Monthly Archives: October 2018

Happy Halloween, throwback style! AKA a little sugar with your gore?

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**warning, graphic content**

I don’t think I’ve posted this before…

10 years ago, right around Halloween, I got a call from my barn owner/trainer that Subi was FINE, but had gotten kicked in the shoulder and had a nasty open wound that couldn’t be stitched… Darn hind shoes…

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Instead, he was getting SMZs and they were packing it with granulated sugar at the vet’s direction…

Being a new library graduate student, I had to research the crap out of what my trainer was telling me, but yes, it was a thing. Sugar packing, who knew?

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He was also on stall rest and hating life. But, no swelling because a certain IDIOT walking circles and kept the swelling down. Lol.

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Sugar packing was fine. My trainer attempted to clip is leg and everyone nearly died…. They decided they’d skip that step. I scrubbed and curried sugar and blood off that leg FOREVER. 

And yet, after a couple of weeks, it healed nicely (despite the face that at one point, you could stick your entire hand inside the wound).  It ultimately healed without a scar. Then my idiot horse somehow scratched himself the SAME PLACE (no blood) and THAT scarred…

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2 weeks post kick

If you are interested in reading more about sugar…

Scholarly Articles

Dunford, Cheryl, Rose Cooker, Peter Molan, and Richard White. “The use of honey in wound management” Nursing Standard 15, no. 11 (29 November 2000): 63-68.

This article discusses the history, background, and use of honey in the wound healing process. A more well known treatment (dating back more than 2000 plus years), this article also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using honey in wound treatment. Furthermore, multiple images are included.

Gordon, H., Middleton, K.; Seal, D.; Sullens, K. “Sugar and wound healing” The Lancet 2, no. 8456 (21 September 1985): 663-665.

This article chronicles the treatment of foot abscesses using a sucrose sugar paste and includes both scientific text as well as images. Furthermore, the article also address the use of sugar in wound treatment throughout history, referring to Egyptian use of honey as well as explaining how sugar works in the healing process.

Mathews, Karol A. and Allen G. Binnington. “Wound management using sugar” Copendium 24, no. 1 (January 2002): 41-50.

This article discusses wound management in dogs and other small animals using sugar. Written by a pair of veterinarians, the article chronicles a research study on sugar impact in the healing process of large wounds in dogs, includes multiple images, and address the healing properties unique to sugar.

Seal, David V., Roderick J. Hay, and Keith R. Middleton. Skin and wound infection: investigation and treatment in practice. London: Informa Health Care, 2000.

This book addresses infection and wounds and discusses different treatments and practices related to wound care. Though not entirely devoted to the use of sugar, this book does devote an entire chapter to sugar paste and wound healing.

Ranger Recap: Laughing at me.

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So it was bound to happen. I finally had a crappy lesson. At least for the first time in a while. I’m pretty sure I never wrote up my last lesson, but too late.

Nothing starts well when you get there and 1. notice everyone is riding in the indoor and 2. are early (enough) and are told to get on as soon as possible to ride with the other girls.

I typically ride at 6:30 so arrive between 5:50 and 6:00 which gives me enough time to groom, relax, and hop on by 6:20. So, being told to hurry up so I can ride with the 6:00 lesson is never a good sign. And, it turns out everyone was riding inside because the rated show was indoors this weekend. This sort of meant that I wasn’t going to a priority because 1. lesson person and 2. children’s hunter and larger division pony in my lesson. So yeah. Granted, I was defeated before the lesson because I hate rushing.

I won’t go over our warm up/flat work because it was decent enough. I’ve been struggling with bending on straight lines with him. He’s being ridden by a lot more kids now and no one works on bending at all so I get on and it’s 1000% harder for me. So… Corners/circles/etc. are fine, going straight? way too much work. Especially as my inside leg wasn’t working (both directions interestingly enough).

As the other pair were the focus, I didn’t jump as much. I can’t complain as this rarely ever happens. But, when it does, it’s frustrating. I didn’t help things but not being on my game. But… I started off with my nemesis. A 1 stride around to a skinny. Except, I had to wait a while as my trainer kept messing with it while I sat and contemplated my impending death. Lol. But it’s true…

So, when it was finally my turn (other girls were jumping other more fun stuff), we jumped the in, I gave zero direction and Ranger NOPED out to the right. So, we turned, cantered back around, and Ranger NOPED at the in (twice I believe. The second time I was actually trying and he grabbed the bit, laughing all the way, ha! Ha! HA!). Thankfully, anger got in the way of my fear of death (I seriously despise 1 strides) and I picked his massive head up and got him through the damn line a couple of times…

We next added in the skinny and again had the SAME problem (thankfully, he stopped playing with the 1 stride once he realized I was not not jumping it). So, my trainer is on a skinny kick. This one is NOT as bad as the skinny in the outdoor that was so skinny that, jumping the center, I tapped my foot on standard, but that freaked me out. This one was hard to get to and I kept overshooting the approach and Ranger first got his eye on the out of the inside line… So, first step was correcting then trying to get straight. Except we ducked out to the left. Ugh. Instead of going back to it, we repeated the entire thing and I’m pretty sure we got over it the second and third time, again, sitting deep and LIFTING a big and ultra heavy head. But, it’s been a while since Ranger has tested me that much.

