Rescuing a Standardbred
In the beginning...an introduction to the history
Part II
By February of that year, Josh had proposed to me, even coming out to Pennsylvania to ask my dad permission. Everything seemed right with the world again. It was the proposal from years ago that had been delayed, and now he had a good job and was on the right track in life. He never drank or smoked anymore, and he managed his horrible memories of Afghanistan with a therapist. All the plans that we had years ago seemed to be coming true and I began to think of finally moving away and having a better life. Wouldn't you know that just wasn't going to happen?
The first wrench in the system was my ex-husband. Although he never paid a dime towards taking care of my daughter, he still had a say in things. When I attempted to discuss the changes and the possibility of moving, he went ballistic and flew into a fit of rage. He simply would not agree to moving or adjusting his schedule. We offered to give him help with finding a job (since he didn't have a job and had no family in Pennsylvania anyway) and an apartment in North Dakota, but he preferred the benefits that he was getting in PA.
After several months of fighting with my Ex, Josh agreed to consider a job transfer to Pennsylvania. We did not have a wedding date, but I was confident that things were going to work out. Months went by, and Josh never seemed to get any job transfers. We visited back and forth, but I was growing impatient. Things were going to work out, he promised me. Meanwhile, my daughter was beginning to take riding lessons and joining the Equestrian team here at home. I could see that riding horses was becoming important to her, and I knew she had to stick with it.
In September 2021, Josh and I became pregnant. It was something we wanted very much, but I felt that it couldn't wait for all the details to be ironed out. It wasn't meant to last, because at 10 weeks, I ended up in the emergency room with a miscarriage. Josh wasn't there, so my mother had to take me and suddenly, as I sat in the starkness of the ER, everything came full circle for me. It seemed like the physical manifestation of an unfulfilled dream. I started to understand why my parents had been so hard on me growing up.
The days and weeks following the miscarriage were emotional, as you could imagine. The Thanksgiving holiday was somber for me, although I never mentioned a word about what happened to my extended family. I had kept the pregnancy a secret for that very reason, and as it turns out, that was a good move on my part. But the silence was hard to maintain; I felt out of sorts, and I just couldn't say anything about it. My motivation hit rock bottom and there was no room to talk about it. You never hear people discussing this sort of thing out in the open, despite the fact that it is extremely common. Nobody knows how to react to something like this.
It was clear that Josh was devastated, but as the months passed by, it was clear that he was creating more distance between us. He stopped visiting, citing the rise in airline costs. Our daily conversations began to subside and talk of transferring jobs became non-existent. I started to become impatient and angry; not only was he absent during a hard time in my life, but he was leaving me hanging with no clear future. I was chained down, so to speak, without any promise of the life we had dreamed of.
When my resentment towards him reached a certain level, I flat out asked if we could set a wedding date. He refused to answer the question, which was all I needed to know. From that point onward, I didn't hear from him anymore and I resolved to get back to living some kind of life on my own. I wasn't moving to North Dakota, and it was back to the drawing board once again for me. Sometimes things happen for a reason.
In the months following the dissolution of my engagement, I became consumed with finding a new horse for my mother to ride. After having both hips replaced in 2019 and 2020, my mother had expressed an interest in riding again and began taking lessons at the same farm where my daughter was riding. With the help of the farm owners, Rich and Amy, I set off to find a "grandma safe" horse.
 |
| Roxie doing groundwork |
After wading through countless horse ads, we selected a few to go try out. Time after time, we were disappointed. None of the horses we saw were appropriate for a woman in her 70's and sellers always demanded top dollar for them. It was way more difficult to find a quiet, plodding type horse to pack my mother on. I climbed up on about a dozen different horses to test them out, and each time, Rich would shake his head in disapproval. It seemed like an impossible task!
In May of 2022, I finally stumbled across an ad for a little roan mare out near Reading, PA. I contacted the man and requested more information. After considering the ad for a day or two, I made arrangements to go see the horse on a Sunday morning, by myself. I couldn't bear to drag Rich on another road trip for a dud, so I decided to check this one out myself.
