Tears

I've been mulling this post around in my head, not sure I was ready to write it and wanting to wait until I had a better idea how the end would turn out.  A week ago Sunday I went for a ride.  Nothing too terribly fun or spectacular.  Instead it was a conditioning ride for Whiskey and mostly involved long trotting (posting trot) with some gentle bending exercises.  As the ride progressed Whiskey went from feeling pretty darn good to gut clenching awful.  

Getting off, I asked her to move out a bit so I could see what she looked like.  Tears filled my eyes as I realized she was heart stoppingly lame.  Not just a little off.  But LAME.  Horrified I brought her back in and hosed her off.  As I stretched out her hind leg I felt a pop.  Tears streaming down my face I went and put her away.  

Making arrangements for the vet to come out I pondered the question of what do you do with a horse that's permanently lame.  Whiskey had always been a high performance type horse and would never make a kid or sometime rider type horse.  I had decided not to breed her but if my options were to have a horse sit in the field for the next 15 years or turn her into a broodmare then broodmare wins hands down.  

When Sam (the vet) arrived to check her out she gave a grim diagnosis stating she thought Whiskey had injured her stifle.  That combined with her touchy hock was not a good thing.  This horse was very lame.  We decided to give the horse a week's rest at which point Sam would come out and check again.  

As it stands right now if the leg has not improved significantly then we won't pursue any other treatments.  If the leg shows enough improvement we'll look at some options to see if we can get her rideable sound.  Friday is the big day.  And now I sit and wait and make contingency plans.