Five months ago, Kaitlynn Buchholz didn't know if her recently-retired Thoroughbred Jaguar Ridge was going to survive the week.
Buchholz, who is based at her Ha'Penny Farms in Aurora, Mo., got a call early one morning that her Thoroughbred Makeover hopeful had come in from the field bleeding profusely from one foot. No one ever figured out quite how, but he had managed to slice his heel bulb with a cut that wrapped around to the inside of his hoof and went as deep as the coffin joint.
It was a chaotic scene, and since he'd incurred the injury overnight, it was impossible to know how much blood the gelding had lost already. Amazingly though, Jaguar Ridge (fondly known as “Jaggy”) was sound on the limb and nonplussed by the hubbub. Though he probably hadn't been through anything quite so dramatic before, Jaggy had by that point seen a lot in life – he is 14 years old and retired after 99 starts, mostly in his native Illinois. Buchholz said it's not in his nature to fret much, which probably helped him in this scenario.
Buccholz loaded Jaggy onto her trailer and rushed him to Pine Ridge Equine Hospital in Glenpool, Okla., which was the closest facility that could accommodate his emergency.
“Pine Ridge was like, 'When can you get here?' and I said, 'I'm three hours away,' and they said, 'Well, drive fast,'” she said. “I'm standing there in the surgery room and the surgeon sticks his finger in the wound and says, 'This is really bad. He said he'd seen horses with this kind of injury before and none of them had lived, and did we want to euthanize him?
“I was like, 'No. Whatever it takes.'”
It took two surgeries and ten days of hospitalization. Since a joint infection was a major risk, surgeon Dr. Andrew McClain opted not to close the wound up immediately to avoid trapping an infection inside the joint. Instead, he put a catheter into the wound and flushed it with corticosteroids for five days before performing a final lavage and closing it up.
McClain warned Buchholz that the outcome was anything but certain; the horse would need a long rehabilitation and even after that, they'd be lucky if he was pasture sound. If there were any complications at all, Buccholz said, she was told it would be too much for the horse to overcome. At the first sign of lameness during those early weeks, she was prepared to accept that she may have to euthanize.
To everyone's surprise, Jaggy never took an off step. At his recheck a few weeks after the injury, veterinarians asked Buchholz what her ambitions were for the horse. She said she'd do anything he was capable of doing. They advised she give him two months off, start him under saddle, and see how far they could get. She got on for her first ride post-injury in early August.
“He was literally a saint,” she said. “I didn't lunge him, I just got on and he was like, 'Cool, what do you want to do now?'”
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Want to support our journalism while accessing bonus behind-the-scenes content, Q&As, and more? Subscribe to our Patreon stream.The Makeover had been a longtime ambition for Buchholz. She has come to the event as a spectator since 2019, dreaming of the day she could bring a horse herself. Buchholz acquired Jaguar Ridge privately after he had proven the wrong match for a younger rider. Most of her barn is off-track Thoroughbreds.
“I took him to one show before here,” she said. “He's taken it all in stride. He's never told me no. I've always said if anything feels off or weird with him, we'll back off; we'll stick to dressage, do whatever he needs. He's game for whatever I want. He's literally perfect. I was supposed to sell him, and I'm not going to. He's mine forever.”
When Buchholz and Jaguar Ridge arrived in Lexington, she guessed they had completed maybe 20 rides together since he resumed under-saddle work in August. Makeover competitors could begin the retraining process formally at the start of the year, so while many had ten months of consistent work going into the event, Jaguar Ridge had two. Still, he stood quietly in between his flat and jumping portions of the show hunter event, with one leg cocked and his eyes slowly closing in the autumn sunshine, as if he'd done it all before.
They had their own fan club following them to competition in both the show hunters and dressage – Buchholz had family that flew in from out of state, a client that made the ten-hour drive from Missouri to help her on the grounds.
Jaguar Ridge and Kaitlynn Buchholz competed this afternoon in Show Hunters. Jaguar Ridge is a 2008 gelding by Cactus Ridge and retired in May 2021 from racing with record of 99-18-10-10 and $157,972 making him the oldest entry in this years #TBMakeover. pic.twitter.com/vniNg9BX64
— Retired Racehorse Project (@RRP_TBMakeover) October 12, 2022
“We have the best support group ever,” she said. “This is the dream team. And the dream horse.”
Though they finished out of the top ten in both their disciplines, Buchholz said she was proud of their effort. For many competitors, the simple act of completing ten months of retraining and the subsequent competition is more than enough of a reward. And for Jaggy and Buchholz, it's just the beginning.
The post From The Brink Of Death To The Thoroughbred Makeover, Jaguar Ridge Is Everything To His Rider appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
