#ottbrehab #rehabottb #killpenrehab #horseracing #thoroughbreds – Page 2

One Trailer Ride

If you’ve been following my blog, this is the next installment about Mojo who was rescued out of a kill pen. Lately, I’ve seen the mental toll the kill pen had on him.

Mojo meeting Harley, Dulce and Chaco for the first time.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that Vallier/Mojo is my newest OTTB to join the Reenchanted Horse Ranchita here in western Colorado. He was rescued out of a kill pen thanks to the many donations and retweeting and resharing of many people. Now he is here, and he is deeply loved and cared for. He is a gentle soul, and slowly I see more and more of his personality.

This week marked a milestone. He is now out of quarantine, and I thought he would be in the corral next to my other three horses by now. That’s what I wanted, but when I paid attention to him, my hopes for him had to be tossed out the window. So often we impose upon horses our desires for them instead of watching them to see where they’re at and what they need. He is telling me to put the brakes on things. Let’s take baby steps.

When he came here, I noticed several scabs on his hindquarters and hip area from being bit by other horses. When horses are experiencing anxiety, they let it out in all sorts of ways. Mojo is not a dominant horse; at least he hasn’t shown me that side yet. My guess is that in order to survive in there, he constantly moved to get away from the others as they bit him on his rump. Now, instead of wanting to be with other horses, he is scared of the thought. Horses are herd animals, so they usually want to be together. This is different, and it makes me sad for him that he isn’t dragging me over to them each day.

He is fine if I’m standing with him and there is a fence and distance between him and my other horses. He wants to feel like he can get away. Chaco and Dulce are very playful and mischievous. Chaco is a hand taller than he is, so he seems more dominant even though he tends to be a more submissive horse. Dulce, the same size as Mojo, on the other hand is very dominant, and I believe one day will be the leader of the herd. However, he is also very kind and loving, and his relationship with Harley and Chaco proves that. I can see how he may not like sharing Chaco with Mojo though. Harley is presently the boss of them all, and he does not like sharing his hay with anyone. You will often see him pushing Dulce and Chaco off one pile of hay to another. Harley has a sweetness in his heart, he always tries, and with his age, he is a wise and a steady horse for the others. Although, he can rile things up more than the thoroughbreds do. Oh, herd dynamics. I could go on and on about everything I learn and notice.

Where will Mojo fit in? He will be somewhere close to where Chaco is in the herd. As I bring him down to spend time with my other horses on their respective sides of the fence I see moments of extreme anxiety flash through his eyes. He doesn’t jump, spook, bite, or move away. He simply looks at me.

He is interested in Harley, my 20 year old quarter horse; the boss. Harley lets him smell him without trying to nip at him or play with him. I decided to take Harley up to Mojo’s corral on a lead rope to see how it would go. Mojo sniffed him once, and then went to the other side of the corral with absolute fear filling his eyes. It broke my heart. I immediately took Harley back to the main paddock, and I returned to Mojo. All he wanted me to do was hold his head.

He feels safe here. I’m not concerned about moving him next to them until he’s ready. For now we do daily meet and greets. Next I will start walking him with Harley and let them graze together. After that, I will pony him with each horse around the property. Each step will help him relax, and feel like he is part of their dynamic instead of separate from it.

The next issue that I feel comes directly from the kill pen is the day I was going to take him to the dentist. For four days prior to our appointment, I loaded him and unloaded him into the trailer. No problem at all. It was as easy as slicing pie. The day of his appointment I had my truck attached. I think he sensed he would be leaving. He 100% refused to load, and I had no one with me to coax him in. I canceled the appointment, disconnected the truck, and lo and behold he loaded. He didn’t want to leave. Without the truck attached, he knew he’d be staying here.

Driving into town I pondered what happened, and how to fix this. I thought about a conversation with my aunt. She said something along the lines of this, “For all of his life he was loved and taken care of, and then one day he wasn’t.”

