Up to Him

Wrong.


The vet immediately took a serious look at the situation and quickly administered both a sedative and painkiller as he said that eye injuries are excruciating (ever poked yourself in the eye? Not a nice feeling).

At this point I don’t fully understand the situation. I hear words like ‘traumatic’, ‘blindness’, ‘infection’, ‘euthanasia’….I clearly remember catching that last one, and promptly breaking down.

This is my young, healthy, athletic three year old with all the potential in the world…beautiful, graceful, spirited…euthanasia does not fit into this picture. At all. This is my Traveller, my horse….this happens to other peoples horses, this is something you read about….this doesn’t happen to my horse.

Thankfully there was one clear head in the room, the vets. He said that yes, Traveller was now permanently blind in his right eye. That ‘goo’ we thought was coming out of the eye was actually his cornea that was now hanging off, covered in dirt from where he tried to rub his face to relieve the intense pain. The actual injury was a small three-corner tear in the middle of the eye…a puncture from something small and sharp. To this day we do not know what it was, we have ideas, but it will never be known for sure.

The vets advice was to give him a chance. Our number our concern was of course safety; if he was going to be a danger to himself or others we would have to make the decision to have him put down. Even in the excruciating pain, Traveller remained fairly calm, letting us catch him, load him, and walk into a strange place….he had trusted us to help him. The vet said that this is a good indication of his temperament and how he will handle life without one eye.

With this said, we decided to leave him at the vets for a few days where he could be monitored and receive the proper medications….and be in a controlled environment if his demeanour were to drastically change. It was up to him.

We drove home with an empty trailer and not a dry eye in sight.

911

So things seemed to be going smoothly. It was winter so he did not get a whole lot of work, but he definitely was more manageable than prior to the training time.


Things were looking up.

I remember that it was a cold/wet/windy day, we got home from school and my mom said that we had an emergency appointment at the vets as there seemed to be something wrong with Travellers left eye.

Uh oh.

He loaded easily into the trailer and the ride over was very uneventful, he was almost better behaved than normal. He unloaded well, walked into the clinic and stood in the stocks calmly. There can’t be too much wrong then, right?

And Enter.....

So two years after we got Bob it was becoming apparent that jumping just wasn’t his thing….he would just to please you, but did not fully enjoy it. At this point the jumps were also getting higher and the courses more complicated, so it was only fair to him to start looking at other options. Luckily, my brother had just started to take an interest in horses so Bob would still have lots to keep him going, but be able to go back down to a slower pace.

Therefore…….Horse Shopping Time!!!

I knew I wanted something younger, no older than 12, taller than 15.3hh, a good mind, sound, a gelding, good movement…….oh it gets so complicated!!

An internet add: 3yo grey Saddlebred gelding, should mature 16hh, inquisitive and kind…..

Me: “Ooooo, what a pretty horse!” Uh huh, I hate to admit, that’s how it started.

So we ended up going to see this horse, as we walk down the hill he is standing at the gate….with his foot on it, shaking it….we laugh.

I get on, he is soooooo green, no buck though, smooth trot, can’t yet canter.

Verdict: Not a suitable horse for me at this time.

A week later, “You know, I really liked that horse…..”, “No, really, he was nice looking and had a kind temperament…”

A week later, references checked, trainer spoken to, literally pushed into the trailer….

Meet the, in his mind, crowned prince…Astro Traveller…how innocent looking. (He was named after the grey Saddlebred that General Robert E. Lee rode during the American Civil War)

Okay, we now have a green 3yo paired with a green rider….not the best idea in the world!