Broken Ponies

And so our dismal run of bad luck and broken ponies continues…

I came out on Sunday to trim Copper’s feet, only to find out that he had a swollen, misshapen whither and swelling around and above his right shoulder blade that was extremely tender and sensitive to the touch. 

He didn’t seem off when I did some flexion tests of his shoulder, and I couldn’t find that much heat in it, but I haven’t seen him that swollen in a while. So I freaked out. Juuuusssst a little…

Okay, so the last time I’d see a horse do a lot of damage to it’s whither/shoulder was a psycho TB mare called Clippy. 

Clippy had reared while she was tied up, and at the height of her rear, started to topple over backwards – still tied up! The baling twine she was tied to broke under pressure of course, but that only added to the force with which she hit the ground. She landed flat on her back, and got up just fine.

However, she had shattered her whither to the point where it had literally disappeared – only bone fragments were left floating around down between her shoulders. Clippy then had to be confined to a small yard (just larger than a stable) for six months, drugged for that same amount of time with painkillers and sedatives so that she didn’t move around too much. It was going to take her another year to heal properly and then, well, she’d never be rideable again. Not that she was particularly rideable to begin with(!!) but that’s a whole other story.

Yes, I prodded Copper’s wither and was relieved to feel that there was still solid bone and nothing felt like it was wobbling around or where it shouldn’t be. I wasn’t so much worried that he’d pulled a muscle as there wasn’t much heat, as that he’d somehow managed to fracture his wither.

I wanted to call a vet, but my Dad (who was giving me a lesson on hoof trimming) convinced me to at least wait a day or so to see if the swelling went down at all, given that he seemed to have a fairly full range of movement with a flexion test and was only about grade 2 lame.

Then, when I checked him out on Tuesday, I spoke with one of the ladies who adgists in the same paddocks (I’ll call her L.), and is very experienced. L. thought that given the shape, position, feel and look of the swelling, combined with the fact that Copper was not at all uncomfortable in the muscles underneath his shoulder blade (she showed me how to palpitate underneath the shoulder blade for tenderness) that it was a “wait and see injury”.

We came to the conclusion that it was some kind of bone bruising, and that quite likely the boys had been derping around in the paddock and someone struck Copper on top of his wither with a fore hoof.

:/   Huzzah.

So the grand sum of all these injuries over the last few months have happened in the paddock with Copper being an eejiot.   Double huzzah.

I left his jute rug off (I only rug in winter to save time and keep the pon-pon clean) because I felt like that was going to add pressure to the swelling and have decided to give him ANOTHER week off for the swelling to subside before starting him back in work with some ground work.

Which will make it probably over three months now until I get to ride properly again. Ugh. Horses…..

I’m so tempted to buy another one just so I can ride again! I’m going mental I tell you, mental!  But ten to one, that one would break too, so really…. There’s not much point.  :S

See ya,

bonita