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Ever since I brought Dulce home, I felt like I’ve been in a horse race with some sort of invisible issue. He seemed fine. He improved, but something gnawed at my gut. Something was stalking him, and all I could do was stay ahead of it without resolving it. Not my idea of fun.

Whenever a horse has a dull coat and is thin, you worm the horse. Worms are often the culprit. I wormed Dulce a week after he got here and at the end of May. He immediately responded by developing a shiny coat and putting a hundred pounds on. I thought I dotted that “i.”

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I went out to catch Chaco to get looked at by the vet. Dulce was standing with him quietly when suddenly he went nuts. He ran hard, he tried to climb a fence, and paw his way through the barn wall. I caught him, and his eyes were wild. I finally got him to look at me, and he slowed down. I suspected a yellow jacket sting since Chaco recently was stung four times and behaved similarly. After searching his entire body, Ifound a sting in his groin area. I iced it and put a poultice of baking soda and tobacco on it. He immediately calmed down and went back to eating with Chaco.

I didn’t like it. I felt that gnawing feeling. I stayed home instead of heading to the vet, because I knew the stalker was lurking around. A few hours later I went out to feed them when I saw it. Dulce kicked at his stomach. Was it a fly? Another kick and another. No. He pawed at the ground, and I ran in with the lead rope and grabbed him before he could go down. I walked him in circles, and his stride shortened and shortened from the pain in his gut. I gave him a dose of banamine, loaded him in the trailer, closed the slant, and he began thrashing. It took every ounce of strength to not fall apart and close up that trailer. I jumped into the truck and hauled the heck out of there. I called my vet as I drove, but nobody answered; after hours. I felt Dulce moving around hard in the trailer, so I aimed for a washboard dirt road. I called my friend Jessica asking her to call the vet, because all I could hear in my head was, “No! No! No! Not again!”

The year anniversary of Shandoka’s death from colic was six days away; I couldn’t go through this again.

I drove over washboard, and Dulce stopped moving around. I headed to the BLM hitting whatever bump I found. I pulled over at the turn around to check on him. I dropped the window finding him calm and breathing normally. We averted the kink or twist or impaction or horrific gas bubble that was hitting him. I closed the window heading back to town. Jessica got a hold of Nikki at another vet clinic and she was waiting for me. I headed straight there behind every slow poke and hitting each light on the way.

By the time we got there his pain level dropped. I walked him in for the examination. What I found out was that his colon was tight and filled with gas. She tubed him, she did a fecal exam, and gave him some more medicine. He relaxed more. Since he has off and on diarrhea, if that doesn’t improve after the five day wormer, she suggested we give him a one time steroid to address possible inflammation of his intestinal tract. A plan, we have a plan.

The fecal exam showed a high number of stronglyles, and she wanted me to put him on Panacur Power Pack for five days, but they didn’t have any in stock. It would be in the next day.

How did he get this high worm count since I wormed him twice? Well, we’ll never know for sure. Since his teeth were never floated on the track, there is a chance he wasn’t wormed regularly. We claimed a couple of horses that had high worm counts due to this. Maybe they did worm him, so then how could it have happened? I know that he was wormed when he went to NTWO and the breeder. My guess is that if he was wormed on the track, when he developed the ulcers in his mouth and lost all the weight, he became the perfect host for a worm explosion. Then I moved him from Kentucky to Colorado inducing stress, creating an even better environment. His hay then changed, and being so different, it probably enhanced the environment for worms. The vet told me that even though he was wormed all of those times, the count was so high, that the over the counter wormers barely had any effect on them. All the previous wormers did was help him maintain. Whatever the cause or reason, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that now I have to be grateful to a yellow jacket for creating this situation, which brought the stalker out in the open. I’m hoping this is only an acute situation and the colic will not become a chronic issue.

The problem after visiting the vet became getting the Power Pack. For four days I waited. I’m not good at being patient especially when I saw Dulce spiral around the colic drain. I felt like he and I were walking along a cliff trying to not fall off the edge. Every morning I needed to give him banamine. I’ve slept outside by him each night getting up whenever he needed to be walked or showed the beginning signs of distress. After I publish this, I’m heading out to spend another night with my horses, Chewy and the Milky Way.

After a heated discussion with UPS, I finally got the wormer yesterday. He is now on his second of five doses. I’m seeing some improvements already, although we aren’t out of the woods yet. I didn’t have to give him banamine this morning, and for the first time in a couple of weeks, he didn’t roll before he pooped after eating. I’m hoping the gas in his colon is moving out of his system with those worms.