This hit me right in the heart. Tears for him streamed down my face as I realized what a long journey he has ahead of him to leave behind what that one trailer ride brought to him. I then had an “ah ha” moment. It was one trailer ride that changed his life. One trailer ride that meant the difference between being cared for and suddenly not. One trailer ride brought him to a place where he is cared for again. He can eat all day and night, no one is biting him, he has shelter from the weather, I scratch around all of his wounds each night for him, and what if another trailer ride takes him away from all that?

One trailer ride.

One Sweet Moment

This is about my Kill Pen rescue Mojo. Each morning I carry one bucket of feed out into the chilly morning air. The sun is still sleeping on the east coast, so my path is pitch black without the moon’s light. I can hear a nicker. It’s soft at first, and as I make my way through the tall grass, it gets louder and louder until Mojo’s sweet nose reaches over the horse panel to touch mine. I hoist the bucket over the panel where he dives in with fervent pleasure to eat his morning feed.

Sleepy Mojo relaxing in the afternoon sun

Each morning I carry one bucket of feed out into the chilly morning air. The sun is still sleeping on the east coast, so my path is pitch black without the moon’s light. I can hear a nicker. It’s soft at first, and as I make my way through the tall grass, it gets louder and louder until Mojo’s sweet nose reaches over the horse panel to touch mine. I hoist the bucket over the panel where he dives in with fervent pleasure to eat his morning feed.

Mojo aka Vallier was a thoroughbred racehorse. When I decided to start the fundraiser to bring him here, I looked at his race record real quick. I didn’t care if he won or lost, if he was considered a war horse, or how much money he won. I wanted to see where he had been, and one place stuck out for me; Oaklawn. I’ve never been there, but my grandparents went there many years ago. They eloped to Hot Springs, so they could go to the races afterwards. This is how long horse racing has been in my blood, and seeing Oaklawn in his chart, I felt like my grandparents had a hand in all of this.

I put up the GoFundMe not expecting much support or help at all only to be more than surprised. Right after I put it up, my husband and I drove to Norwood, which is a small town south of us. To get there you wind your way through mountains, valleys and canyons. My signal is spotty the whole way, however somehow my mom kept getting through. “Did you see someone donated $250? $200? $500? “

I thought my mom was wrong somehow. I can never raise money for anything, and suddenly I’m able to for this horse that somehow landed in a kill pen in Oklahoma? I finally got a decent signal, and lo and behold several donations came in from people I knew and people I’ve never met. Each and every one brought tears to my eyes when I realized I was going to be able to save this horse and give him a home. One donation really got to me. It came from one of his former trainers. People bad mouth horse racing a lot nowadays with good reason, but they don’t know the people like I do. I grew up learning from each and every one of them….they taught me how to love and care for a horse, and Ron Moquett continues doing that. He had Vallier for a short time, but he came forward and helped him out.

I called the kill pen and finalized the deal. I sent the money via Paypal, and I called a man by the name of Brandon, a horse shipper, that agreed to bring him to me. He’d pick him up first thing the following morning.

Now Mojo is here. He has a routine that I diligently stick to. His life was upended and now more than ever he needs a routine to help him feel safe and secure, so I walk out in the dark each morning to feed him. I take him hay, and then I go feed the other three. When I’m done there, I go back to him, and we spend some time together before I head in to eat my breakfast. After doing work and chores, I head out around 11am to take him for his walk.

We go on a walk each day to bring back his muscles along with his weight gain. They have atrophied away, his neck is so narrow that it seems to not even belong to him at times. So, we go for gentle walks at his pace each day to try and nurture them back to strength. Sometimes he is with me mentally, and other times the shade is down. He walks with me, but he isn’t really there. The kill pen took a toll on him mentally and emotionally, so I flow with whatever he needs to present to me at the time. Today he was spry. He had pep in his step, he kept nudging me with his nose, and he walked along side me instead of behind me. We were companions today, and I loved how it felt.

Each time I’ve taken in a horse there is a moment when I’ve truly connected with the horse for the first time. With my horse Shandoka it was when he let me gently rub my fingters around an old wound, with Chaco it was when I brought him back from the hospital after his arthroscopic surgery, with Harley it was pretty much immediate, and with Dulce it was in the pasture when we fell asleep side by side. Each one of them absolutely special, unique, and never forgotten.

