I had a lovely hack in some brilliant sunshine with a spring-spooky Ace. This time last year I would not have been able to hack him out, but we do OK now. He did see a piece of car on a verge (not an uncommon thing in our lanes) and turn for home three times, but I brought him round, kept the reins loose and waited until he went past it. It only took a few seconds and he passed it quietly, so it was no big deal.
Radar did a schooling session - in a snaffle! I decided to try it again because he has been so much better lately. I can't say there was much difference between him in the pelham and the snaffle, so I'll try some more of it. He took some time to get a really nice walk, but that's normal as you know. Trot was pretty good, but I was out of time then and didn't get to canter.
Woody is of course very much on my mind. And of course, today he is sweet and quiet and gentle and I have to keep reminding myself what he was like yesterday. It's not that he freaked at the sheep being moved that is the problem, it's the fact that two other highly strung horses with him, Radar and Ace, did not. They just went to their food and ate. When he was running madly up and down the yard, they were looking as if to say "what the hell's got into you?". But their calmness did not calm him, he simply left them and charged up and down the field instead, or rather, as well.
I have had an email conversation with his previous owner, and she is unable to do anything about rehoming him even if it was the right thing to do. She's in the middle of big changes in her life, which is why I have him in the first place. So she has asked me to do whatever I think is right.
She says that he has never behaved this way before, so I am obviously wracking my brains to understand why he should be doing it now and what I may have done to cause it. On the other hand, he has never been as fit in his life as these hills have made him, and he was hacked in a market harborough, so even before he came to me he wasn't a simple snaffle mouthed horse. I am also really puzzled by why the person who stole him made up the lie that she had had put him down because he was dangerous. I would have thought that a much more plausible lie would have been that one of the horses he was introduced to in the field kicked him and broke his leg. I do think it is possible that he behaved oddly with that person too, even if the showjumper people who bought him got on fine with him.
Whatever, I have to accept that I have failed. After the hunting incident I had to ride him shoving out of my mind the sensation of him stringing himself up in that wire fence, and the previous time he jumped a non-existant jump (when there happened to be no walls or fences in the way that time, purely by chance). Now that I have seen him have a panic attack when he is not even being ridden, and when two other horses who are not exactly plodders themselves were aghast at his behaviour, I cannot bring myself to get back on him for fear of what could happen.
I'm not the least confident rider the world has ever seen, and if I can't get back on him, how can I expect anyone else to? And even if they took that risk entirely on themselves I would still never forgive myself if he hurt someone. Very experienced horse owners told me to have him put down when they heard about his second hunt. I thought it was far too precipitate to do that when it was, as I thought, entirely hunting related. They insisted "if it's in him, it's in him and it will come out again one day". And now I think they are right, and there is only one thing that I can do.
C
ps The huntsman is booked to come here a week tomorrow. I have until then to be sure that I am doing the right thing.
Hard though it is I can totally understand your reasons for doing this. There are many worse things that can happen to a horse than for it to have a shorter life than expected. At least no one has been hurt and you are wise enough to know when its too dangerous to continue. Maybe when show jumping he was either stabled to worked and therefore limited in opportunity to find situations to panick about. There is prehaps more in his history than you are aware of. X
ReplyDeleteI would love to know how he damaged a front leg so badly that he has a horribl scar and a lot of what feels like additional bone formation of about three inches in length down the inside of his cannon bone Lynda.
DeleteThis is what goes hot when he goes lame on that leg, so I am also unsure if it is a permanent weakness.
WPO has not told me if she knows, and now I don't like to ask. My guess is that he went crazy in the lorry on importation, like Jazz did. Jazz arrived in the UK badly damaged and had a "nearly cut my foot off" scar around his fetlock with clear staple marks in it.
C
At the risk of sounding like a broken record...ulcers? Tucker was "ballistic" down at Kenny Harlow's...and that was Kenny's term, not mine. I'd had him explode at horse shows before that and that's why I sent him. Treated for ulcers and he's never exploded like that since. Just a thought to plop about in your brain.
