April 14, 2011
Sometime between feeding the horses last night and feeding them this morning it happened... let me explain.
When I went outside this morning to feed the horses with Myles I heard a horse nicker but didn't think much of it as Prince often nickers when he sees me coming with the hay so I carried on as normal.
The horses were just coming in, or at least it looked like that, so I didn't think anything of it that Ruffian was standing at the bottom of the hill as the horses were scattered all over at the time. He didn't come up when we got there with the hay so I told Myles just to keep an eye on him and make sure that he didn't try get to the closer piles of hay while I was setting them all out. Ruffian didn't move so I brought each horse over to their pile of hay, he still hadn't moved.
As I was taking Knightly over I suggested that Myles go bring Ruffian up so Myles went down and a couple seconds later Myles says in a rather excited voice "Keri!!! Ruffian nickered at me!!" I replied with something to the effect that that was really sweet of him!! Ruffian really loves Myles so I wasn't to surprised that Ruffian was glad to see him.
I still didn't suspect anything when I went down to see if Myles needed any help as it appeared that Ruffian was not going to move, this was a little unusual as Ruffian is really light and responds very well, even to Myles.
I looped my carrot stick and savvy string around Ruffian's neck and asked him to follow me but he wasn't going to move. This was when I noticed blood on Ruffian socks. It was under some mud and dirt so I couldn't be sure but I thought that he probably cut himself and that was why he wasn't moving.
We managed to bring him up to the riding ring and Myles brought Ruffian his pile of hay as the other horses were out on the hill eating. Ruffian was eating alright so I went and got a cloth and some water and started wiping the blood and dirt off. But I was surprised to not see any cut at all. I am not sure how I noticed it but that was when I saw it, Ruffian managed to puncture himself on his left hind leg just above and to the left of his sheath and the swelling was something fierce.
At that point in time I couldn't tell if it was a puncture or a gash because of the swelling. All I knew that was Ruffian couldn't walk and he was bleeding. We got him water, which he drank, and drank, and drank. I was glad to see that he was drinking alright or else we would have had a whole new set of problems but I didn't like the look of that swelling.
We put ice on the swelling, made sure Ruffian had hay and water and he stayed in the riding ring all day, moving very little as could be expected. We just had to keep an eye on it for now. Ruffian was in otherwise good spirits so we just made sure to keep ice on the swelling as much as possible and drank lots of water :)
This is just one more way that God is testing my mental and emotional fitness... and physical because I have to carry buckets of water ;)
Naturally,
~Keri
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