Chaco kicked me yesterday. Not on purpose, but it did happen. He reared up. and on the way down he got my forearm with the tip of his toe. Nothing is broken, just bruised, and I seem to have a little electrical activity surging into my hand. I’m not the only one that got clobbered. Poor Harley got bit on the nose so hard that I thought Chaco fractured it. Harley is fine luckily. They are separated by a fence right now, but Chaco is so tall he can easily reach over and nip or bite Harley. Harley is so short he can’t get him back.
Chaco tolerated all of this surgery stuff and the limitations afterwards quite well. He was a total gentleman at the surgeon’s so much so that they thanked me for letting them take care of him for a couple of days. After he got home, in the beginning he was on stall rest; all he could do was walk. He accepted this without complaint, because he knew and understood that he wasn’t 100%.
Now he is on small turn out, and he can only walk and trot. He has had it with this set up. Each day loud and clear he tells me he wants to run! Thursday he gets to be turned out with Harley. I think he is ahead of schedule with his healing since he came off bute three days early after coming home. Bute slows down the healing process a bit.
Being a little concerned about him going from small turnout to an all out rumble, I decided today to let him have an hour of turnout alone. I figured this way he can get out some energy, his leg can begin to adjust, and poor Harley can be spared the chaos. He also chews on his stomach a lot, which means he has lots of gas bubbles bothering his gut. He is one grumpy horse.
When the time came to turn him loose, I didn’t want to. I was scared that he would get hurt and become dead lame again. He didn’t want to leave me either. Ever since this started, we’ve pretty much been glued to one another, and we’ve walked all over the place with one another. As soon as I took off the lead rope I wanted to click it back on. I love being with him, and letting him go is hard.
I had to get my stick to move him away from me. He then went to the second being he’s been glued to since this all started; Harley. I walked over there and made him move off again.
Here is a video of him running free! I love how he is moving. We still have a lot of work to do on strengthening that right stifle and getting the symmetry I am shooting for, but the work we are doing is obviously paying off.
He was such a happy boy running around. This is what he is meant to do, and he expressed it with such passion and joy.
The great thing is after all of the running around, he wasn’t sore, didn’t drag his hoof, no heat, no swelling, and he had no point tenderness. I couldn’t be more thrilled. Tomorrow he and Harley will be back together again! We’ve come so far in a month and a half already with some bumps, one big one, but with regards to his leg the surgery really did what I was hoping and praying for. All of the work, the money, the getting up throughout the nights to check on him, walking him, hand grazing him, nursing him through the bad reaction, and getting kicked yesterday; all of it is worth it to see him this happy and moving so well.
After all of the running, when I put him back in his small turnout area, he put all of his weight on his operated leg while giving his left leg a break after his run. This made me cry. Before the surgery this wouldn’t have happened at all.
Later in the day we had the best walk down to the hay field. He didn’t rear up once or try to run off with me. He walked calmly beside me on a loose rein, giving my right arm a rest. In addition, my right arm isn’t four inches longer than my left!
Reenchanted Thoroughbreds 