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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: The Value Of A Really Good Brain

“You have GOT to stop pulling.”

I feel like I say that a lot these days to my 4-year-old off-track Thoroughbred in what I think is our sixth week of stall rest but feels more like the sixtieth. Although his progress healing from a cracked splint bone has been good, he is not yet at the level of soundness he'll need to withstand the rough and tumble play in the field which probably led to this injury, so a month after our last update, we are still basically in the same place.

We are cleared for twice-daily hand grazes and just this week, under-saddle walks. After a Christmas week that included lots of texts to my veterinarian about reserpine and horse poo consistency, as well as a particularly rough hand walk where Blueberry had a rare temper tantrum and spent several minutes as a balloon, I told my friends at the barn I'd had just about enough of stall rest.

'He's driving me crazy,' I said.

But it's often in the most unexpected circumstances that we learn to appreciate the best in our horses. In the background of nursing Blueberry through his splint, I've also been exploring new career options for my 17-year-old draft cross mare. As I've written before, Jitterbug's start in life was not an easy one, and as a result, the start of her training was rocky. She was easy to start under saddle; the challenge came in when she realized I expected her to take instructions from me. We learned dressage, eventing, and jumpers together after I had spent my riding career in hunt seat, and as you can imagine, that was a slow transition. She was not – and still isn't – a particularly willing partner in dressage, but to balance her large frame and downhill canter for the jumps, we had to do a lot of it. It would be a step too far to say dressage judges hated us, but they were usually pretty happy to see us amble out of the ring.

The first horse (at right) and the second (at left)

When it came time for her to find a less rigorous job, I began making inquiries. There was interest from both a local lesson barn whose owner I know well and a nearby therapeutic riding program to lease her on trial (with the provision I retain ownership and be able to come ride and snuggle her frequently – a requirement for me after years of covering stories of well-intentioned sales gone wrong). As I've introduced her to new people, I've had to answer a lot of questions about her.

How is she with kids? Oh she loves kids; kids are her favorite people because they take the least amount of effort and are the most grateful for it. It's the perfect formula.

How is she with a busy environment? Well, since her normal exercise takes place with other (sometimes very green) horses working around her, surrounded by dogs and children, sometimes in blustery wind with pastured horses zooming around just over the fence, I'd say there's not much that bothers her. Except (ironically) carriages. Don't let her see a carriage.

Cows? Thinks they're a bit weird and doesn't really want one for a friend, so mostly just stares at them. Is turned out near a goat, a mini horse, chickens, and mini donkey, so other farmyard animals are no problem.

Is she hard to stop if she gets going with a forward trot? You're kidding, right?

What about ground manners? Her favorite thing in the world is eating. Her second favorite is sleeping. Her third favorite is days when her only job is to stand in the crossties while I clean tack, clean the stall, or clean her. She has quite literally stood there lazily in the midst of multiple fireworks displays while the barn cat weaved in between her legs.

Does she trail ride? She gets very excited on trail rides, and by that I mean she carries her head about four inches higher and sometimes snorts at trees.

Instead of focusing on what she couldn't (or wouldn't) do anymore, the process has made me realize what a terribly useful horse she is for a low-key job with riders in a lesson or therapeutic program, mostly because of how smart she is. She is very good at assessing any given situation and mentally filtering out what she doesn't need to spend energy on. (And in her case, there's very little she thinks is worth spending energy on – a liability in a dressage test, but a strength for the young students she has had through the years.)

That was what drew me to Blueberry's mother when I first met her at Keeneland. She was sweet, but above all, she was smart. She considered new things calmly, curiously. She learned habits – she could shift her weight to give me the next hoof when I finished picking one, and learned which direction I went around her body. She quickly figured out that it was easiest after a show to wait for me at the front of the stall; I might be back for her in a minute and a half because she was so popular, or if I had to get another filly out, she probably had about ten minutes to grab a snack before her next trip.

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When I swung a leg over Blueberry for our first under-tack walk earlier this week, I was taking extra precautions. Including his vacation after the Makeover and some downtime before his splint diagnosis, he hadn't been under saddle in two months. I checked my girth a few extra times. I asked my husband to hold him by the mounting block. I closed the arena gate.

And – he was serene. Forward and cheerful, but utterly unflappable. Our rides since have been exactly the same.