Monday is our last round of the wormer. We’ll see what happens after that.

If a horse can find a way to hurt himself, he’ll go all out.

Part 1

Things have been a bit rough horse wise. It all started on July 4th way before the fireworks started. The heat was a bit oppressive, and the horses were grumpy. As I gathered their buckets I saw it happening, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Chaco pinned his ears and bit Dulce hard on the hock, and Dulce responded with a left hook.

Chaco immediately ran straight for me when I saw the mark on his face, a little bit of blood dribbling out the side of his mouth, and Dulce following him. Dulce clocked Chaco on the right side of his jaw. I think Dulce knew he hurt him, and he immediately felt bad about it. I got them separated, and looked inside Chaco’s mouth to see if there was any damage. His cheek quickly became the size of a softball, so I couldn’t see anything. I ran into the house, got a bag of ice, ran back and held it to his face. There wasn’t much blood considering how vascular this area of the face is blood rich, and within a half hour he stopped drooling and began eating as if nothing happened.

I iced the heck out of it for twenty four hours, palpated it, and he is good. No teeth luckily were involved, and he shows no signs of pain while palpating the heck out of his jaw. All of the swelling is gone, and I’m hoping they both learned from it? Probably not.

Then last Sunday I went with Bill into town, and I came home to this:

Bill and I replaced and fixed our fence for the horses 4th of July week. There was one spot that we didn’t address, because we didn’t see any problems with it. Well, Chaco decided to show us that there was. I came home to find dried blood that ran down his neck and leg covered with flies. Usually one thing at a time happens to a horse, but not two things within three days of one another.

I ran into the house, created a betadine mix, ran back out and scrubbed the heck out of it three times making it bleed each time. I wanted to make sure I got everything and anything out of there. I then found my bottle of Underwood and sprayed it all over the wound and covered it with baking powder, which acts as a bandage. Not one fly could be found. I’ve healed several bad wounds with Underwood successfully, and it is famous for healing wounds that people think can’t be healed. I highly recommend it.

The next day I decided to take Chaco to the vet to get the wound looked at when everything fell apart. What I hoped I’d never see again, was right there in front of me as if to say, “You’ll never escape me.”

Chaco and I never made it to the vet. Instead Dulce went.

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Part 2 of this blog will be about Dulce, and how what happened with him nearly struck the both of us out.

One day while going through Shandoka’s pedigree, I came across a name that took my breath away; Count Fleet. “No way,” I whispered to myself. Count Fleet raced long before I was born, but that didn’t mean I didn’t hear about him. After Count Fleet died at the age of 33 not long after Secretariat won the Triple Crown, my grandpa decided to tell me a story. He started it off by saying, “Before there was Secretariat, there was Count Fleet….”

Count Fleet was born on the Stoner Creek Stud Farm outside of Paris, Kentucky where he was bred and raised by the Hertz family; the rental car magnate. He was a small colt that didn’t impress John Hertz at all. The Count, as he was known, was out of Reigh Count, who won the Kentucky Derby in 1928. Reigh Count as a sire was known for producing colts of stamina without a lot of speed, so he became an unpopular sire. Hertz decided to only breed him to four mares a year that were all speed. One of those mares was Quickly, a sprinter, and the two of them created Count Fleet.

First impressions aren’t always accurate. He was a small colt, and as he developed, he was narrow, looked more like a filly, and flat muscled with a lot of leg. He also had an interesting personality.

Count Fleet stopped munching a mixture of clover, timothy and alfalfa to take a playful nip at his exercise boy at Belmont Park today and Trainer Don Cameron’s eyes glowed as he looked at the wonder horse of 1943.

“He’s a big fake,” the ruddy-faced Scotsman smiled.  “He wouldn’t hurt a baby.  Watch.”

Cameron shoved a ham-like hand into the stall and the Count flashed his big teeth toward them like a man without a ration book diving into a steak.  Inches away the mouth closed and the shiny brown horse nuzzled Cameron’s hand with his velvety nose.

“See what I mean?” Cameron asked. …

– Oscar Fraley (UP), Nevada State Journal, April 4, 1944

There were many stories of people going up to his stall, how he would walk up to them and let them pet him, and as soon as they turned their backs to walk away, he would give them a strong push down the shedrow with his nose.

The great, and one of the best jockeys of all time, Johnny Longden, said in a biography written by B.K. Beckwith, “He was not, you understand, a mean horse. Just one full of the devil with a mind which was very much his own.”

