was in a hurry, put both buckets down on the narrow ledge, only a couple of metres apart, and left.
THE HORSE LISTENER
When fate steps in
A few hours later driving back from the Gold Coast airport with my husband, I had the oddest feeling that we should visit the horses, but it was dark, I was tired, I knew they’d been fed, it didn’t make any sense, and pretty soon we were home, and I forgot about it.
A journey with a young horse took a radical turn after a severe injury, writes CANDIDA BAKER.
It was last November, and I was flying back from Equitana – and I was in a happy place. Six months before I’d bought a sweet three-year-old OTT Thoroughbred mare, Eva – who had been too slow for racing. She had a quiet personality, and I rode her very happily the first time I tried her. In fact, her test ride had been pretty full on – in a howling gale, in a round-yard with pool noodles hanging from the top rail, two screaming toddlers, a couple of dogs, and a small herd of horses who were nervy because of the wind. Eva took no notice of any of it, and I genuinely felt that given time she and I would suit each other very well. She arrived at my agistment property, and she settled in well. Eva was – is – I should say, in case you think the worst, a lively chestnut mare, but with a very soft doughy side, and as we got to know each other, I was sure we were in for the long haul. On the flight home, I was happily imagining our future together, the learning we would do and the rides we would take. When she’d arrived with me, I had three young horses I was fostering for the charity I
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t’s strange isn’t it, the way that life can change in a second?
You need to come straight away. I’ve already called the vet for you.
was working with at the time, but by Equitana Eva was with just one other horse, my adopted rescue mare, Tyra. But even with only two of them, it was vital to feed them a long way apart from each other, otherwise Eva was likely to push Tyra off, or worse kick out at her.
Unfortunately, as I flew back late into the evening, a drama was unfolding way down below me that I was powerless to stop. The horses are lucky enough to live in a ten-acre paddock, which has just one small danger area, a narrow edge near one of the gates. Misunderstanding why it was important to feed them far apart, my feeder, who
HORSEVIBES MAGAZINE - AUGUST 2019
The next morning my friend Ishka, who owned the property, rang me. “I’ve sent you through a photo,” she said. “You need to come straight away. I’ve already called the vet for you.” My phone beeped, and I looked at the incoming photo with horror. Eva’s nearback leg was ripped to shreds. There was bone clearly showing, flesh missing for at least six inches, it was horrible. She’d obviously been caught up in wire, but I couldn’t imagine how at that point. I got there as fast as I could, arriving just at the same time as the vet, and Ishka, already had Eva on a lead-rope in the garden. When I saw the wound I was pretty sure that my vet, Richard, was going to recommend that we put her to sleep, but at the time he was reassuring (more reassuring he confessed later, than he actually felt). Eva had severed two tendons, her superficial digital flexor tendon, and her common digital extensor tendon, and although she still had a large flap of skin attached to the leg at the site of the injury, it was marginal that it would reattach even with stitching (it didn’t), so she had basically de-gloved her leg, from above the knee to a few inches above the fetlock as well as exposing about a square inch of bone. Richard was honest about the prognosis, telling me that the only chance for the tendons to reattach would be to take her for surgery on the Gold Coast. It
Warning: Graphic photographic content on the following four pages.