Sure, part of it was probably the low dose of reserpine a couple of weeks ago. But I think most of that is his brain. I think he's mostly happy to be doing something, but is smart enough to realize it's not worth too many airs above the ground. My friends keep pointing out what an incredible testimonial it is to him that at the age of four, he has been stalled for six weeks with comparatively minimal drama. There are some horses, particularly young ones and particularly hot-blooded breeds, who can't tolerate stall rest even with much heavier-hitting drugs at higher doses, and who would never have made it a month without needing some kind of sedation. He still stands quietly in the crossties for his standing wraps, ignores the gusts of wind rocking the barn and rattling the doors. He gets through each day not worrying about the one before or the one after, and I'm trying to channel his very smart coping mechanism.

I look really clever, having now hand-picked two incredibly rational, intelligent horses as partners. When I adopted Blueberry, I had been thinking about picking up a young prospect for some time, as I knew Jitter would soon need a lower-stress job. I wasn't committed to getting a Thoroughbred, actually. I wanted a really smart horse, and if they were athletic then that was a nice bonus. I was determined to reunite with him before exploring any other options, and see if he was the personality match I'd hoped for.

As I get ready to get back in the car for a second trip to the farm this holiday, I may feel tired but I also feel lucky. Even as our dressage training is on ice, Blueberry reminds me a little each day what an extraordinary individual he is. There was a Thoroughbred out there for me. I really believe there's a Thoroughbred out there for everyone.

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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: Them’s The Breaks

Even before I had a Thoroughbred, I knew how important it was to savor the sweet moments when they happen – a training breakthrough, trotting down center line in the Rolex Stadium at the Thoroughbred Makeover, sunset snuggles – because horse ownership is a journey of ups and downs. After our wonderfully successful outing at last month's Makeover, Blueberry and I have been on the shelf in one of those 'down' phases.

After a short vacation, we had just been getting him back into work when he came in with a bump on the inside of his right cannon bone. My veterinarian examined him and came to the reasonable conclusion that he had popped his splint bone.

Horses have two tiny, thin little bones known as splints that sit on either side of their cannons, running downwards from the knee and tapering off about three-quarters of the way down the leg. They serve no structurally useful purpose and are held onto the cannon with a ligament that runs between the two. It's pretty common for young racehorses to have what we call “popped” splints, which refers to a bump that appears along the bone, where the periosteum (the wrapping layer that sits between the bone and other tissue) has become irritated and inflamed. For young racing horses, this may happen as a response to a sudden increase in high-intensity speed work. In slightly older horses, like 4-year-old Blueberry, who isn't in what anyone would call “heavy” work, you usually see this because they've experienced direct trauma to the leg – banging it against something, getting a kick from a pasturemate in the wrong place, kicking themselves, etc.

Popped splints are not uncommon and usually heal within a couple of weeks with little treatment. Horses have to stop work, but usually can remain on turnout.

At first, what we all thought we were dealing with was a popped splint. It was hot, bumpy, and high up on the leg and it initially responded well to rest and anti-inflammatories. When it got a bit worse again though, I had a feeling it was more serious.

Indeed, two or three weeks into the process, the bump was no smaller but no longer hot and Blueberry was no sounder than he'd been at the start. This time, our veterinarian took radiographs, kicking himself for not doing it on his first visit. They revealed a crack along the inside of the splint bone – so that would explain why it wasn't progressing as we'd hoped. Breaking a splint bone is much less common than just bumping/irritating one, and while I wish we had caught it earlier, it looked up to that point like a very classic case of the more common problem based on its location, his response to palpation and initial response to anti-inflammatories.

The good news is, because his splint is cracked but doesn't have either end broken off, he doesn't require surgery. The bad news is, the only real treatment is time…and rest. Time doesn't worry me; it's winter, and the weather in Central Kentucky doesn't lend itself to really consistent training this time of year anyway. Plus, he's four and we are not Olympics-bound; whatever time he needs, he can have. But rest in this case means stall rest – at least 30 days with no turnout. For Blueberry, that means staring at the same four walls for a staggering number of hours and not getting to rough house with his buddies. For me, that means driving to the barn twice each day instead of once for hand grazing sessions, juggling as much work as I can on my smartphone in the cold, and watching him anxiously for signs of ulcers, colic, new stereotypic behaviors, or basically a hair out of place. And it means I'm spending a stupid amount of money on stall toys for this not-at-all-spoiled little dude.

The barn cats are usually not too far away during our hand grazing sessions

This will be new territory for me though probably not for him, given his previous injuries on the racetrack. I'll have the chance – for better or worse – to see how he reacts to prolonged stress, and what strategies are effective at minimizing that stress. We hope at two weeks we'll get clearance to tack/hand walk, which will open up a new world of possible amusements. In the meantime, I am doing all the research into stall toys and low impact games that I can.

