it.

He is 8 days into his ulcerguard and is feeling pretty good actually. Way more energetic and we haven't had a moment of me having to have it out with him about moving forward off my leg. We HAVE had a day (Sunday) where he was so unbelievably nutty in front of my leg yet low tone that I had no ability to ride him. So that wasn't great. He got yesterday off so hopefully today he's going to use his energy for good.

See, we get moments where he looks almost normal again

Two days after the show, TC showed his classic weakness in his left hind leg. He worked right out of it within a circle or two of trot and has been sound ever since. But it got me thinking.

Back in late 2016, TC came up lame in his left hind and the vet came out to find that it was a stifle weakness. TC had been an avid hill climber as a young horse, we did lots of hills until he got injured in December 2015. Then he was off from hills for a year and he started showing his stifle weakness.

Then we trail rode a lot in 2017 in an effort to try to get him off the property more. It wasn't a ton but he did climb hills semi-regularly. He showed no hind end weakness that year. In March of 2018, we moved to the flat lands outside of Sacramento and abruptly stopped hill work. He showed the stifle weakness in September 2018.

In 2019, TC hated his boarding barn, so we trail rode a ton and he was strong and sound as ever. We continued that into the fall and started back up in spring 2020. With shelter in place, the only way I could really have a good day was to go out on the trails, so we went out a bit.

Then with horse shows starting up, we stopped trail riding in an effort to take more lessons. And now a stifle weakness again.

Learning to be shorter in his body

So I think the horse is telling me he needs hill work! So we went out on the trails on Friday afternoon and it was wonderful. I had TC lower his neck as he climbed up the hills and asked him to sit down a bit more as he climbed down. Not all the time, just enough to make me feel good that he's working the right muscles while out there.

He tripped behind a couple of times at the end, which told me that he was a bit weak. We'll do this same trail (about 4 miles) for a while until he feels strong, then we'll go on longer ones sometimes.

For the hind end, I've also been asking him to rein back up the little mounds that used to be a bank complex in the field at our barn. And I'm putting sore no more on his weak stifle before work, and sore no more on both stifles, all tendons, hocks, and his back/neck after work. 

The sweetest

At this point, I think I'm doing everything I can do. I don't know what else there is to do, really. I think we're now going to play the waiting game to see how all of this is going to help him out. Then we'll reevaluate.

I think I'm seeing a glimmer of hope with his condition. After he works, he's showing really good muscle over his topline. Still not what I'd expect at his level, and there are still some "yikes" moments while we're riding, but I do see a difference now. Fingers crossed that he continues to improve and that I can stop obsessing over him and move onto the next thing to obsess over.

I'm really absolutely done with this covid thing, ugh. Wear your fucking masks.

Checking in with the Vet

On Monday, TC got poked and prodded. He's still not looking amazing unfortunately and some of that is just spending time in the new posture and building the muscle. However, I also have been using this extra time to obsess over him and get him on a program that is more appropriate for an FEI horse.

So far, he's had his saddle fit, gotten chiropracted, we've been experimenting with bits, and I put him on a new muscle builder that Tanya wanted him on.

I'm still not thrilled with how he's looking, so I called the vet out and yesterday she came to see him! This isn't my lameness vet, who I plan on seeing if he hasn't improved by the fall, but this is our fabulous local vet who does a good job with all the other stuff.

He was sedated but wanted to be part of the
conversation so he rested his chin on the door

I basically explained that he's doing Third level work very well and is generally a happy camper, but he's just looking like crap. Namely his muscle development is less than I'd expect it to be and his coat has been real shit this year. I also mentioned that he'd developed some windpuffs behind (they still look 150% better than Rico's ever did lol) and wanted her to just prod them and make sure they weren't a problem. Horses get windpuffs, but you know, the vet was already there.

She palpated his back and said he looked great there! No back pain, which could easily cause muscle wasting, so that's really good. She thinks his saddle is fitting well and that he's working well over his back, phew.

