You might remember how I had plans to show (compete) the stallion making a name for him in the breeding books. He really deserves it. But he has turned up with a bum leg. Front left. He's not lame but he can not be competed. The leg is swollen 'hard'. We talked to the vet and he recommended an Antibiotic treatment. Requiring daily injections. Which we (mostly our good friend Cheryl) administered. We also did an oral treatment when this had no effect.
Now Irene always used to say that "I could let you into the stallions pasture but he would probably kill you". She always considered the stallion her horse, and, since he was the 'Wild Stallion' (she saw to that by neglecting him) she could have him exclusively.
I have news for you Irene! I... Carried frozen horse DNA around for 'Over A Year' filling the nitrogen tank sometimes bi-weekly. On top of that I constantly took time off work (it wasn't possible for Shauna) to meet the vet for ultrasounds, ovarian palpitations, prostaglandin shots, only to have utter failure with artificial breeding. Then, Shauna and I opted for live-cover (which we ultimately didn't get but it was fresh from the standing stallion teasing the mare) and we finally had a baby. Which sand colic'd and died. We were devastated but since we had a live-foal-guarantee and (even though it was technically too late) the breeding facility (friends of ours) rebred our mare and we ended up with a knot-head horse. A nice gray but a gram-prix bonehead. So we bred the mare one last time and sent her up to Irene to birth. Low and behold... The stallion. I'm not quite sure why he is a stallion. Most male horses get gelded when they are young. But somehow, luckily, he eluded that fate.
And what's Irene's claim. Well the stallion was born on the property 'We Both Own'. She never brushed him, picked his feet, haltered him, saddled him, fed him much, and kept him in the worst pasture on the property (swampy and full of weeds). And when he was young let another horse kick him repeatedly in the leg. She wouldn't separate the horses or call the vet (which Shauna and I would gladly have paid for).
Oh my god. We've got a killer stallion .
So we had the vet out (in the winter) to do an ultrasound. No sense to do an x-ray because the leg is otherwise fine. So we chose to look at the tissue and for any fluid build-up. He poked and prodded, shaved and gelled and the stallion was well behaved. Wow! we were a little bit nervous how he would react.
Negative. Meaning the vet has no Idea what's going on with the leg.
It turns out that the stallion (even though he is relatively untrained and has been breeding) is the calmest and most manageable prospect on the property.
But were not convinced and now the only option is to trailer him to the closest town which has better equine veterinary care. We had two major problems here. Because of the unusually warm winter the pastures were very swampy. The second was that the stallion, as far as we knew, had never been in a trailer before. He's now up for a 100Km (~65 mi.) trek.
The first thing we 'felt' we had to do was to move the trailer into the pasture so we (actually mostly our good friend Cheryl) could test, and get him used to being in the trailer. Well, while driving the trailer into the soggy pasture it just got it stuck (we know this would happen but we were desperate). Fortunately we were still able to close the gate so even though the trailer was stuck close to the fence it was still suitable for the training exercise. So daily, Cheryl came out and...
We're In For A Lot Of Work -->
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