Horse Care and Horse Rehabilitation

The 27th of September was a special day for me. I had been seriously looking for my forever horse for a long time and had a few ups and downs in my search. I had trialed and fallen for a lovely Arab mare who had won my heart, and this was the day of her arrival. The reason the date is so memorable for two reasons:

One: it had been a challenging couple of years for me and this was my return to riding and horsemanship. I saw this as a healing process and my mare being central to that.

Two: I was a bit worried about the weather. We had done our best to fence in the dreadful downfalls of rain and the endless mud but had not been able to get a shelter up.

The plan had been establishing my horse in the environment before my husband’s horse arrived within the week.

An hour after she arrived the rain bucketed down. It was horrendous, I was also aware my mare had been in a large herd previously, so my plan had been to optimise contact until the 2nd horse arrived. The rain did not stop from that point. I put on my wet weather gear and went out frequently to check her, the storm that night had lightning, thunder and it was a continual torrential downfall. The next morning not yet 24 hours with us, I went out to discover her limping and neighing towards me. When I was close to her, I saw her left lateral front leg copiously bleeding with skin and flesh hanging off and what looked like? Muscle/bone. I applied a pressure bandage to manage the bleeding. A couple of hours later the bandage was soaked with blood and I carefully removed it. The wound was beyond what we could manage, it was still pouring down. I rang two vets who were not able to come, then I rang Amanda from Equine care clinic, I described the wound sent a picture through, Amanda confirmed this was a serious wound that the canon bone was able to be seen and she said she would pick up my mare and transport her back to her clinic that day.

I was so relieved as my mare would be stabled, wound dressed, vet arranged for review and cared for with the horses’ needs being utmost to care. The stay was for 5 weeks, in that time I visited (weather permitting and floods allowing) , Amanda arranged vet care, medications for pain, antibiotics, tetanus and specialised diet to accommodate stress on the nervous system, rise in metabolism for healing .The care was complex with frequent dressings required and monitoring for inflammation and infection. She received laser treatment that greatly improved the healing process to the damaged tissues. My mare became very sensitive to any focus on her wound so there were also the psycho/social considerations of her well-being. This required a flexible management plan that Amanda had to review and change dressing tactics. Horses are smart, sensitive creatures and need to have choices to trust and cooperate, it isn’t straightforward for all, and each horse will have a different ‘care plan’. Amanda sent photos through at every dressing change and provided regular updates. This was a fundamental necessity to know my mare was in safe caring hands and helped relieve my anxiety. We all dread finding our horse/s with a wound it is quite a shock to find such a wound. I had owned horses before and had been fortunate to have never experienced an injury, it can happen in the best of surroundings in a freaky way no one could have foreseen, I still don’t know how it happened. When it does happen and it is beyond our management capacity having your horse in safe experienced, kind hands is most reassuring. The sense of support in the moment is invaluable and not able to be quantified.