Young OTTB having strange issues. Vet cannot provide answers. Help.
I am the main rider for a barn that rehabs and retrains thoroughbreds off the track, and retires the "broken" ones. About a year ago we were sent a horse who has baffled all of us, and at this point we're considering the possibility that she will spend the rest of her life with us as a pasture pet. This mare was sent to us at 4yrs old with no background information, other than that (somehow) she did race several times. She is very little, probably 15.0Hh, and built like a llama, but sound and without injury. She was given ~6 months of time off in which we got her on a quality feed regimen and treatment for ulcers. (We do this for all of our horses, and they remain in an ulcer preventative.) She is fed free-choice hay and triple crown feed, a mixture of complete and low starch, as well as supplements. She lives outside in a large pasture with a run-in and one buddy, and spends a few hours in the barn in the morning and evening to have her grain and a grooming, etc. Initially we saw that she had an incredible amount of anxiety. She is very reactive. However, the biggest problem is that she simply could not figure out the barn floor. It is rubber coated, and no horse has ever had an issue with it. This horse would get anxious, shake, go up on her toes, scramble and slip, and sit down or fall down altogether. It is dangerous for her and the handler. We put mats going to her stall, but any time we need her to walk across the floor (say to the grooming stall or arena) she absolutely panics. At this point we had the vet do a full work up (including neuro test) and found no issue with her. I started her with extensive groundwork in the ring, slowly introducing the bridle and then the saddle. She was actually incredibly responsive, and I found that she took confidence from a strong leader. She was comfortably walk-trot-cantering by vocal cue, understanding how to move off of pressure, turn on the haunches or forehand, read cues to follow, back, etc. When saddling, however, she would have a similar response to the one she had to the floors. I would girth her very slowly, but even still she would shake, go up on her toes, and stand so far under herself that I feared she would fall. This was sort of an on and off issue. We had the fit of the saddle checked and were assured everything was good. She also had a little anxiety about her legs being wrapped, but got over it pretty quickly. Having a saddle on also seemed to make her worse about the floors. We scoped her just to make sure there were no ulcers, and checked her for ovarian cysts as well. When it came to actually getting on her, she was fantastic. She was very typical- nervous, but settled into the ride. She was starting to understand contact, but was rather fussy- we had her teeth done, but the issue improved more with regular riding. So she was going pretty well, walking and trotting, getting stronger and learning to stretch and keep rythm, and move off of the leg. She would get VERY irritated off the right leg, however, which I attributed to a lack of understanding, and so I just tried to take things slow. We spent a lot of time just working on taking a step or two off the leg in the walk or trot. On the other side though, she was yielding, turning on the forehand, and starting to bend through her body. Then the good weather came and we decided to take her outside. The first ride went well. The second was an absolute wreck. She was incredibly concerned about the barn/other horses, and despite ground work was struggling to focus. When I got on her she wanted to trot and wanting nothing to do with the bridle, but I just encouraged her to stretch in the walk and talked to her a lot, tried to focus her by asking her to give in her poll in one direction and then the other, etc. She wanted to break to trot, I just focused on calmness. When I felt she was focused on me, we trotted a few laps and circles, and then she lost her mind. She stopped, went up on her toes, and would go any direction that wasn't forward. I just sat deep and calm, and kept my leg on. She became irritated with me leg, bucked, hopped, came behind the bridle and backed across the arena at mach 3. This went on for about 15 min in which I would have short bouts of getting her to go forward, but she had also become preoccupied with the footing. The arena is bordered by grass, and she would not walk forward on the arena footing anymore. Eventually it got to a point where I knew she was going to flip over if I stayed on. I was going to get hurt, she was going to get hurt, and probably traumatize herself in the process. I got off, lunged her, and regained her focus with groundwork. When we got back to the barn, she refused to walk across the 2 foot gap in the mats to the grooming stall. It took me and one other person close to and hour to get her to cross, and she did it by bolting. She was incredibly nervous and tense while untacking, but walked back across to her stall without issue. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, I've had the vet look at her time and time again, but at this point she's dangerous. It doesn't help that she is very clingy, and when she is scared she will basically try to jump on top of me. I don't think I would ever feel right sending her to someone else. She's 5, and I don't want to give up on her, but I'm kind of at a loss. Any and all ideas appreciated.
Submitted February 22, 2017 at 12:29PM by Oluja
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