My grandpa always said that the great horses know exactly who they are and what they can do. If Hertz would have spoken with my grandfather, maybe he wouldn’t have even considered selling him.

“He didn’t really have the look of a top prospect then. He was medium size-about fifteen hands three inches-and, though he was deep in the girth and had a good shoulder, he was weedy behind. As a two-year-old he looked more like a filly than a colt. And those rough, unpredictable manners of his didn’t exactly endear him to anyone,” explained Longden to Beckwith.

In Hertz’s autobiography, Hertz recounted the following story:

Sam Ransom…was the first person on his back. … Ransom was drafted into the Army.  Before leaving, he came into my office to bid me good-bye, and on that occasion said to me, “Mr. Hertz, don’t ever sell that leggy, brown colt.  He has tried to kill me in every way I know of, not out of meanness, but he sure has brushed me up against every tree and barn on the place that he could.  Mr. Hertz, when that leggy, brown colt wants to run, he can just about fly!”

– The Racing Memoirs of John Hertz, as told to Evan Shipman 1954

Longden took him out for a work on the Belmont track and somehow the work didn’t end in tragedy. One day, with his mind set only on running, the Count headed straight for two horses coming right at him. “Somehow I managed to steer between them, but how I’ll never know,” said Longden to Beckwith.

After this story got around the backside of the track, Hertz decided to sell him deciding he was too dangerous of a horse. Asking price was $4,500; some say $3,500. Longden was at the barn, when the Count was brought out for another trainer to look him over. Longden immediately hopped on his bike and rode to the nearest pay phone where he called Hertz begging him to not sell. After a discussion where Longden assured Hertz he wasn’t afraid of the horse, and that he was something special, Hertz took the Count off the market. The rest is history. In 21 starts, he won 16 times, with four times placing second, and one time placing third; he never finished out of the money.

When asked why the Count lost those other races, Longden said, “He beat himself. He never should have lost a race, but he was a tough customer to handle, green and rough in those early starts, and you couldn’t take a hold of him-you couldn’t even properly guide him. You had to let him run, and if he didn’t have racing room, he’d go to the outside or just climb over horses. If you were in close quarters with him, you were in trouble.”

For instance, Count Fleet was expected to with the Futurity at Belmont easily. However, his amorous ways got the best of him. Longden explains:

“He broke alongside Askmenow, the Hal Price Headley filly. I called on the Count for speed, but he was not interested. He was flirting with a glamour girl. He kept alongside Askmenow, nose and nose, and nothing interested him except to remain in her companionship. If she spurted, the Count would spurt with her; if she slowed stride, so did he. I tried everything that was possible to end her fascination and pull away from her—but nothing helped.”

Despite being a flirt and not always willing to work with his jockey, he won ten of his sixteen races during his two-year-old year. Even though he lost five times, he completely dominated the horses he faced often beating them by four to six lengths. He entered his three-year-old season as the favorite to win the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown.

Due to World War II, the Kentucky Derby almost never happened. War changed the landscape. Traffic on the railroads was jammed, and talk of ending racing for the duration of the war floated across the country. The Kentucky Derby had been run continuously since 1875 thanks to Matt Winn who ran Churchill Downs. He was asked if he intended to keep it going despite the war, and he said that he would even if there were only two horses in the race.

In February of 1943, Joseph B. Eastman, chieftan of the Office of Defense Transportation, issued a statement pointing out how traffic conditions had worsened. He asked that all unnecessary travel be abandoned including the running of the 69th Kentucky Derby. Matt Winn worked with the OFDT discouraging out of towners from coming to the race, but remaining committed to keeping the race going. It thus became know as the “Street Car Derby” as locals took the street cars to the race. The expectation was that there would be a low turnout, but somehow just under 65,000 people showed up to watch the Count race.

However, in the Wood Memorial, his prep race for the Derby, a portion of his left hind hoof was nearly torn off. They had to remove it and packed it with sulpha drugs. Longden was so concerned about The Count that he rode with him on the train to Kentucky while packing the injury with ice. Luckily, he healed in time.

He won the Kentucky Derby after being boxed in and facing a couple of light challenges. All Longden had to do was cluck at the Count, and he took off winning easily by three lengths. After suffering from a second injury in as many races that wasn’t deemed serious, he shipped to Pimlico.