I didn’t expect to have that kind of moment with Mojo for awhile. You see there are so many times he looks at me, and I see the horse that he is. I want to reach out to him and bring that horse forward fully and completely, but the moment I feel that he retreats. He pulls this invisible shade down over his eyes hiding what I saw only moments ago.

I brought him back to his corral after our walk. I usually walk back to the porch and get his second feeding for the day, but Mojo stopped me. He tilted his head in a way to say, “Please scratch right behind my ear.” I did, and he loved it. I scratched in a wider area when he lifted his head over mine and rested his head on my shoulder. His eyes looked into mine. I held my breath for a second expecting him to pull that shade down and disappear, but he didn’t. I slowly exhaled and synchronized my breath with his. We kept looking into each other’s eyes when he relaxed even more. I reached up with my other hand, and I gently massaged around his poll. He let out a long sigh deeply resting on my shoulder. I’ll admit that my shoulder hurt. His head is heavy, and even though I have strong shoulders, his head was heavy. Did I say that? I didn’t care about the pain. I’d gladly experience it each and every time he chooses to rest his head on my shoulder, because this was the sweetest moment. In that moment, he trusted me completely, and in that moment he let go of all the bad that had fallen upon him the past year. His eyes almost completely closed, I let out a sigh of relief, because in that moment I found him.

Vallier’s/Mojo’s Spa Retreat

Before I go into his spa retreat, I wanted to lead with the good news first, which could end up burying the rest. But, oh well! Vallier (barn name Mojo) gained 17 pounds his first week here. I’m not sure if we will see much next week, because often their bodies will take a break before another weight gain. We’ll see what happens though. We’re heading in the right direction, and that’s all that matters.

This blog will answer some of the questions I’ve received since we all brought Mojo home.

The first question is why does he have to be in quarantine? Good question. Well, we have no idea if he picked up a disease such as strangles or pigeon fever for example. We need to keep him in quarantine to see if anything emerges, and to protect my other three horses. However, I’ve decided to rename his time in quarantine as a spa retreat.

This poor guy needs the break that the quarantine time is providing. He needs to relax. He needs to sleep. He needs to be able to eat without being pushed off by other horses. He is getting fed in bed (four small meals a day), his nails (hooves) done, hair done (full body wash), bodywork (I do equine massage), select treatments (He has been wormed twice; once with a light wormer and this past Monday with Equimax. Next he will go through a round or two of sand clear), and dentistry work (Monday). When we go for walks, he can see my other horses, yet he never tries to walk towards them. He isn’t ready to be around others, so I see this time as meditation and retreat time. It’s allowing his body and mind to heal from what he went through.

He has nicer hooves than I could have hoped for.

After I wrote this, something interesting happened tonight. The UPS driver came, my dogs were barking at him, and suddenly Mojo started to run around. It’s the first time I saw him do something besides walk. The horse has some moves! He seemed perfectly sound. Later Dulce and Harley were playing, and Mojo watched. That is a first. He never showed an interest. Both are very good signs.

Second question is why aren’t I feeding him alfalfa and oats? Have you ever fasted before ? If you have, imagine fasting for ten days and then eating at McDonald’s afterwards and throw in some chocolate cake. You will be so sick! You will be running to the bathroom probably ever thirty seconds.

That’s the same for horses. Alfalfa and oats are really rich, and all they will do is make Mojo sicker than sick. They could make him colic at the worst, and get really bad, cow patty, watery, diarrhea, which will only cause him to lose more weight. I’ve successfully put weight on three other OTTB’s with the diet he is on, and if anything needs to change, I will. This is a work in progress, and he will tell me what he needs.

