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[RC] VC 100: I Didn't Leave With a Buckle, But I Did Leave with a Live Horse (LONG) - lauretta buseI had the scariest moment of my horse-owning life this weekend. Anytime I have seen a horse orrider in trouble at a ride I have always thought in the back of my mind how that could have easily have been me, should some tiny thing not go right for some reason. This weekend, at the VC 100, it WAS me. We started the ride great. Shaba flew through the first 25 miles without a hitch, and we were riding with a group that had all finished the ride before (it was our first attempt at a 100) and who were riding conservatively. We were walking most of the incline, and then making up time on the easier sections. We got into the first vet check at 24 miles, and Shaba pulsed down as soon as we walked in, drank and ate the whole hour hold, and trotted right on out of the check at the end. Now, I must emphasize that he DRANK water several times at the check. Also, he finished off a very sloppy wet beet pulp mix both the afternoon and night before the ride, and drank at any and all water stops prior to the vet check. He was drinking just like he usually does at any other ride. Out of the vet check, we were still moving slowly. We had to go through Beasley (?) Canyon which, for anyone who has not done the ride, has very big rocks and seems to go on forever. I don't see how anyone would ever go faster than a walk through that place. Anyway, Shaba is fine. We get through that, get to an easier part of the trail, and trot quickly to the next stop, by Lake Washoe. Again, Shaba looks great, eats and drinks, trots out at the end. We trot through some more easy sections, then get to what are called the SOBs, and for good reason. There are three STEEP high hills that the horses have to kind of leap up, then very very steep going down, then immediately back up. After doing these, Shaba was pretty tired. I was not alarmed; on hard sections, he will hit kind of a wall for a few miles, and I usually walk him until he lets me know he feels like going faster, which is generally at least 5 miles or so. No problem. We are walking, then he felt like trotting for about 3-4 minutes, then we walk another 10 minutes, etc, taking it slow. This goes on until we reach a water stop, about 4 miles out of camp and the next vet check. At this point, he does not want any water or food. I wait for about 5 minutes to see if he changes his mind, then decide that we should go the next 4 miles to camp and see how he is at the vet check. I start walking him on foot. We get another mile, and he is pulling on my arm and trying to trot. This is typical after he is over his 'wall' and has got his second wind. So I figure 'okay, we will trot slow /walk the next 3 miles to camp, and then we have an hour rest at the check'. He trots FINE. Two other riders come up from behind, and we are slow trotting into camp with them. They tell me later he looked great; had his ears up, did not show any signs of ANY problems, and was just moving right along with their horses. We get about 1/4 mile from camp, where you have to actually go through the town of Virginia City, and I slow him to a walk to go across the pavement. Still, looking fine. Then WHAM. He gives one grunt and just lays down on the ground with me on him. Not lays down collapses, just lays down like a horse does when he is going to roll. I get off in surprise, and the other two riders look over is surprise (they were directly in front of me) and ask 'What happened?' I tell them I am not sure, he just lied down. I got out of the saddle and he gets right up, looks bright and does not indicate any distress and tries to pull me towards camp. At this point I am wondering if maybe he slipped on the pavement? He is not lame and is trying to pull me the rest of the way in, ears up and trying to trot the whole way; even calls out to the other horses at camp. I am confused; he looks good, but what the heck had happened? I will see the vets in a few minutes, so I will tell them what occurred and have them look him over. We get into the camp area, and I am walking him towards the vet check / water, when all hell breaks loose....I hear someone yell "Get your horse to the vet NOW, he is trying to go down on you". I look back, and see that he is moving his back legs a little stiff. I am 20 ft from the water, and stop there quickly to see if he wants to get any. He immediately tries to lie down. I stop him, and call for the vets, which are about 15 ft away. They have me walk him back to my rig, strip the gear, and give him a shot of banamine/something else and tell me he is a little colicky; come get them if it gets worse. Ok. We stand there for about 10-15 minutes, and he is getting a little more agitated; keeps kicking and stomping his feet and trying to bite his side. I go back to the vets. They then give me the option of taking him 20 miles to the vet hospital on call. I thought I might be able to walk him a little and then see if he would drink, they said ok, try that. I walked him for another 20 minutes, he was going slowly and we would stop at the water trough each loop around camp to see if he would drink. The first three times, he wouldn't even look at it. The 4th, he put his mouth in the bucket and kind of mouthed the water, but did not drink. He tries to drop every time we stop. The head vet is called over, and he decides we need to treat him right now. We go back to my trailer, and I walk him while two vets get IV