ch-update

In my mind, there's some sort of clever way to combine the words "Chuck" and "up date" for a blog post title. But nothing ever quite sounds so cute when I actually write it out. Chuckdate? UpChuckDate? Idk. I try tho, I try.

dis my horse. there are many others like him. others with fewer dings and dents. but this one is mine. 

Anyway. Last we heard of our bay hero, we were fantasizing about bionic footwear. Bc homeboy busted another splint.

nobody's favorite sight in the field

It was so disappointing too. Like. I had all these Loch Moy schooling passes that were imminently expiring, so my friends and I were hustling like mad to find a day that worked for us to all get out there.

Meanwhile, one friend saw that Stephen Bradley (the last US rider to win Burghley, who also incidentally judged the recent YEH classes when I scribed) would be teaching lessons on the competition course as part of Loch Moy's "Week with the Pros."

well golly gee whiz, chuck. that sure is.... a.... leg

It was so perfect - obviously we would all go!! But one by one, my friends had issues crop up that meant they had to back out.

Not to be daunted tho, I was so resolutely stubborn about riding in this clinic. Esp after our Ralph Hill mulch-induced abscess fiasco. I even secured another rider to fill the empty spot in my trailer.

in our quiet time together recently, i discovered that, WOW, charlie has some serious eyebrows haha

And even tho the scheduling was tight, with literally not one single moment to spare to make it from north east of Baltimore City all the way over to almost Frederick for a 5pm lesson time across beltway rush hour.... Dammit, we would do it.

look at that freakin thing! it's like bangs but for his eye!!

Alas, as you already have surmised, it was not to be. I hustled out to Charlie's field only to be greeted by an enormously fat leg. Like one does when one owns a Charlie, I'm habituated to immediately doing a visual leg-check each time I see my horse.

So.... Ya know. It was pretty abundantly obvious from basically the first moment that Charlie would not be going on this cross country clinic. Ugh. Sigh.

(Tho of course I still went, having been so resourceful in scrounging up a trailer mate, it was too late to renege on driving now..... at least they had a great ride!)

returned to his friend with at least some of the dirt knocked off

My mind was already racing tho. Every single little alarm bell was chiming its warning. Bc.... Yea. I knew. This was the splint. You know. The one from April? That he did the morning before Full Moon. That we then rested, that healed. That has been sound and happy and completely clear and tight ever since.

But is now.... angry. To me, this was a pattern. This was July of last year when I thought my horse was fighting bell-boot-induced cellulitis but actually it was just an aggravation of his splint from the February before.

he always wants to say hi tho <3

Every single sane and trusted and reasonable adviser last year told me not to worry about the splints. That it was fine. Every vet looked at me a little side-eyed when my voice even so much as verged on hinting at panic.

It's a splint. It's simple. It doesn't move. It's not weight bearing. Get the swelling out. Ice, cold hose. Bute. SMZs to be safe. Wrap it. Poultice. What the fuck ever. Make it happy and all will be well. Conventional Wisdom.

"they told me i could be anything. so i became a donkey." - charlie, probably

Literally the only faction that said anything different was the useless internet troll contingent ("oMg FiRe YoUr VeT tHiS iNsTaNt") but ya know.... everything you read on the internet is true.

legs are so much nicer with definition tho!

It's still honestly not clear to me why Charlie's splint last year went so downhill. Why he kept aggravating it. Each aggravation was increasingly worse. Until the body eventually rejected the fractured bone fragment (nearly 8 months post fracture...), it abscessed, and Charlie was admitted for surgery at New Bolton.

this horse takes the "retired" part of retired race horse wayyyyyy too seriously tho

It makes my skin crawl to think we could be back on that same trajectory now. I just.... Ugh. The thought of laying Charlie out on a table for his third lifetime surgery (and second with me) is just so extremely unreasonably grotesquely excessive. But in my mind, we're already there. It's a forgone conclusion.

Again tho, every reasonable person thinks I'm actually legitimately fucking nuts. And yes, internet armchair quarterbacks, I *did* hire a new vet this time. And we did ALL the things. All of the expensive diagnostic imagery. All of the money. And each time she thought she had looked enough, I asked for more. And yes. She did in fact think I was wayyyyyy overboard.

ha. he is majesty. he is grace. he is..... like none other....

Bc.... It's just a fucking splint. It doesn't move. It doesn't bear weight. There's an old injury in there that she can see, from April, but it has healed. And does not appear at risk. There is nothing "discrete" as she called it. No signs of cellulitis. No signs of any sort of pocket of infection or abscess. Nothing but edema and hematoma.

Prescription? Ice. Cold hose. Wrap. Poultice. Bute. SMZs (and lots tho). Limited turnout. Until the swelling is under control. And then? Boom. Per vet's orders, we're entirely free to move about the proverbial cabin.

She cannot see literally anything in there to suggest anything - anything - else.

unrelated. sma snapper i found on a lake walk during a work trip. so cute tho!

I just..... ugh. Have feelings. Luckily tho, Charlie doesn't really seem too worried about it haha. It's like he knew I had him scheduled for a 2wk break at some point this fall and figured he'd pencil it in on his calendar as he saw fit.

For now, his day to day situation depends on the swelling. It lingered a little longer than I expected, but that's ok. He's been lucky that his own injury coincided with a pasture mate's abscess, so they've been keeping each other company in small paddock turnout.

As of last night tho, the leg looked alllllllmost as tight as might reasonably be expected. So hopefully it'll stay that way. The horse is definitely eager to return to his field.

And for my part? Eh, I'm not exactly what you would call "happy" -- but for once I'm not stressed about the saddle time we're missing. Not at all, not even a little bit. Charlie's a good boy. And an incredible riding partner. I want him to stay that way for a lonnnng time to come. So for now, we take it easy. Just workin on his Dad Bod 2.0 haha.