I pay attention to how he is after he eats, I watch for any changes in his poop, I make sure he is farting easily, I look to see if he is chewing at his sides a lot indicating bad gas, and I look to see how much he’s eating throughout the day. So far, we’re doing good. He gets beet pulp, which is low in sugar and starch and puts weight on horses; flax seed, which is filled with omega fatty acids and puts on weight, timothy hay pellets, and a bit of Nutrena Safe Choice feed. All low in sugar and starch, which is so important. He also gets California Trace Minerals, which he gobbles down, two tablespoons of salt, a splash of Forco (not even close to one 1 oz) Vitamin E, Flax oil, and an MOS prebiotic. I figure he ate poop to try and survive in the kill pen since they stop feeding them when they enter into the system. The MOS prebiotic binds on to salmonella and e coli bacteria escorting them out of the body. He also gets Aloe Vera Gel, not juice, to address any stomach ulcers he may have. Several studies in Australia were done that showed aloe vera gel can heal stomach ulcers. Eventually, I will add marshmallow root, but for right now this is it.

When a horse or person have starved, their organs shrink in size, so I don’t want to overload anything. This is why he gets small meals instead of two big ones. It is all in a mash to make it as easy for his system to digest. He also gets free choice hay. It will be awhile before we see changes on the outside of his body, because first the changes need to happen within. Once he heals inside, we’ll see great stuff happen outside, but that is a ways off.

The important thing is to go slow and steady. When you start to see improvement, you immediately want to feed more, and that is when you really need to stop yourself. Just give a bit more to see how the horse does….stay there for a few days. If everything goes well, add a little bit more. I started out feeding him once a day. When I saw he was stable there, I went up to twice a day and so on. I don’t plan on adding anymore food to his bucket for another week. I want to see how he does. If he does well at eating four small meals a day, I may not increase the feed for another two weeks, and then add a bit more beet pulp….see how that goes, and then maybe some more hay pellets….see how that goes. Slow and steady.

Why do I walk him if he is so thin? Doesn’t that hurt his weight gain? I did the same thing with Dulce. Horse’s are built to be mobile. It is important to keep their guts healthy and to prevent colic. They have this incredibly long digestive tract, so movement is really important to maintain motility. Also, his topline, and all of his muscles for that matter, have atrophied. I don’t want to put weight on him without muscles to support it. Otherwise, that topline, which is non existent, could stay that way. Walking him helps with his digestive system, and slowly but surely it helps build up muscle. It will help his topline redevelop. It also helps his hooves stay healthy and develop into the beautiful hooves I know he will grow. It also stimulates all of his organs that are starting to get stronger and hopefully more of a normal size. It also helps release tightness and stiffness. Each time we walk, he starts blowing out his nose, which is a sign that his back is releasing. He starts yawning and shaking his head, which is a sign of poll and TMJ release. It also helps us develop a relationship, and he gets to go out and see things. It’s great for his mind. We’re learning each other on each walk.

As you can see all the muscles that form the top line have atrophied. Slowly but surely, he and I will build them back up.

Do I hate horse racing because of what happened to Vallier? No. One of his trainers helped bail Vallier out. Others who knew Vallier came forward to tell me tidbits about him. Did you know that the one time he won a race, he had to dodge a loose horse that dumped his rider?

I don’t even know if it was someone from the track that dumped him in that field. I have no idea who did it. What I do know is that people that knew him in the past, cared about him and came forward to help him out. This is the horse racing I knew as a kid. Everyone on the backstretch helps each other out and the horses when needed. I know with the latest news that came out this week you probably don’t believe me. With regards to those people, they need to be banned for life and go to prison if all of this is true. All cheaters like them need to be banned from the sport, and there needs to be a unified, investigative body constantly watching and testing horses to protect them and the jockeys from selfish people such as this.

True horse people always put the horse first. I saw it all the time, and I saw it when all of these people that I’ve never met and good friends come forward and help out Vallier. It will always bring tears to my eyes, because my gratitude runs so deep.

I was asked by one person if I regretted getting a kill pen horse at. The answer is no. I will never regret bringing him here, nor will my husband. We are totally in love with him. He is a joy to spend time with. He loves to be loved, and he is happy each time I go out to him. He walks up to greet me, putting his head over the panels reaching his nose out to mine. He is a blessing in our lives, and each time I look into his eyes, I see more and more life in him. He is coming back. He has a ways to go, but he is coming back into the world with a good heart. I’m honored to be a small part of that.