She then palpated his tendons all over and I did mention the previous injury. Apparently all his tendons feel great, super tight, with just the injured suspensory being the tiniest bit thicker than the uninjured one.

The windpuffs are definitely there and not the best, he's got three different places where there are issues. Again, Rico had huge windpuffs behind that looked very similar. TC is a very heavy horse learning to collect on a smallish hindquarter for his body size. Not entirely surprising that he'll be showing some wear and tear back there after all these years of working. So I'm a little sad that we're starting to look like an adult horse, but it's okay. As long as I don't put undue stress on them, they should just remain as windpuffs.

The only thing she found that I feel a little concerned about is a little more fluid in his left stifle than his right. So I'm going to back off the pirouette/piaffe work until we can get some adequan pumping through his system and we're also going to start back with our stifle exercises. If that doesn't keep it at bay, I'm prepared to inject that stifle maybe coming into winter when we really have to start the pirouettes.

Blurry picture from a recent Pixem session, hoping to do a remote
lesson as early as next week!

From there, we chatted about ideas.

- She said that he's the right breed to have EPSM, a muscle disease that can lead to a bad coat and muscle wasting. So we pulled hair to test for that (I actually wanted Rico tested years ago but at the time, you couldn't do it with hair, you had to do a muscle biopsy and uh, no, so I just changed his diet).

- She said that she wanted to run a CBC and see if he's deficient in anything. Results came back the next day and he isn't, so that's good.

- She's pretty convinced he's ulcery. So I bit the bullet and ordered him ulcerguard. I know there are others out there but I found a screaming deal on it and just want to make sure that everything is GONE. Then I'll put him on an ulcer management supplement and probably do those poprocks once or twice a year to try to keep any new developments at bay, hopefully this is the one time I have to do ulcerguard.

- She said she'd be happy to prescribe adequan and recommended to do a loading dose of 7 shots, one every 4 days. So that's great and we'll definitely be starting that this fall, probably doing that loading dose twice a year and maybe doing a shot a month in between? I'm not sure what the current protocol is.

Ran out of TC pictures, here's more from the hike

From there, we did his teeth and I cut her a check and thought a lot about all these things for the rest of the day.

First, I'm so glad that his legs are okay. I'd so much rather deal with anemia or a muscle disease than another injury. I do want to be careful with that left stifle and keep an eye on it because the moment it needs injecting, we're doing it. I also ordered sore-no-more and am going to use that on his left stifle before and after riding each day (and also on his windpuffs). I'm going to look into icing or back on track for the stifle too. That's clearly the weak point.

I'm also glad his bloodwork is normal, even though treating anemia or some kind of deficiency is easy! Then it's two weeks for the EPSM test, so until then, we're just going to hold tight. He hasn't tied up or anything, and he's confirmed in his Third level work, so it's no big deal to wait a little bit. It's clearly not severe if it is EPSM.

The one shady part of our hike!

Like I said above, I sold part of my soul to get some ulcerguard to help him out in that department. Unless he's got EPSM, which is a possibility, the muscle wasting and coat issues point to ulcers. He doesn't show the classic signs, but his life the last couple years has been stressful. We moved to several barns in 2019 (from January to August 2019, he lived at four barns), including one he absolutely hated, he and I had a really rough time while at that barn too. Then we rode with Tracey in 2019, when he really started bucking a lot. Then we switched to riding with Tanya, which has been way better for our relationship and has eliminated his bucking, but she is pushing us pretty aggressively to the FEI levels, which is great! But inherently stressful for TC.

As much as I'm cringing at the cost of all this, I fully know from Rico that this is absolutely what it takes to maintain a horse at the FEI levels. It's stressful to move up the levels, so ulcer treatment will happen sometimes. It's hard on their bodies, so adequan, legend, joint injections, supplements, etc will be necessary. It's the price (literally) to pay for having an incredible journey like this one. I feel like I've been lucky to have a mostly low-ish maintenance horse until now. He's proven himself worth it, so I'll be doing what it takes to help him out!