Our verdict on what we've tried so far:

Jolly Ball: Hates it. Doesn't see the point of it. Not convinced it's peppermint-scented and thinks it gets in the way of his hay net.
Super slow feed hay net with half-inch holes: Convinced it's a solid plastic bag hanging from the ceiling and that there is no actual food to be extracted from it, so mostly ignores it.
Slow feed net and bag: We like the net more than the bag, despite them both having one-inch holes. I've no idea why, but as long as he will eat out of something I won't question it.
Spinning, wall-mounted chew toy: He doesn't know why I added more plastic to his stall. Hasn't this human heard yet that plastic is killing the planet? Have yet to try: smearing some honey on it to see if I can convince him to start mouthing it – and not his doorframe.
Traffic cone: Wonderful. The absolute most exciting thing he could be given (I suspect because it was free). With no honey as a bribe, he will pick it up and throw it around the aisle joyfully.
Stuffed dinosaur: Per policy in the Roger Attfield barn, we removed the eyes so he wouldn't actually swallow one – and if there's anything to make you feel like a monster, it's hacking the eyes off a stuffed animal and then hanging it with bailing twine by its neck. Regardless of its rather violent look, he thinks this is great, and likes to grab it by the tail and wave it at onlookers.
Dog chew toy stuffed with hay and carrots: He doesn't quite get the concept, or is just lazy. Pulls out the carrots he can see and ignores the bitten-off ends and hay inside the ball, despite (I'm sure) being able to smell them.

Yet to try:

A snuffle mat with food or hay pellets sprinkled inside
A Likit toy
Moving into the barn and putting on a variety show outside his stall each hour

The sun is setting on Day 9 of our 30 days, and while Blueberry has grown a little impatient and grumpy, he's still basically himself. We're taking each day one grazing session at a time. We will get through this [someday] and move along to bigger and better things. In the grand scheme of bones he could have broken, this one really won't have long-term consequences for him. In the big picture, it's a blip, but for now it feels very overwhelming and unending. I have to remind myself though, that the nature of rollercoasters with horses is that the dips don't last forever. Sooner or later, you end up back on top again.

The post The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: Them’s The Breaks appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: Lessons From The Thoroughbred Makeover

Three weeks after the Thoroughbred Makeover and I'm still walking on air when I think about Blueberry's performance. My big goals going into the dressage competition at this year's Makeover had been that he be mentally prepared for the situation – two back-to-back dressage tests in the Rolex Stadium, a large and echoey structure unlike anyplace he had competed before – and that we not finish last.

Our scores on our two tests weren't the highest we've ever gotten, but they were solid and the tests themselves were the best we've ever put in. We came 40^th out of a group of 89, many of whom were dressage professionals. I am thrilled with that outcome.

I started this series with a list of early lessons I took away from my first months with an off-track Thoroughbred (OTTB). (You can find that post here.) That seems like a good way to sum up the many things we learned from this wonderful, crazy, exhausting experience.

Last-minute hoof issues aren't necessarily the end of the world. Any time Blueberry experiences any kind of discomfort, he is pretty dramatic about it. We say he's a sensitive flower, which has its advantages in the dressage ring. I actually consider it a good thing that he's unafraid to express to me when he's in pain, because I know right away when something is wrong. This also meant that when he got his first hot nail (the first one my farrier has been responsible for in a decade working at my barn, just my luck), he acted like he was dying. Naturally, this happened about nine days before we were due to ship in to the Kentucky Horse Park. Initially we weren't sure whether he had a hot nail or a brewing abscess and I quickly learned that the former will resolve very quickly while the latter, though similarly minor in terms of seriousness, would probably take more than a week to get him back to full strength.We spent three days with his shoe off, diligently packing the foot round the clock and soaking it just before the farrier's recheck just in case he had both a hot nail and an abscess. In three days, the nail hole had closed clean and we were dealing with minor bruising from the time the shoe had been off. We practiced our Training 2 test two days before shipping, charging into the biggest horse show week with exactly two training sessions in the previous 10 days. By the time he arrived at the Park, he was sound, rested, and ready to go, if a little lighter on practice and fitness training than I had intended.
So the next time I hear about a Derby prospect with a last-minute foot issue, I'm not going to throw them out until I know more about what's going on. A turnaround can be possible, even in what feels like the eleventh hour.