fluids ready. By now, I am a basket case. A little history on my horse. I have had him since he was 10 (he is now 22) and never ONCE has he had a metabolic problem ever. He has been pulled for being lame before, but thats it. He was a rescue, and was so underweight when I got him I didn't ride him for the first year and then hand walked him for a whole second year. This horse is my kid. So right now as he is colicking and trying to thrash on the ground, I am a basket case. Then I look up and there is a CAMERA CREW filming the whole thing. There was evidently a group making a documentary on endurance riding, and VC 100 was part of the film. Great. I will go on film as a horse abuser or something. I looked up a few minutes later and they were gone; maybe someone asked them to go away? I am glad they did. The next 3 1/2 hours are a blur. He is on IVs, and they give him a shot of tranquilizer every time he starts to show pain and try to start dropping again. A tube was put down his nose about 3-4 times, sometimes to put water in him and sometimes to check the gas in his stomach and / or see if he was backing up water in his stomach. The vets talked to me several times about taking him to a vet hospital about 20 miles away. While I was told this may be the best thing for him and that often a trailer ride will HELP a colic, I did not want to do this until all other treatments were done at camp. I was terrified he would drop as soon as we got him in the trailer, and something would happen to him before I could get him there. We had already gone 50 miles of the ride, I was physically and mentally a train wreck by then, and just wanted him to be treated there. He was sedated for the pain and staggering, and I was afraid to move him. At this point I have to say something about the other riders/crew. Everyone was GREAT, and it would have been a lot worse without their support. I don't know how many people brought me food and something to drink and /or offered me something (it was getting COLD and windy by then) and someone brought Shaba an extra blanket, and another person kept coming back to check on us and offered to go to the vet clinic with me if it was needed. NO ONE talked down to me or tried to accuse me of overriding my horse, and I was expecting someone to do that. EVERYONE was supportive. It really helped get me through, cause I was beating myself up the whole time as it was. Did I override him? Was there something I overlooked? Not enough conditioning? Did I leave the water stops too soon? He was eating and drinking like a pig up until four miles from camp. It is the not knowing that really gets to you, and we will probably never know for sure why it happened. Our BEST guess is that while he drank, the elevation was 6000-7000 ft and it was dry and he did not drink enough for the conditions and the ride we did, as it was not a blockage it was dehydration. After about four hours, BOOM, Shaba comes out of his last tranq and wants to start gobbling food. We feed him small handfulls of wet hay. He is trying to grab dry (already he is being picky; a good sign for him). He started to recover as fast as started to colic. I am SO grateful to Susan McCartney and James Kerr, the two vets that treated him. Susan did not leave our side for almost four hours, and came back through the night and next morning to check him. There was a short time there that I thought I would not be leaving with a live horse, and she worked her butt off to make sure it was otherwise. We waited until about 2 pm Sunday before I started home and had Susan check him one last time before moving him. After he started to eat, he really started to pig out, and drank a lot of water. He looked bright eyed and happy again. It amazed me how fast he started to colic, and how just as quickly he went from horrible to normal. It was like flipping on and off a light switch. We are home now, and he is my same old Shaba, only he has a little bit of a scratchy throat from the tube down his nose. I took him apples and carrots today, and he ate them all and looked for more. So it seems all is ok now. Except I will spend the next few months freaking out every time he snorts or trips over something, and will be worried everytime we ride more than half a mile. I also need to go over our training for rides outside our area. I DONT KNOW if the altitude was a major contributor to the problem, but think after talking to some folks that it COULD have been. It could have been a hundred different things. All I can do now is try to learn from it. I see that there has been some recent talk on RC about treating at rides. I think had I waited to treat because I was afraid of what people thought, I would have a dead horse right now. But we will ride again, and go to rides again. I will just need to be more careful about everything and put a lot more thought into what I do and don't ask my horse to do. I think I have a few more gray hairs after this weekend. I really hope that others with a horse in trouble will not hesitate to get help if they need it. I hope by posting this problem I had, it will be encouraging to others the next time their horse has a problem and they are hesitant to get treatment. They should not be, and the quicker the better. They will then still have a horse to hug. Lauretta Ward and Shaba (who is now gobbling oatmeal cookies; this horse will eat anything:) _________________________________________________________________ Can you find the hidden words?? 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