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Tuesday 6 October 2015

5/10/15 - Too good to last!

Things have been going really well lately, Jack seems to have fully recovered from his KS surgery, rehab has gone quite well with just the odd blip but nothing major and Jack been growing in confidence in both himself and in me again.  We have enjoyed lots of nice rides and our schooling has been improving steadily however I have felt that there was still something bothering him.  His back is great and he doesn't appear to be having the SI pain that he had early in his rehab but he is still reluctant at the beginning of a ride, almost every time I ride him he resists going from walk - trot the first time I ask, he just doesn't go forward and stays in walk until I really boot him!  Once we get that first transition out the way he is then ok, also he can still react to the girth being done up, ears back and throwing up his head when it is tightened.  Having pretty much excluded everything else this behaviour is now making me think ulcers are the likely the culprit.  Jack is highly likely to suffer considering his previous management (before I owned him) of being stabled for long period with no food, the pain he has endured with his KS and the stress he has been through with numerous trips to the vets and the surgery then prolonged box rest.  Considering this it would not be a surprise if he has some ulcers and his symptoms fit.  I have discussed with my vet who don't scope themselves and I have 3 options 1) Get a referral to have him scoped by another vet 2) My vets could prescribe gastro-gard based on a presumptive assessment or 3) try treating him with natural remedies and commercially available supplements and see if there is any improvement.  Since I have owned him (4 years) he has lived out 24/7 most of the year and when he is stabled always has access to hay.  He is fed a high fibre diet and is never left for prolonged periods with no access to forage.
There are many products available to treat and prevent stomach ulcers in horses but I prefer to treat naturally where possible and have had good results using spirulina to build muscle and Tumeric to ease arthritis so for now I have decided to treat naturally along with feeding Dengie healthy tummy and adding equus health's Gastro Kalm to his feeds for maintenance.
There are lots of natural products that can help neutralise acid and some which also reduce acid production which is what is needed in the short term to aid healing so my next step is to purchase the ingredients needed and then persuade Jack to digest them!  He can be picky about things in his food so that is likely to be the biggest challenge.
Hopefully with a 2 week course on an acid reducing cocktail his stomach will be healed and I can then manage with healthy tummy and gastro-kalm to prevent further occurrences.
I shall report back if there is any improvement in a couple of weeks and if no improvement is seen then I will have another chat with my vet and reconsider scoping him.

Anyway onto this weeks activities, we started the week with a lunge session over poles which went very well, Jack was well behaved if slightly lazy to start with and he was working over his back and stepping evenly over the poles.  This sort of work is really helping build and strengthen his back end and he seems to enjoy the variety in his work too.  Following this I schooled him on the Tuesday with 3 poles in a straight line at a canter stride apart and raised at alternate ends.  Having warmed up thoroughly with the usual resistance to trot I then walked trotted and cantered over the raised poles, Jack was doing the poles really well in a good balance nice and forward and in a good shape using his back end to skip through the poles neatly and confidently.  I was tempted to turn the raised poles into a little grid of x poles but I resisted as I was so pleased with how he had worked I didn't want to risk spoiling things pushing for too much.  Instead I sat up and picked him up in the canter and was thrilled with how responded coming light and up in his shoulder, bringing his hind legs under and producing the best canter I think we have ever had :) I was so so thrilled with this!  If this is a glimpse of  what he is capable of when he is more confident and stronger then I'm very excited!       
He had a easier day the next day with just a little loose school.
On Thursday we went for a hack with my other half Dan running along side us, we did 4.8 miles of trot and canter along the bridle path and back on the road and Jack felt fit and full of running.
Friday I went out into the stubble field and Jack was much more confident than the previous week, he still has a little think about going into trot the first time but after that he was a lot more forward and we did some good gallops without me having to really kick him to go like I did last time.
I didn't get to ride Saturday as I was very busy and at a wedding in the evening so Jack just got fed an apple of the gate and his rug changed!
Then Sunday afternoon I had the chance to ride with one of the other liveries, this very rarely happens at the moment so I rushed through my other jobs to be able to meet her only to get there, get Jack in and ready to discover she was no longer coming as she had not got my text!  As I was ready to go I made the fateful decision to head out anyway, I didn't think anything of it as we hack alone 99% of the time these days anyway.  As we wandered towards the village I was undecided with route to go but eventually made up my mind to just have a short hack and get back as I still had a lot to do at home.  Jack was behaving and was relaxed and enjoying himself if the lovely sunny weather.  When we got to the bridle path we picked up canter as we always do on the wide grass verge between the tarmac footpath and the canal, we set out at a pretty fast pace but I slowed him down as we approached some people walking on the path, it was a good job I did or what happened next could have been worse as a split second later Jack spooked at something on his right shooting left at high speed towards the tarmac, I knew it wasn't going to end well, there was no way he could stay upright on tarmac at that speed. I tried my best to stop him, put my left leg on and holding him with my left rein but it was too late he hit the tarmac with all 4 hooves going sideways and still in canter. The next thing I knew we were on the floor, me still on board somehow and Jack on his stomach.  I feared the worse, I imagined broken legs and was about to jump off when Jack tried to get up.  I sat as still as possible as he scrambled to his feet shaking.  A family who were walking towards us came to our aid and checked Jacks legs, somehow he had managed to escape without serious injury, he had some pretty deep grazes to both his fetlocks and both stifles but other than that he seems ok I walked him around for a few minutes to check he felt ok and trotted him but he felt fine, he even decided he wanted to canter home!  I think that must have been the adrenaline pumping!
At home I hosed his legs off and washed the grazes with hibiscrub, some of them were pretty deep but they were clean so I plastered wound cream all over them to protect them from the flies and mud before turning him back out. 
When I went back to check on him later and to rug him up he looked fine I just had to leave the leg straps off his rug to stop them rubbing on the sores on his stifles.
I checked on him again this morning and expected him to look a bit stiff or sorry for himself but he walked over to me without a hint of discomfort!
When I brought him in tonight he was keen to come in and was walking on a mission!  There was no heat or swelling and the grazes had dried up and looked healthy and healing.
I decided to give him a little lunge just to see how he was moving and he was slightly stiff, unsurprising really considering he was legs akimbo on the tarmac the day before but to be honest I expected him to be far worse than he was, there was only the slightest stiffness in his near stifle.  I believe getting them moving with gentle stretching and exercise is the best thing so we did some carrot stretches and a bit of in hand in the school to help loosen him off.  I can't quite believe how well he has come out of a potential disastrous accident!  
So I will now be giving him a bit of an easier time of it until he has been seen by our physio and I can be sure he is recovered from the ordeal. 
Poor Jack!

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