There was a slight challenge in the Preakness. New Moon broke out of the gate with the most speed, but Count Fleet quickly overtook New Moon to win easily by eight lengths. He demolished the track and his competition. He even went wide in the turn with ease not losing a step or tiring a bit. This is a horse that grabbed hold of the bit and ran; not because Longden hit him with the whip or forced him to go. He ran because he loved it.

“They’d (his competition) get dizzy trying to stay with him, and the rest would be easy,” explained Longden.

Did he rest for the three weeks between the Preakness and the Belmont? Not at all. He raced in the Withers two weeks after the Preakness and one week before the Belmont. How could he do this you ask considering no modern day horses can? Back then horses didn’t run on Lasix. They were able to recover much faster after a race, and no they didn’t drown in their own blood. Man o’ War took the same route to the Belmont after racing in the Preakness.

The Withers was a mile, so it is a good prep race for the Belmont. It gave Count Fleet a chance to blow out his pipes, help him relax, and get him out of his stall. He faced only two other horses on a muddy track, went off at 1-20 odds, and won with ease by eight lengths.

The Belmont is where we are made completely aware of his sheer power and will. Lots of horses need to stay with their competition, otherwise they get bored, their attention wanders, and they slow down until their competition catches up. Count Fleet never needed another horse to get his blood going and his racing hooves flying over the surface. The Belmont proved this.

Sid Feder in an Associated Press recap story published in the June 6 edition of the Tallahassee Democrat said it best, “From end to end, any resemblance between yesterday’s Belmont and a horse race was purely coincidental. When the gate opened, jockey Johnny Longden sent the Count charging right out and away from the others, and all the way ‘round he lengthened his edge with each stride.”

He won by 25 lengths, although the New York Times stated it was by 30 lengths. The Count unfortunately got hurt in this race. Longden explained, “He fractured a small bone in his left front leg. I felt him bobble in the long stretch and knew he had hurt himself. I started to pull him up but he’d have none of it. He just grabbed the bit in that bull-headed way of his and took off again. He coasted home by some 30 lengths.”

Count Fleet’s margin of victory was a staggering 25 lengths . The length of victory held until Secretariat ran his Count Fleet Belmont winning by 31 lengths. His time of 2:28 1/5 was a new stakes record to be tied by Citation in 1948 and finally broken in 1957 by Gallant Man.

Unfortunately, the next day Count Fleet was so sore they couldn’t get him out of his stall. Some say that he hurt his fetlock, his leg or his knee. Some say that the injury involved a tendon and the limb was fired. What is known is that the country waited in hopes that the Count would return to racing only to be disappointed. After reaggravating the injury, the Hertzes retired Count Fleet to stud at their farm in Kentucky; where he was born. He went on to become a very successful sire, and his blood runs through all three of my thoroughbreds.

In Racing in America 1937 – 1959, Robert Kelley wrote a chapter called “The Year of Count Fleet” and said:

This year in Thoroughbred racing (1943) will always be remembered as “Count Fleet’s year.”  And that is an interesting thing, for Count Fleet ran only six times during the entire season and he was out of action before the end of June.  Not in modern years has there been a greater impression left on racing people than that left this season by the son of Reigh Count out of Quickly.

Count Fleet’s sophomore year was like a skyrocket flaring across the sky to reach its climax of blinding white, then suddenly blacking out.  Man o’ War and, in later years, Citation had somewhat the same effect on the sport.  But the shortness of this one, with complete dominance over racers of all ages and sex, is almost without parallel in the Thoroughbred annals.

Was Count Fleet a super horse? Does he deserve to be mentioned in the same breadth as Man o’ War and Secretariat? I believe so.

Longden, recounted in “The History of Thoroughbred Racing in America,” says it all:

“The only jockey to ride the Hertz colt in a race, Longden also exercised him at times, and he later stated that once, just once, he turned the brown flash loose for an instant, to satisfy his curiosity concerning how fast Count Fleet really was—but he felt such a surge of power that he took him in hand again almost immediately, fearful of the consequences.”

Count Fleet lived to the age of 33. Assault, another Triple Crown winner died in 1971 leaving Count Fleet to be the last of the Triple Crown winners to be alive. Some say that he was waiting for another horse to win before he left this world, and the horse that came along won and raced like he did; the amazing Secretariat. After failing to stand for two days, he died from an apparent blood clot on December 3, 1973 only a few months after Secretariat won the Belmont.

When Longden was asked who was the best horse ever, he responded emphatically Count Fleet.

