MARE! Come ON!

O's done it again. She sliced up her OTHER hind leg, right before a show! WHY!

What the....

I lunged her yesterday and she was fairly good. It's interesting... she lunges easily to the right but drives horribly to the right, and lunges horribly to the left but drives easily to the left. She bends great driving left but goes around severely counterbent when lunging left, and bends great lunging right but goes around severely counterbent when driving right. She has always been this way and no amount of chiro, dental, massage therapy, craniosacral work, or vet work has actually done anything to change it. Ah well... we continue to work on it.

I didn't lunge her with hind wraps or boots on, so I didn't closely inspect the hinds until I was washing her off after she was done working. To my horror, I found a big slice right on the back of the right hind. It was fresh, but not so fresh that she did it while lunging - she must have found a small part of the fence to slice herself on. I scoured my fencelines and while I'm not totally sure where she did it, I think I have an idea. Nobody *else* has ever gotten cut up anywhere on my no-climb fences - they're pretty safe! - but I think she's just been in such flaming heat for weeks that there is no escaping her odd behavior. Literally she has been in heat for over three weeks now... it's that weird transitional spring heat, and she does it every year. There is a point where it gets frustrating, and we've definitely reached that. Just go out of heat already you spaz!

Of course, Sunrise Ridge is FOUR days. Naturally.

I gave her a gram of bute, clipped the wound and cleaned it, and wrapped her legs. Today the swelling is down about 50 percent, but is still tender to touch. The other leg was puffy too - I can't say that it's totally back to normal after the cut she received on that leg. That's how she plays though... gets a tiny scrape, legs blow up enormously, and the swelling takes AGES to go down. She's never lame when she does it, but she does it pretty regularly. 

A perfect C? What does that mean? C for crappy? C for crazy mare?

We're doctored and wrapped up again for the night. We'll probably keep that routine up until we roll into the showgrounds - if we even go. It's hard to choose in this case - she's fine, she's not lame, she just has a cut and a puffy leg because of the cut. If she was lame, it would clearly be an easy choice. I already pulled once from a show this year for a cut and a puffy leg.

We'll just have to see how she does over the next few days. UGH! Mare! 

As an aside, here she was this weekend doing her final drive before the show (was supposed to just lunge this week and rest a bit). She was REALLY hot and forward!