I met with Randy outside the barn, and he welcomed me into the stable where Roxie was waiting to be saddled. Long story short, I felt like the little mare was a potential candidate for my mother, and we agreed to give her a second look later that week. On a Wednesday night, Rich and I drove back out to Randy's farm and tried the little mare out in the round pen. After much deliberation, we concluded that she was good horse, but needed some work before she would be ready for my mom.
"I think she would be ok for your mom, but you are going to have to work with her every day for a month to get her ready. Do you think you can do that? She's sweet but she's just not quite there yet," Rich said on the drive home.
"Yeah, I can make time for that, she's too nice to leave there." And with that, the decision was made to bring Roxie to the farm and board her there for a month or so while I worked with her. Rich picked her up on the Monday before Memorial Day, and from that point on, she was my project.
The excitement of bringing Roxie home was quickly overshadowed by a sudden cancer diagnosis in our dog, Clover. The weeks leading up to Roxie's purchase, Clover had been limping, but our regular vet kept insisting that it was nothing more than a sprain. Several trips back to the vet and a few irate phone calls later, we finally got someone to take the x-rays. The images were bad, as there were nodules on Clover's leg bones and infiltrating her chest cavity. I took her to a different vet, and he explained that it was already too late to save her.
 |
| Clover during better times |
On June 4th, 2022, we had a traveling vet come to the house to put Clover to sleep. The morning was clear and beautiful, but I could see the spark had left her eyes and that she was rapidly deteriorating. My soul felt conflicted; what if I could have done more? I could barely keep it together in front of my daughter. What a wonderful friend we had during some tough times! My father buried her in my garden and for weeks afterward, I could still feel her presence in the house. Someday, we would find a new friend to walk with us again.
The following week, we received bad news about Roxie. I had been working with the mare at the farm, when Amy, the owner, suggested that the vet take a another look at her back legs. Roxie seemed to have some trouble getting into a canter, especially in a circle. She wasn't lame, but she just looked a "little funny" according to Amy. I figured it might be a stifle problem or something like that and hoped for the best. It was a Thursday when Dr. Rachel came to the farm to evaluate her, and her response was not what I wanted to hear.
Dr. Rachel was of the opinion that Roxie had the beginning stages of Degenerative Suspensory Ligament Desmitis (DSLD), which is currently considered incurable. My mother was furious. I was heartbroken, but I refused to take that as the final word; Roxie had passed a basic Pre-purchase exam, so perhaps we needed a second or third opinion? I had just lost my dog, my relationship and my pregnancy, I wasn't about put this horse down now. After a lot of nights of stressing, I decided that we would look into other opinions from different sources. Roxie was here to stay.
We eventually had two other vets confirm that Roxie did not have DSLD, but she had some old injuries in her back legs that would limit her abilities to walking and trotting only. At that point, I didn't care if she ever did any more than amble down the trail, I was just happy that she would survive this. As summer burned on, we eventually brought her home to our barn as a simple trail horse. My daughter continued riding at the farm for summer camp, and I handed the reins over to my mom for good. I started to feel an aching in my heart to begin riding again.
My old horse, Tony, was permanently retired. At the age of 36, he barely had any teeth left and required a steady diet of mush. The summer heat was draining him of his strength with the high humidity and record temperatures. My mother floated the idea that Tony might also be on his way out, but I wasn't going to put him down just yet. I knew the day was coming, but as long as he was still eating and walking, he was going to stick around. The vet evaluated him and suggested some adjustments to his diet but concluded that Tony was in no way ready for the big pasture in the sky.
 |
| My daughter with Tony on Easter Morning, 2020.Tony was 34 at the time. |
I began to prepare my heart for the day that Tony would lay down, and a crazy idea struck me. Tony had come from a kill pen at New Holland in 2006, and he was a sort of project for me during my college years. He spent most of his time with us in retirement, but he had been a joy in the times I did ride him. What if I could find another Tony to ease this transition? A younger horse in need of a second chance. I could get back into riding. The idea began to grow....
 |
| Auggie's first bath at farm with us |
.JPG)
Comments
Post a Comment