That is SO 2020

Long time, no chat!  2020 has been "a year", more so than most.  I know everyone has their own struggles through this year and I don't mean to make light of all of the serious things that are happening (and there are a lot).  But in our own little bubbles, our own struggles seem so much bigger.  I have a story for you my friends, and I will do my best to keep it short, but, its a 2020 story, so there are basically no promises about anything anymore!

The last we talked, I told everyone about my decision to retire my beloved Tosh.  It was the right choice, I have zero regrets about how that happened, other than I am slightly bitter that I went all the way to FL only for him to break a week before we would have shown (and won) at Global.  So I headed into 2020 being the owner of one retired horse and making the decision that the next horse I buy will be a school master.  The only way that I can properly learn how to ride correct dressage is by riding a horse that knows more than I do and trusting in my trainer who knows more that the both of us.  Well, like you do, I found a horse by accident.  He happened to be in my email after I had vowed that I was going to shift my priorities and focus on productive things that were not horses.  That did not work out so well for me.  Instead, here was a very pretty, very fancy, big, grey horse.  Shown through I1 (two steps below Grand Prix), promoted as a wonderful schoolmaster that anyone could learn on.  Super safe and not wildly out of budget!!  My trainer really liked him so we called and his trainer gave us all the right answers over the phone and then I found myself buying plane tickets for myself and my Mom to go to Texas and try him.

His sales ad.  How could I not go see him!?

We went with the intention of being very critical of him and not committing to buying him just because we were there and might like him.  Well, we were there, and we did like him, and he passed the vetting that I watched and sent to my vet (and farrier) back home.  Once all the x-rays and blood tests came back, there was still nothing that made me say no.  So I said yes, and transferred a bunch of my money and set up shipping.  At the beginning of February, Carter showed up in Maryland, ready to teach me and take me on to fulfill my dreams of doing all the things and learning as we went.  Well, he was ready to do all those things for about 3 weeks.  Then he strained his suspensory.  The best we can figure is that it was a good spook that he gave me on our way out to the outdoor ring that did it.  My vet was confident that he would make a full recovery and come back to full work load.  Well, I have rehabbed more than my fair share of horses, this would be no different.  Thankfully I had had the good sense to have the horse insured so I was able to be aggressive about the healing process with my vet.  We did all the things that she felt would benefit him.  Let me tell you, if you are going to rehab a horse, do it during a pandemic.  There is nothing else going on so you have all the time to do it slow and right.  You aren't missing out on shows or other opportunities, you are just grateful that your small barn remains open so you can continue the very slow process of rehab.  He did beautifully, slow but steady, my vet was super happy about the progress that she was seeing and feeling with him and that leg. (YAY!! We might be ready to show at like first level once shows are a thing again!!)  We made it all the way through our rehab to canter work and were just building strength and stamina at the canter before we started doing anything lateral.  And then in mid September, the leg blew up.  Not huge, not tons, and he never went lame, but I knew and so did my vet.  We scheduled an appointment with an ultrasound specialist.  He was very thorough and very knowledgeable and showed us what he was seeing.  The short version of the report was that the entire suspensory structure, from top to bottom, was terrible and had multiple small tears and it was chronic.  This horse will never return to high level work and certainly not to showing...

And now I am the owner of two retired horses.  Neither of whom can do the job that I want them to.  Tosh earned retirement.  Carter, the horse that was sound for 3 weeks and more likely than not, was sold to me with a suspensory issue, not so much.  So what do I do with him?  The answer happened to be a bit of a beautiful full circle feeling.  I was able to contact and work with a local therapeutic riding program that I had volunteered for as a kid.  The manager who would be caring for him and over seeing him was 100% my kind of people and had worked with high level dressage horses in the past and understood the proper maintenance that was needed to keep them going.  Their team came and evaluated him and loved him.  He is a wonderful, sweet, kind, well educated horse, of course they did!  I heard back from them the next day and they asked to take him on trial.  We agreed on a long trial period since he was starting over with rehab and they also needed to be able to see if he was going to actually work in their program.  Almost to the day of when he arrived in MD the year before, we signed the paperwork to transfer ownership.  I will be forever grateful that I was able to find the proper home for this lovely horse who deserves every kiss and pat he is going to get from his new group of people.

2020 started with SO much promise in this horse and turned out to be another stroke of terrible luck for me.  To be 100% honest, I am taking it personally at this point.  I have vowed to sit tight before looking again so that I can recover emotionally and financially from this hard hit.  I am secretly (or not so secretly since I am publishing it online) hoping that this break, while I may hate it, is going to reset my garbagy luck.

I am totally Pandemic Fine right now.