Finally, we were to end with the skinny, around to the 1 stride around to what was a bending line of our picket fence jump to oxer in what was anticipated to be a 7. But, the damn skinny. See, the first few times we did the skinny, my trainer was standing near it and then she was down towards the end of the ring. And Ranger was not having anything to do with it. Finally, I was told to forget my distance (I saw my damn distance every time and rode to it and then lost it when Ranger dropped and rolled–well, not quite, but I could not get on the same page when I knew where I wanted to be) and just get over the jump. Lol. So, I fought him, we lost our canter, ended up trotting the skinny (at the distance I wanted because, I can’t let everything go). Then, from there, the one stride was easy (the out now being an oxer but that didn’t matter). While I was concerned about the picket jump to the oxer, it was mostly because I despise the picket (it’s my death fence) and the oxer was a much larger than anything else we had jumped that night. I was told it would probably be 7 strides but we jumped the in out of a forward canter and landing, Ranger was so in front of my leg that I saw that 6 that I just went for it vs fussing. After all the cruddy first fences/lines, it was nice to have SOMETHING look nice first time through and to ride aggressively.

In the end, I’m not sure what to make of the lesson. It wasn’t great. Part of that was because I wasn’t riding well. Part of that was because I was down on priorities list. But, Ranger doesn’t test me like that often. He’ll test me when I’m not trusting my eye (ie: add if I don’t keep my leg on). But, it’s been a long time since I’ve dealt with this ducking out stuff. So, it was a good reminder to stay square, keep leg on to the base, and lift his head UP a half an inch as needed when he STARTS to feel a tiny bit heavy…

I may not have enjoyed all of it, but I’m pretty sure Ranger had fun. He had a twinkle in his eye every.single.time. he ducked out. You could see him laughing. He has too much personality…

Fair Hill Recap (Part 1 of 60000)

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Another Fair Hill is in the books! My goal this year was to attend everything. Soak up as much as I could and volunteer as much as I could and just be there.  I haven’t started editing pictures, but here are a few to get started…

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And I sort of accomplished that and sort of failed.

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Much of my volunteer work came before the event with pre-event set up. I was out bright and early Saturday a week ago helping decorate the venue. Moving mums, driving around in gators, watering mums, breaking water tanks in the stabling area (oh, wait, never mind) until the water guy showed us how to work the damn tank, stacking straw cut side up and then, 20 MINUTES LATER, arranging straw (SO WHY DID IT MATTER HOW WE STACKED THE DAMN STRAW), moving chairs, etc. img_2313-1

Sunday was dressage ring set up. I said last year I wouldn’t do this again so of course I signed up to help and once again I’m OCD enough to be volunteered to make the courts straight… there were two of us left making everything straight after the bulk of the group left because it appeared it was out talent… Oi. Wednesday was merchandise set up and my OCD took over again as I was volunteered to put everything in size order… Is anyone seeing a pattern?

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Charlotte Collier & Clifford M (3*)

What I missed was the jogs. I was originally going to volunteer for the jogs, chickened out, then when I went back, the slots were filled. Friday, was Young Event Horse Jumping and jump crew– the best volunteer position EVER. I had the opportunity to eavesdrop on the judges and learn SO MUCH about what they were looking for. And, accidentally voiced my opinion and cast my vote for the safe harbor winner… Can someone PLEASE buy me this horse? I can’t wait to volunteer for YEH next year too. Learned so much!

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Celtic King and Charlotte Collier

2*/3* cross county on Saturday was incredible with the exception of a super scary fall in the 2*. I didn’t see the fall, but heard it. Horse was down for a very, VERY long time, brought out the curtains and everything. He trotted the fence before hand and… Despite that, horse and rider were OK.

2* Horse
Corvette in the 3*

The rest of the day was a lot of fun and the course was challenging.

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V3 Red Thirty Six and Campbell Jourdian (YEH 4 year old)

Sunday was windy and blustery. In the 2*, jumps were blowing over and Master Frisky was held up mid course so that the jump crew could re-assemble a fence that fell over completely. Despite that, he went double clear. Boyd and On Cue went double clear to win when a plank was almost flying into them. In the 3*, 8 in a row went double clear towards the end before the final riders started to have trouble. Then Frankie Thieriot Stutes put in an incredible double clear to win. All in all, another incredible Fair Hill in the books!

Corvette
Corvette
Chatwin

 

Eat Already, Horse!!