ReplyDeleteMeantime, how nice to hear Ace is improving so well on the hacks. I'm sure that lifts your spirits in these hard times.
I am listening Jean, but even if it was the case, there are more issues at stake for Woody and for me :-(
DeleteC
Whoa, I totally missed the info that he was stolen. As far as I can tell you are at least his fourth owner. That's useful info in and of itself. Also, I think that it is entirely possible that this behavior is not because of anything you did. I would expect that he has done it with others and somehow that info was not passed along. It's also possible that he has had panic attacks that no one observed. Unless his attacks are due to a curable medical cause, you can't pass this horse along and endanger others. However, we still need to remember that it's not his "fault". Woody is a product of his genes and his environment and has no intent to hurt himself or others. We owe him that respect.
ReplyDeleteThankfully you have not been hurt!
There is nothing quite so nice as a hack on a spring day with an equine friend.
It's such a shame ML, none of this is his fault and he is as sweet a creature as you would want to meet, most of the time.
DeleteThe only four bright chestnut KWPNs with 4 white legs which I know of have/had extreme behaviour, my two, one of Carl hester's, and a friend also had one, which she had put down at 5 for similar behaviour. She was out on a hack one day and the horse refused either to turn back or go forward, among other things. I will never, ever, take on another.
C
The person I got him from bought him unbroken at 4 from a friend. He was bred in Holland and exported. She loaned him out when he was unsound and he was sold on to some showjumpers, then traced and brought back home again after about a year, unsound again. He has a very complicated history!
DeleteHe also has a terrible temper, and if you read back in my blog you will find descriptions of how, when I was getting to grips with his oversensitive mouth, he would smash his feet into the floor so hard I thought that there was a real risk he would break a foot. He is certainly no angel, but he isn't inherently a nasty or a bad horse, just too highly strung.
C
I agree with Jean, his behaviour sounds very similar to two horses that I have had that had ulcers. I was feeding a high fibre diet and there should have been no reason why either horse had ulcers, apart from the fact that they had probably come to me with them, and my management on it's own was not enough to get rid of them.
ReplyDeleteBoth of my horses would have mad incidents in the field when all around them were quiet and calm.
Tracey Cloud_Cirrus
Jean, Tracey, I don't rule out that he may have ulcers, but I'm between a rock and a very hard place with Woody. Ulcers or not, what he did when he went hunting, both ridden and in the box, was insane. I don't mean that figuratively, I mean it literally.
DeleteAnd to be completely cold-hearted about it, how much more money do I throw at him when he will never hunt and is now impossible to rehome for an extended period while I "prove" that he is safe? I already have a vet bill for £130 on my desk and the lorry repairs cost £200 in materials.
He will block the third space in my stables; I'll be forced to ride a horse I don't want to ride; and even if he is fine temperamentally after ulcer treatment he needs double extra care for another year because of his feet, and extra care for the rest of his life because of ulcers and his feet. Who in their right minds would take him off my hands?
At least if he is dead he will never be afraid, in pain, or badly treated. There are worse fates for a horse. I know there are people who will loathe me for putting a healthy horse down. I just have to live with that.
C
Caroline, I totally understand your position and in no way will I condemn you for putting Woody down. The circumstances are just wrong all the way around. I honestly could not home Tucker with anyone else despite his having been treated for ulcers. He's just one of those "high maintenance" horses as far as behavior goes. Fortunately, I have not had a fortune in vet bills or repair bills due to his temperamental nature...yet.
DeleteWoody is, on the other hand, downright scary. I know whatever you decide to do is best for everyone, including him. It's always sad, but horses like him are time bombs just waiting to go off.
Just want you to know you have my full support and sympathy all along the way.
Thankyou so much for that Jean, it means a lot to me.
ReplyDeleteC.
