Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Pick Me Up

Today has been a no-good-very-bad day. I'm glad it's almost over.

Poor Queenie, all cleaned up and nowhere to go.


It started off with me showing Queenie off to MB (Tux's owner). She'd been wanting to come see her for a while and was pretty sure that she wanted to buy Queenie, she just wanted her husband to ride since she would be his horse for trail riding.

I got out to the barn early and groomed her up all nice. She had a bath the day before and was all freshly braided. I loved on her while we waited, she was chill. MB arrived and we talked a little before I saddled Queenie up in their western saddle and off we went.

We walk/trot/cantered to the right then changed direction. We went to canter and everything was fine for a few strides and then Queenie threw in a huge buck. Not super unusual, but not normal either since she usually doesn't throw such big bucks and she hasn't bucked in quite a while. I asked her to canter again, and again, everything was going fine. Then she tossed her head and started acting like she was going to buck, plunging her head down and shaking it. Weird. I thought maybe something was bothering her in the face, but everything was normal so we trotted off and everything was fine for half a circuit before she started spinning around and shaking her head, so I bailed.

I thought maybe the bridle was pinching her ears, but it's the same bridle we've been using for weeks now. Nothing has changed. MB thought maybe it was the neoprene girth on her saddle, since mine is felt. So I took off the bridle and just put her halter on. I put my saddle back on and got on again. Queenie immediately flew backward and didn't want to stop and was threatening to buck, shaking her head like she had something in her ear. I got off and she was EXTREMELY ear shy and didn't want anyone to touch either ear, which is not normal.

So I have no idea what was happening. I didn't finish my ride, I lunged her briefly and she was fine.  I just put her back in her stall. MB didn't ride and I don't know if they're going to buy her anymore. I'm super depressed because I just don't know what happened. I'm going to try again tomorrow and if nothing has changed, I'll have the vet out. MB, ever the optimistic person, mentioned "that's like brain tumor behavior". Thank you, thank you very much for now making me super worried. Yes, I know she's not my horse, but I really like her and I just don't want to have to deal with this.

So that was an amazing start to my morning. And it's gone basically all downhill from there.

So, with that gloomy note, I found this post, "First World Horse Problems" on Horse Nation, which gave me a much needed laugh. These remind me of Jetta:

Typical

Poor Jetta. Everyone thinks she's a gelding.


6 comments:

  1. Tomorrow is another day. I saw those on HN and thought they were hilarious too!

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  2. I died of laughter when I saw those on HN.

    Sorry about your crappy day!:(

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  3. Love those memes! Could she have ticks in her ears or ear plaque?

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  4. Sounds more likely that she has something in her ear... It's so easy to jump to the worse case scenario though... recently, while lunging Riley, I stopped to swap the line over and when I turned him around he had all this red/pink foam coming out of his mouth. I immediately thought, "Oh my god, I've broken my horse and now he's bleeding everywhere" -- my friend riding with us, talked me off a ledge and reminded me that I had stuffed him full of pink peppermint horse treats before our ride...!!!

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  5. A brain tumor, seriously? That was a mean and unnecessary thing to say. It's springtime. There are bugs everywhere. She probably had one in her ear that was bothering her, which would explain her wanting to back up to get away from it. I'm sure Queenie is fine! Looking forward to hearing about your next great ride on her ;)

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  6. I'm sure she just had something in her ear, so I'll check it out tonight, but I was just bummed that I saved her for so long so that MB could buy her, and now she's not going to. Whatever though, I'll just have to find her an even better home! Thanks for all the comments!

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