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I’ve posted about this subject before I’m sure, but once again, Subi has decided that eating is optional. This time however, it’s not not both meals, but simply breakfast.

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Huh.

Really. Really. Frustrating.

Now, he does get different combinations for breakfast vs dinner. Breakfast he usually gets beet pulp and grain (omolene, soaked senior) and dinner he gets soaked cubes (timothy alfalfa as he’d NEVER eat plain alfalfa or plain timothy) and beet pulp plus grain (omolene, soaked senior, and fat). He takes a good 3 hours to eat the cube/grain mix so that is NOT an option in the morning. Sorry. I feed at 6:20 and he has until 7:40 to eat. He usually walks away by 7 on a good day now. 6:45 on most days. He’s just NOT interested. Dinner? He’s interested. Breakfast? No. He’s hungry for dinner because he doesn’t eat breakfast…

I’ve tried a partial grain reset (omolene plus beet pulp). I’ve tried a full grain reset (just omolene. I’ve tried mixing omolenes (200 plus 500). I’ve tried cutting his chopped hay (he had been getting a bucket of chopped hay in the morning). I’ve tried adding a flake of hay next to his grain so he doesn’t bother to wonder off to the hay when he decides he’d rather eat hay vs grain.

The only thing I haven’t bothered with is a small version of his dinner. Some soaked cubes (1/2 scoop) mixed with his morning ration of omolenes (I’m adding in the 500 as it’s higher fat so maybe that’ll help keep weight… Might be worth a try. He does better on weekends when I can give him 3 hours with breakfast. I’m just not willing to get up 2 hours earlier to make that happen during the week.

At this point, I don’t care WHAT he eats, just THAT he eats. He now gets his MSM in his dinner vs breakfast. No other supplements. I can’t risk him not eating.

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He still looks good weight wise and he’s eating a crazy amount of hay. He just is being finicky about grain. Stupid horse. Vet doesn’t care what he eats either. The best grain in the world is no good if he won’t eat. I’m tempted to buy a massive vat of molasses and add that too. I just worry about not eating heading into winter. Granted it’s been super hot and he’s had his winter coat… Maybe that’s played a role? Who knows…

I’m open to suggestions. He’s been like this his entire life. The older he gets, the pickier… Vet warned me that some TBs are like this and I have one… I’ve met people who have heard stories of picky thoroughbreds but haven’t met one. I have one. Lucky me. Yay.

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I’m NOT the biggest Purina fan AT ALL. But, this horse is BEYOND picky. Subi will not eat: Buckeye senior (both their seniors), will NOT eat nutrena senior, nutrena safe choice, will not eat nutrena proforce fuel, not eat purina ultium, strategy, etc. picks at TC Senior (he’s always sort of eaten it, but wastes half of it so we’re at a 50% waste rate and can never keep his weight with it), Purina Senior and Senior Active (“new” formula — at Active until they adjusted the formula. He ate regular senior for a while a few times), several others that I don’t feel like listing… Too tired. He currently gets Blue Seal Sentinel Senior now mixed with his dinner. Won’t eat it solo now, but it makes a good mash. His favorite feed has been Progressive Senior Sweet, but the local Progressive Dealer stopped dealing and I decided after 3 or 4 trips (directly from the garage of a vet who served as the next closest distributor in the area–he put feed aside for me, I left him a check and loaded my feed in my car), I wasn’t driving 70 miles to buy this feed for Subi. It’s a shame because the close Progressive dealer served ALL my feed stores. I boycotted them for about a year… They claimed Subi would eat the Buckeye and it was the same. Nope. Wouldn’t eat it. They guaranteed it. Promised me. Not that they refunded my money when he wouldn’t touch it. Batty enjoyed that bag of feed.

Happy 12 Years Subliminal!

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12 years ago, Subi joined my family.

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He’s been part of the family longer than my husband.

He was a spunky, spry 9 year old with plenty of opinions, a massive stride and more scope than I could I need.

The first time I rode him I was terrified. The girl leasing him had just gone off to college and Subi was terrifying. He was fast. She was always falling after the jumps (how, I don’t know). That summer involved a trip to the ER and crutches. I had been riding Atlantis for a good part of the summer. He was a Scott Stewart hand me down who had soundness issues, but carted me around and was the first horse to give me confidence. From him it was on to Dream Boy who was my trainer’s horse and was young and green. He was wonderful but I never felt comfortable or trusted him. Anyway, I was grooming him and had him half tacked when I got a call telling me to ride Subi instead. Nothing like suddenly falling in love with a horse you don’t trust like being told to ride the crazy TB…

Yet instead of being crazy, I had to use more leg than ever before. I fell in love with Subi immediately. I never clicked with a horse like that.

I had to ask to ride him again (vs Dream Boy) and immediately fell off when he did a 3 in a 5 as I failed to realize just how long his stride was… Oops.