Caroline you are such a level headed and experienced horsewoman so I've no doubt in my mind that if this I'd the decision you've come to it is the right one. I know most vets support the opinion that once a horse has shown dangerous behaviour with no regard for its own safety then it is time for them to be pts. It happened with a friend of mines horse last year.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts are with you, not a pleasant decision to have to make.
I have to agree with you that there are worse fates than death. I know first hand how much ulcer treatment costs ($1800 = 1200 pounds) and I need to be mindful of preventing reoccurrence so there are more probably more costs ahead. Besides, even if, after some treatment, he seems to be "cured" of his attacks, you won't know for sure, you will only if he is not, by another episode. This is not what we want from horses, but it's the reality. Count me behind you.
ReplyDeleteThat's the conundrum ML, it is impossible ever to prove that his problem has been resolved.
DeleteC.
Thankyou so much for your support. Putting a healthy horse down has to be the hardest decision I have ever made. Actually doing it is going to be even worse.
ReplyDeleteC.
Have you tried extra magnesium oxide? There has been so much rain over the winter that it has been washed away. Farmers are being warned to be sure their animals have extra when they are turned out onto the grass. It might be that Woody is extra sensitive.
ReplyDeleteWe tried one of the Calmer powders with my Nervous Neddy and there was quite an improvement. He was never going to turn into a plod, but it certainly seemed to help him cope with strange situations better.
He wasn't too bad the first time you took him hunting, at least he was rideable, so it is interesting that he didn't have that extreme reaction the first time, if it is really panic you would think that it would have occured when doing something new.
I can understand why you don't want to ride him again or pass him on though.
He's on a ton of magnesium Judith, I feed calmag, cheap as chips, in volume.
ReplyDeleteIn truth he was dreadful the first time out hunting, and I got congratulated on my bravery in carrying on to the end of the day from a dozen experienced hunt people at the Hunt Ball. They all told me that they would never have carried on and were amazed that I did.
I made light of it in my post because he didn't do anything worse than bolt on the first leg and then attempt to run straight into hedges and ditches on subsequent legs. In my customary over-confidence, I assumed that I would be able to control him on future occasions, but of course as soon as I put on tack where I could actually control him, he completely lost any sense of self-preservation whatsoever in his desperation to evade being controlled.
In retrospect, he's done a fair amount of dangerous stuff in the course of retraining as well - backing up banks and into stone walls on hacks; jumping a non-existant jump and smashing his forefeet into the floor when not allowed his own way; running backwards on the arena irrespective of what was behind him. There was [u]many[/u] an occasion early on when I had to pull him into a sharp turn to avoid him crashing into, and possibly over, the 15 inch high boards that are all I have as a boundary.
In reviewing things so far in detail, as I have been, over and over, he's been a lot more difficult than I have ever let myself believe. Enough is enough.
C
Yes, sometimes all the clues are there, but until you stand back and remember everything from the start and add them altogether it is only then that you get the whole picture.
ReplyDeleteOne or two incidents can be over looked and excused, but if behaviour and reaction is all getting worse and not better ...................
On the whole he has got better and better when schooling. And I have learnt how to avoid provoking reaction out hacking, though he has never relaxed and settled for more than very short distances. But the panics when they arrive are more extreme, not less, and the shock of seeing him do it when the other two were unconcerned, and food was available in the stable with him, really blew me apart :-( I have simply never seen a horse shake with huge tremors from head to foot like that, while flapping it's mouth manically at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI had an email from a very close friend today begging me never to get on him again, or allow anyone else to. I think she was talking sense.
C
To everyone:
ReplyDeleteI am happy to be challenged about this. I am planning for the first time in my life to have a perfectly physically healthy animal killed. If I can't face reasonable questionning about that, then I shouldn't be thinking about doing it.
Try to be kind< I'm doing my best!
C
that's what i did with molly, for very similar reasons - not trustworthy, couldn't sell on for same reasons, etc etc. right decision for her, right decision for woody. have a hug
ReplyDelete