My accident

On my way home from the area Friesian practice today I hit a deer. I
pulled the truck to a stop and ran to my trailer. It was rocking back
and the sides were bowing. I couldn't see Phoenix. A neighbor of mine
recognized my trailer and pulled over. He got me to get the trailer
off of the road. 911 was called and I started to evaluate the
situation. I poked my head in and saw that Phoenix was under Aslan
and under the divider. I shut the door because he was trying to get
up again. I opened Aslans half and took him out of the trailer. I
passed him to a bystander who tied him. I turned my attention onto
Phoenix. I wanted to blind fold him but it was too dangerous. I saw
that Aslan was tied to a gate with a knot at the very end of the rope
next to the high way. I moved him. By now I was hysterical and
called my barn and Cindy for help because I could see that the inside
of my trailer was damaged. They got there about the time the police
made it there. I was sent to the car because I wasn't being helpful
by now. Phoenix broke the divider and was standing by now. The
divider was fixed well enough to get Aslan back in and get the
trailer moving again. We waited for the vet to make it before we took
the horses out of the trailer. Phoenix had a small trickle of blood
going down his leg Aslan had some bruising. The vet said I was very
lucky. No serious injuries that are known at this time. I need to
keep a close eye on them for the next 48 hours.
Katie

 

 

Aslan's trip to Kansas State University!

For those who knew and those how didn’t My beautiful Aslan has been lame for the past two weeks. I had tried to give him time off and other than the vet saying that his quad. was sore I had no answers. He would pass his flexion test at the walk trot and go lame at the canter. Yesterday I tried him at liberty and under saddle to see if his condition improved. He looked fine at the walk trot but at the canter he bucked like a rodeo cow boy. So today I took him to K State for some answers. First we did the general flexion test with two resident vets and a group of students. One student saw the lameness at the trot. The head vet came out and agreed with the lameness on the left hind stifle. We did lunge work at the canter and he showed positive again. The next thing to do was a nerve block of the stifle. They had to twitch him to do this. Not because of behaviors just out of safety.  Poor Aslan stood there with his mustache twitching between the twitch. They flex tested him again and he moved great. So now that they knew it was in his stifle we went on to x-rays. The x-rays showed no bone damage but swelling and a small but common abnormity. Doc said that it was common in horses that are having pain in that area. To verify we went did an ultrasound of the stifle. The ultrasound showed the swelling but other than that no issues. So diagnosis…. “left hind limb lameness (open), suspected intermittent upward fixation of the patella.” In other words his tendon attached to the quad. was catching on his patella or “locked stifle”. Now I had been hurt and unable to ride in October. I had my trainer ride him once a week while I was out. Well apparently horses who use their hind end well go from lots of work to no work can develop this problem. His quad. was weekend and it was unable to hold the ligaments in place. The vet said it doesn’t take much lack of conditioning for horses to develop this condition. So the more I rested him the worse he got. I now know that I must keep my horse in shape his whole life or he could have this condition reoccur. I have my vet coming over to inject the left hind stifle with steroids and hyaluronic acid to reduce swelling and relive pain. The concern being if he hurts he won’t track right and could mess something else up. I need him to work through the pain in order to strengthen the quad. While I was there I went ahead and had him weighed because I have always wanted to know exactly how much he weighed and felt the dumb tape was always off.  I will post in a week with the correct answer....... 1350 LBS