Saying Goodbye.

Getting back to my horse "story"....

The summer was hot as usual in Tennesee and I continued to care for the horses. I worked with "Bucky" with the lead and he was doing pretty well. I at least felt like I was accomplishing something.
John (the ex-jockey/horse trainer) was called to look at the horses hooves. I felt like they were splitting more than usual and wanted them checked. John was also a farrier. He did a little trimming and filing but said they were not bad. I was not having anything go wrong on my watch! Corn syrup and corn oil was added to their diet, as recommend by John's girlfriend that also cared for horses. The horses seemed to like it and it could only help. I later would see a nice improvement with their coats.
One morning when I went to feed the horses I noticed Lady Gelaine limping. She seemed to be dragging her back right hoof. I went to to check it out and noticed some raised red areas scattered on her lower leg and open red spots under her hoof, it looked like eczema. I got on my cell and called Travis and he was going to call Mr. Hunt. I also called Julie in Louisiana to see if she knew what this was. She did not but later spoke with someone and thought it was Dew poisioning. The vet came the next day and treated her and sure enough it was. Some blood work was done to rule out anything else. It slowly improved and she started to walk better.

Since Johnny's death Mr. Hunt had decided to stop breeding and wanted to sell the mares and their foals. Since he was unable to do so he decided to have them shipped up to Ohio to his farm. I knew this day was coming and did not look forward to it. Originally it was going to be sometime in the fall but later changed his mind to end of August.

Mr. Hunt called me on a Monday and told me the haulers were coming Wednesday and asked if on Tuesday I could get the horses in the barn. Ed and I were not use to this and Travis did not handle the horses either. We tried to get ahold of John to help but could not.

Ed and I decided to put Salina and her foal Bucky in the barn first. No problem....Ed took Salina and I had a lead on Bucky. It went pretty good until we got close to the barn Bucky no way wanted to go in and started to pull back on me, Ed got Salina in and then she started making a racket! Her whole docile demeanor changed and she started flaring and pacing...we finally got Bucky in the stall with her thinking this would solve her anxiety but she actually got worse. I was afraid she would hurt Bucky, she started to sweat and would not calm down. At this point we knew it was going to be impossible to move the other two, Lady Gelaine no problem but her filly, that was the tough one. We realized this was not going to work. Salina was not all worked up because she was in the stall it's because we separated her from Lady Gelaine. Now Salina started to roll in the stall and really sweat out, I called Julie because I was not sure what to do. She said we would have to put her back in the pasture, and then Julie was worried about colic. Now I'm thinking holy crap what the hell did we do?? Heck with the haulers let them get the horses from the pasture themselves. Ed took Salina out first and I followed with Bucky, right back out to the pasture with no problems. Salina started rolling and rolling, all the while I had Julie on my cell. She then went to the water and started drinking and stuck to Lady's side like glue. She was fine, thank God. I could not believe the change in her. She was not worried about her foal she was worried about her good friend Lady. Needless to say the horses stayed in the pasture and thankfully so because the hauler did not show up on Wednesday.

Too be continued.....