SAFE Journal — Feb 13, 2011

Today, I spoke at the  event hosted by Equestrian’s Institute called “Buy, Sell, or Lease your Horse”. I spoke briefly about SAFE’s background and history, and then talked about SAFE’s goal of finding lifetime homes for our horses, and how we go about advertising, screening adopters, site checks, reference checks, and matching our horses appropriately to adopters so that we do not get the horses back.  I spoke about how we not only handle the physical rehabilitation of the horses that come into our program, but we also get them the training they need to help them get placed and become good equine citizens.  I talked about how most of our horses come from Animal Control seizures or severe neglect situations, and that while we occasionally take in owner-surrendered horses, we so often have to tell people who want us to take their horses no because we just do not have the space or resources, and how heartbreaking that can be.  I talked about the SAFE-Assisted Placement program and the service that we provide to horse owners who need to rehome their horse safely.  The talk included several other speakers and a lot of very good information about buying and selling and the general consensus is that the horse market is very, very poor right now — and the only horses that are still selling for a good price are those that are 6–11 years old, sound, well-bred, and are currently competing at a level appropriate to their age.  People are no longer willing to spend large amounts on “prospects” — training is ultimately where the value of the horse is…something SAFE can absolutely attest to!

Today was also lesson day at the farm today.  We had a potential adopter come out to watch Zanadu and Sara in her lesson today.  I missed the lesson but Sara reported Zanadu did great today, no bucking or kicking out in the canter at all today and the trainer set up trot poles to help with her canter departs and it really helped a lot.  Annie was also reportedly very good for her lesson — a change in saddle pads seemed to make her a bit happier and free up her shoulder a bit — we think the riser pad we were using on her may have been causing the saddle to fit too tightly in the shoulders.

We also had one of our newer volunteers Victoria ride Lucky for the first time in a lesson.  Lucky however, was having a “Thoroughbred day” — his brain was simply not in the game today and he was fidgety, agitated, and unable to concentrate.  Lunging settled him temporarily, but he got worked up again when Victoria got on and most of the lesson was spent just trying to get him to relax and go forward.  She did a nice job with him and got some nice moments with him (see photos below), but he never really settled down.  Afterwards, we took his tack off and he rolled…and rolled…and rolled!  Then he ran around like a maniac and we couldn’t catch him for some time and by that time he was lathered with sweat.  Silly boy!  He certainly didn’t make the best impression on Victoria, who is one of his biggest fans and was so excited to ride him, but it was truly out of character for him and I am chalking it up to not having turnout outside of his paddock for a few days as well as being very itchy as he has started shedding and I think all he was thinking about was rolling most of the lesson.

Also Lucky-related, we will be hosting several public viewing parties for Lucky’s big TV event on Friday night!  We are hoping to host a few of them — one in Monroe, one in the Tacoma area, and possibly one in the Eastside area as well.  The idea is just to get some of our fans and supporters together to watch the show, have some snacks, listen to us talk briefly about SAFE and then hang out for a while after the show and socialize…what horse people love to do best!  Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Quick update on Corona - he is doing very well, on antibiotics now and the vet reports he is very tolerant for his twice-daily chlorahexadine scrubs.  She does feel bad for him as he is probably in some amount of discomfort, but she has not felt comfortable giving him bute yet because his muscle enzymes were elevated on his bloodwork.  We are going to recheck his bloodwork tomorrow and hopefully if it looks good he can have some bute to make him feel a bit better.   Dr. Hannah spoke to the vet who saw him last week and he stated that there was not a laceration on the penis when he saw him, just swelling and infection, so they determined that the laceration was actually caused by the sutures that he put in (I’m still not sure what the purpose of the sutures was).  In any case it is a good thing Dr. Hannah decided to remove them right away.  She said overall he is doing well and because he is able to retract his penis and urinate normally he does not need to be catheterized or bandaged in any way.  His fecal results came back with only few strongyle ova so that is good news, he will get wormed normally in a week or so.  He is up to free choice hay now and they will slowly start adding some beet pulp and concentrates this week.  He’ll get his feet taken care of soon as well.  We also heard from his previous leaser that there was some type of injury to his left hind leg around 4 years ago.  The horse was stall rested for a while and then was sound after that and returned to jumping, but that he was given away (not sold) to the last owner because of the injury.  I let Dr. Hannah know about the previous injury, and once he is in better physical shape we will take a closer look at that left hind to see if there are any concerns there.