Anyway, we had a number of good years though never showed too much ($$). He’d have been better at shows had we been able to get out consistently but as I was entirely self funded, that didn’t happen. Nonetheless, he was the right horse for me then. Now? Not so much (the horse he was then).

Through the years we had our issues and injuries (including a massive kick the shoulder that healed thanks to sugar packs) and farrier issues. But, thanks to my current farrier of the last.. 9 years? He is now barefoot and easy (enough) to trim. Arthritis is now making trims a little harder. But his farrier fears are long gone.

Anyway, as we creak into the latter years of Subi’s life, (and suffer through issues like refusal to eat–another day’s post), I’m just happy to have Subi with me. Here’s to 12 years and to as many more as we can have!

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Ranger Recap: Finding the stride

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I’ve really been terrible about blogging lately. Honestly, life sort of been a mess and I haven’t wanted to put everything out here until at least some of it is resolved. Honestly, each time I think some aspects of my life hit rock bottom, things get worse. So, there’s that.

 

But, having said all of that, I have 2 rainy lessons to recap.

2 weeks ago, in the cold, pouring rain, we rode inside. Ranger was UP. This lesson was all about bending, looking ahead, and riding the stride I had, staying consistent.

We started off at the top of the ring (away from the in gate) on a left lead canter basically cantering over this inside single on a circle several times. After that, we continued from the inside single, brought him back to the trot trotted the center vertical heading towards the in gate at the very top of the ring (jump 2 in the very bad illustration) landing, turning towards back towards the out of the bending line (jump 3). We did this several times, finally stringing it together as a continuous pattern. The time the only struggle was the trot fence, Ranger was convinced I wanted a simple change, so I had to fight more than I wanted. The second time, I had a more collected trot than I’d have liked, the third time, we were both on the same page and he understood that letting go did not mean canter (sometimes he getting a little lesson horse programmed). And, having more go than woah…

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Not drawn the scale…

Next (there may have been other jumps in between… I don’t remember), it was about lengthening vs turning in the air. Using the same first jump, this time from the other direction, everything this time was about the ride and trusting my eye. Short ride to jump 1 (A), then around to the outside line going by the in gate (ugh) in a going 6. The line was perfect. Then, around to a long ride to long ride to jump 4 (D). Heading to the last fence, a large, wide oxer, once again, I saw the spot turn the corner and decide just to go for it. About halfway towards it, Ranger started to get heavy. Trusting my eye, instead of pulling, I re-balanced him, added leg, and we were able to hit the forward spot. 2 weeks ago, I’m sure I would have messed with it or done nothing but maybe I’m learning to trust what I see? Either way, it was perfect and we ended there. The out of the line was 2’9 which for inside is huge for me and it looked tiny and felt tiny. I guess that’s good? When I’m told heights by my trainer and I don’t believer her… lol. I could have done more, but sometimes you just want to end with perfect.

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This past week it was raining. Again. But, we rode outside and the rain eventually stopped. Unlike the week before, I had to work to get Ranger in front of my leg on the flat.

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This rain is getting old…

We warmed up with a circle exercise both directions consisting of 4 fences on a circle: poles, 2 boxes, and a cross rail and jumped them several times each direction worked on maintaining a slow, collected stride and working on riding each fence on that going but  collected stride. It was easy because it’s Ranger and thankfully I struggled on the flat and by the time we started jumping, he was already there.

many of the jumps from the circle exercise
Blurry view of many of the jumps from the circle exercise

Next we did this crazy roll back exercise. Basically doing a figure eight. Ranger’s OMG BEST FRIEND Mikey left the ring so he was devastated so life was even harder (and Forrest started calling to him too…). Basically, we cantered up over the quarter line single turning in the air to the out of the outside line (3 strides) then turning back to jump the quarter line the other direction to the other jump in the outside line (3 strides). We did this several times. See illustration below but keep in mind I was also dodging other jumps. Goal: looking ahead, turning in air, remaining forward to hit the 3 stride.

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Sort of illustrates the figure eight exercise?

Finally, we ended with the following: outside single, to the inside cross rail (these were the first 2 jumps of the circle exercise) around to the large inside oxer. The trick of this exercise was to ride the appropriate stride depending on which part of the exercise you were on. The first part of the exercise required required a quiet canter, keeping Ranger in front of my leg. We really collected on the landing for the tight turn turn to the tiny cross rail (barely a pole ~12″) and then we had to land and move up immediately to find the right canter for the next fence so that once we were straight I wasn’t fussing with my canter. Thankfully because he was in front of my leg, he was there immediately and we were able to get the forward spot. We continued around to the outside line in 5 (?) and called it a night. I don’t remember the last time where I had 2 lessons in a row and didn’t miss one spot.

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Just hanging out with this guy is the best!