The maxim "No foot, no horse" expresses the age-old wisdom of realizing that without sound hooves, a horse is going nowhere. I blew by this truism (and a dozen others) when I drove down to SC last week and picked up a TB gelding that had been abandoned at a barn.
Hello, my name is Claudia, and I'm addicted to Thoroughbreds.
Yes, I admit it, after all the talks I gave myself about how I have no business buying a young TB (now that I'm 48)... about how foolish it is to buy a horse, however cheaply, that can't be test ridden because he is too lame... about what a risk it is to purchase a horse without a vet exam... I did just that.
Now the particulars in these kinds of deals are often sketchy, and the closer I got to this horse the sketchier things became.
After I had already driven two hours and I was within five miles of the barn, my phone rang. "I know I said yesterday he had a current Coggins" the barn manager said "but I got here this morning and realized it just expired last week." After some fruitless discussion and me missing my turn, I told her we'd just talk about it when I got there.
Doesn't sound THAT bad, right?
Until I got there, examined the Coggins, and saw it actually expired in July 2012.
"I haven't been here, I've been out of the barn two weeks because I've been sick, so things are a mess" the girl explained, perhaps responding to my raised eyebrow when I saw the horse in question standing in a stall with no bedding, but plenty of manure. Fortunately for the gelding he had mostly been living out, albeit in a very creatively fenced pasture (think fences made of industrial strapping material).
Anyway, the horse is a 16 hand bay gelding who let me fuss over him, although he doesn't like to lift his front feet, probably because he doesn't want to put all of his weight on one front foot. Both of his front feet are horrendously cracked and broken off. He stumbled down the asphalt floor of the barn aisle, but walked more freely when he got onto grass.
Long story short, I gave her some cash (not much), got the Jockey Club papers and a bill of sale, and hauled him straight to my veterinarian. The gelding, who I renamed "Chance", loaded without so much as a backward glance. From the start, he struck me as very intelligent. This impression was confirmed when we got to the vet hospital, where I had to leave him in a chain link side yard that is normally used as a dog run. He waited there calmly for two days so that my vet could vaccinate him, run a fecal (I've never seen that many worms), and get the negative Coggins back from the test lab. I visited twice per day to feed and check on him. When it came time to take him home, I loaded him by myself without a problem.
The most difficult thing we have done so far is get through trimming his feet for the first time. I gave him bute the day before and the day of the farrier visit, because I knew it would be challenging for him to balance on three sore feet so that the fourth could be worked on. He did take his foot away from the farrier a few times, but we were able to work through it... and now it is a matter of time, good nutrition and supplements, and luck. Time will tell whether I have a bargain show horse or expensive yard art!
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