“I guess it’s no secret the way I feel about him. I’ve said it a thousand times-he was the best I ever rode and the best I ever saw. Maybe I’m prejudiced. because we won the Triple Crown together, but there was a horse who could do anything-go five-eights or five miles, run on a bad track or a good one, rain or shine, hell or highwater, it made no difference to him. Just give him clear sailing ahead, and I don’t honestly think the horse was ever foaled who could beat him.”

I thought Harley would be the problem child when I introduced Dulce to the herd. He was with Chaco; he was furious when I first introduced Chaco. This time around Chaco is the challenge. Or should I say pest? He never leaves him alone constantly nibbling on his hindquarters and legs, which causes Dulce to kick or buck…..ugh. I have two friends that lost horses because of introducing horses too quickly. Both times their horses ended up with broken legs and had to be put down.

So, part of the problem is me. Whoever says horses don’t get jealous, tell them to stuff it. Horses do. When Shandoka was alive, Chaco and Harley were never allowed to be around us when I was loving on him. He’d have none of that even though he absolutely loved them both. Now Chaco is acting the same way. Once I was loving on Dulce through the fence when Chaco charged him from out of nowhere, stuck his head over the fence and bit him. Chaco looked at me as if to say, “I’m protecting you.”

I’m working hard on mellowing out this behavior to prevent it from escalating. How? The crazy way. I get in the middle of them, and I move Chaco off letting him know that I won’t stand for it. How do I move him off? I hold up my hands and shake them towards his shoulders or face to get him to move away from that pressure never touching or hitting him. Believe it or not this has helped, and now Dulce is standing up for himself when it happens. It’s as if him seeing me do it gave him the courage to do it also. Chaco is a full hand taller than him, and he seems so huge next to Dulce at times.

What does Dulce do when Chaco can be too much? He hides behind me! How am I resolving that? Letting him fend for himself as much as possible, but also letting him have some alone time to relieve the stress of it…..or let him hide behind me every now and then.

The best way to get horses together in my opinion is to walk them together and to pony them together. I believe that when two horses start working together it changes how they approach one another. They become working buddies, and their dialogue changes somehow. It also teaches them that I’m the leader, so it takes some of the stress away from them both. When you show them how to work together, it carries over into turnout time.

The next best thing is to turn them out on pasture. They’re so busy eating grass that they don’t pay as much time focusing on each other. I have my pasture split up into three sections, so in the beginning I would put Chaco in one section with Dulce and Harley go in another. This way they could graze together with a barrier to prevent any horse racing or fighting. After they were on the pasture for an hour or two, I’d open the gate that separated them, and it usually went really well. The main thing for Dulce is to have a safe place to go if it all overwhelms him. I make sure he can come down to the dry paddock area if he needs a small break before he heads back up.

Did I mention that Dulce is completely barefoot now? The spot on his left front hoof has hardened after enough sole developed over it, and the quarter crack cracked off one morning. I was leaving the boots off for 12 hours a day, and then out them on for turnout time. During Kentucky Derby Day, it finally came off. No soreness, no bleeding, and he is walking perfectly. I turned Dulce out on the dry paddock one morning, and he went on a bucking and running spree a couple of days after this. The boot on that right hoof…well, look for yourself below. He is totally sound on both hooves as you can see in the video below.

The hardest part is when I bring them down to the dry paddock. Chaco has cornered him a few times trying to get Dulce to play with him. That’s the main thing in all of this; Chaco loves to play. When I first brought him here, he was scared to death when Shandoka and Harley would play. He’d hide in a corner and watch the two of them gallop all over the place. Shandoka slowly drew him out. He’d let Chaco play with him at a level that he felt safe with. Usually, they’d stand in a corner, and they’d play nip each other around the nose. I remember the morning that Chaco fully took part in the morning play gallops with Harley and Shandoka. He came running up to me with nostrils flared, his head high, and so happy before he took off with them again. I think Chaco is trying to do the same with Dulce except he constantly nips at his legs and hips. He wants him to run and play with him even though it comes off as somewhat annoying to Dulce.

How are all my attempts working? Here are some pics. I’m so happy for all of them, and I may call Chaco and Dulce, Frick and Frack; the three of them the Three Amigos.

I wrote this blog a few days ago. The other day, Dulce was taking a long nap. When he decided to get up, Chaco wouldn’t let him by grabbing hold of his fly sheet. I went out calling to Chaco who immediately let go. Dulce got up, and hid behind me while Chaco looked at me as if saying, “What did I do?”