A moment from our Training 2 test
Horses don't always fit into the timelines we've laid out. Ok, I knew this one already but I'd always thought of it upside down – that if anything, you have to move slowly doing anything with any horse just on principle. But that's not right for everyone. With a month or two to go until the Makeover, I was aware we'd need to step up from the Intro Level tests we'd been performing in competition to the Training Level 2 test we'd be required to do at Makeover. I also knew in advance that we'd only have one show prior to Makeover where we'd have a chance to ride that test. Each level contains three tests, which get progressively more difficult, so Training 2 is actually the fifth and most difficult test we've tried. With a few weeks to go, I still believed it was possible that after Makeover we'd need to step back down to Intro C, the test I figured we'd have been riding if we hadn't had the Makeover as a goal. The one time we competed Training 2, I forgot part of the test and missed a few key technical marks. We were still struggling to get our correct canter leads on the first try. It was — not quite a mess, but not an auspicious beginning.We got a lot of practice in during Makeover week, drilling Training 2 over and over. Leaving the Rolex, I knew I was sitting on a Training Level horse. In just a few short weeks, we belonged at that level. I didn't think we could both improve that quickly but we did.
A bored baby Thoroughbred in horse show stabling will eventually, with great determination and practice, find a way to poop into his water bucket. And his feed tub. My mare did not prepare me for this level of depravity. Gross, dude. He will also not learn from the experience and may do it again tomorrow if he has finessed his aim.
The notion that a seam ripper is a critical tool in your horse show kit is not a suggestion. I had Blueberry professionally braided because my braids are absolutely awful and I wanted him to look amazing. He did, and the braider sewed the braids in (which explained how they stayed in so well, no matter how he rubbed his neck along the door frame). She did a beautiful job. I reluctantly took them out at the end of the evening, in the dark, carefully hunting for black thread with bandage scissors so as not to cut holes in his mane. When eventers (at least the eventers I know) braid, it's usually with bands that are easy to pull, but the hunters mean business, even when they do button braids. Seam ripper = vital equipment next time.
Do not underestimate the bombproof nature of a well-behaved 4-year-old Thoroughbred. Our stabling for the Makeover faced out onto one of the busiest parts of the park for vehicle and foot traffic. We hacked through the show grounds and around the edges of the cross country course to get to our schooling area every day. Although Blueberry had been to small horse shows many times before this, he had to see and hear a lot during this particular week, and he feared nothing. Other horses spooking, bolting, galloping cross country, dogs, golf carts, backfiring tractors – he thought about none of it. Even the echoey Rolex grandstand and brightly-decorated judges' booths were of very little concern to him.The only thing he looked at was the giant rack of colorful jump poles that was being unloaded by volunteers on our first day at the Park and must have looked to him a little like windmills looked to Don Quixote. Fair enough. He stared, planted his feet, and shook in his bell boots. I was nervous, not knowing if he would try to bolt. I considered dismounting, but I sat still in the saddle. I patted him. I let him think for a few minutes, trying consciously to lower my own heart rate. He took a breath, chomped on his bit, and decided to believe me when I promised him they were safe. Is there a greater feeling than your horse saying, 'I trust you'?
All smiles after our second and final dressage test at the Makeover.
The greatest lessons sometimes evolve from a tough warm-up. Blueberry handled the atmosphere of the Rolex Stadium brilliantly, but we did have a bobble in our first schooling session on Monday, several days before our competition on Thursday. We were running through our test and were just passing the judge's booth when someone dropped something inside the grandstand. It sounded like something heavy, maybe a folding table, making a big, echoey boom. I watched Blueberry's ear move towards it, process, and ignore the sound … but unfortunately, about two steps later, it was time for me to ask for a left lead canter. I wanted the transition to be sharp, and I rotated my knee about a half inch too far, touching him gently with more spur than heel instead of the other way around. I don't know if it was the sonic boom or the unexpected spur poke, but he took off bucking. It was a short episode and I sat it well, but I did have long enough to think about how much I did not want to fall and have my horse run loose through one of the more famous outdoor arenas in this country.I can't lie – this moment rattled me. I spent two days overanalyzing it, and then I realized that 1) He had almost certainly been reacting out of indignation and not fear 2) He had almost certainly forgotten about it as soon as I sat up, gathered my reins, and taken us through a 20-meter circle still in the canter and 3) I came out of this moment just fine. I didn't even lose a stirrup.
All along this journey I have doubted myself more than Blueberry – am I a good enough rider to teach him this new sport? Do I know him well enough to read his moods and his emotional needs? Am I capable of putting the pieces back together when things go wrong? And thanks to our amazing support team – my husband, my trainer, my barn friends – I came away from that schooling session eventually recognizing that my horse has faith in me, and I should, too. (It helped that after a couple of days of long workouts and daily walks around the park, he was also probably too tired for a repeat.) This is something that I know will come up again and again. Unshakable confidence doesn't grow overnight, but it does come through repeated good experiences, and I know Blueberry can give me those.

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The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: With Makeover Two Weeks Away, This OTTB Is Already A Winner

Exactly two weeks from today, I will have finished my second dressage ride at the Thoroughbred Makeover. The last few months of training and competing with Blueberry have been preparation for two five-minute sessions in the enormous outdoor stadium at the Kentucky Horse Park normally resolved for much more advanced, professional riders and very expensive horses.

For those who aren't familiar, the Retired Racehorse Project's Thoroughbred Makeover is a training competition open to recently-retired off-track Thoroughbreds. Much like the Kentucky Derby, you're only eligible to do it for one year, because the purpose is to show off how much Thoroughbreds can learn in the first ten months or so of training for a new sport or 'discipline.' There are ten different horse disciplines running at the Makeover, and you may pick one or two to compete in. Blueberry and I will be competing in dressage, so the format for us is that we will perform two tests – a prescribed test which we must memorize and replicate as accurately as possible, and a freestyle where we have five minutes to ride in whatever sequence or pattern we choose to show off what he has learned. We'll get to do this in the Rolex Stadium, which is a giant arena with plenty of distractions so he'll also need to be calm and focused in order to do well. Our placing is determined by our combined score from the two rides.

The top five scores from each horse sport will return for a finals round to determine the winner from each discipline. Then, an overall winner is chosen from the various horse sports, with the judges favoring the horse who has proven the best example at their chosen second career.

While we have a few things we'll be practicing in our last two weeks, I think we're as ready as we can be. Reporters always grumble a little in the last days before the Derby as the field's trainers all give us very much the same quotes morning after morning. Their work is mostly done by those last few days. They're hoping to keep their horses happy and sound; you can acclimate them to the new track, you can school them in the paddock, but you're either almost ready to run 1 ¼ miles or you aren't. If you aren't, you're already out of time. There's not much else for a trainer to say in that situation, but it makes for boring copy. As a rider though, I get it.

Likewise, we will school in the big stadium, and we will practice making our trot-to-halter sharper, our right lead canter departs smoother and more correct…but the big pieces are in place. Since we began training in late April, Blueberry has gone to two shows as a non-competing entry just to check out the environment and four shows as a competitor. He has performed four different tests a total of six times, including one we'll do at the Makeover. He has seen chaotic show environments and spent a night away from home, handling all of that with the ease I'd expect from a horse who witnessed busy racing barns and spent lots of time on the road during his race career.

My conditions for whether we'd attend the Makeover were always two-fold: He must be sound and healthy (so far so good, but cross your fingers his front shoes stay on), and I must feel I've mentally prepared him for what the competition requires of him. I feel like I've accomplished the latter, which is an enormous task in itself.

There are hundreds of horses and riders coming from all around the country to compete at the Makeover, and nearly 100 pairs in my dressage class alone. I'm a competitive person, but I'm also a realist – our goals for this event aren't about where we finish, because we're not likely to appear in the finals. We'll be facing professional riders with horses who started their training months before us; while I believe that Blueberry is athletic and has a lot of potential in dressage, there will also be horses with more raw talent here than us.

And all of that is fine. Because we've already won.

An evolution of Blueberry's body condition and muscling through this year

In the five months we've had together, he has completely changed jobs and made it look easy. He has completely changed the way he uses his muscles, and built muscle in new places, keeping his little ears pricked even when I know I'm asking him to do something challenging. When we ride down the center line of a dressage ring at a show, a switch flips in his mental energy. With no previous experience, he somehow knows when he is competing, despite the fact his competitors no longer run alongside him. He stands patiently in the wash rack at home or the trailer at the show grounds like a horse who has done this all for years. He lets me kick my feet out of the stirrups in an open grass field and carries me carefully, allowing me to wobble as I work on my core strength and balance. He walks through puddles and over tarps, trots through ground pole exercises, and calmly ignores it when his friends in a nearby pasture start galloping and bucking while we're trying to finish up a schooling session. In many important ways, Blueberry is so advanced for a 4-year-old in this stage of training.

My mare, though I love her, was a tough ride. He has made dressage fun for me for the first time. He has taught me that patience can be rewarded. He has helped me retrain my own muscles to ride more correctly and quietly. He has given me so much confidence. And it's all just the beginning.

The Makeover was a bucket list event for us, but it'll only cap off our very first season together. We plan to have many more, with new goals. The way we'll ride a Training Level test in two weeks will be very different from the way we ride it in another year. But when we come down the center line to salute the judge, I will be so incredibly proud to present him. However he compares to everyone else, he is an absolute champion to me.

The post The Blueberry Bulletin Presented By Equine Equipment: With Makeover Two Weeks Away, This OTTB Is Already A Winner appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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