The rider of a horse who had become almost unrideable owing to his bucking and was found to have wire embedded in his face said she is glad she listened to what he was trying to tell her.
Abby Apple took Baby Guy (BG) for full veterinary investigation after the gelding, whom she had had for a few months with no issues, started bucking violently, first with Abby and then with a trainer near her home in Texas, US.
The vet carried out a full work-up, including X-rays from ears to tail and all four legs, and found nothing.
“He said ‘I don’t know what to tell you, Abby; I can’t see anything obviously wrong with this horse’,” Abby told H&H. “I was about to put him in the trailer, and was petting his head, and he’s always been a little headshy. I’d put it down to him coming from cowboys, but I said ‘Just humour me and take one X-ray of his head’, because I had a gut feeling, and that’s when we found the wire. We said ‘What the hell is that?’”
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The piece of wire was about two inches long, twisted back on itself, and lying under the skin and on top of the nuchal crest, an inch or two in front of BG’s ears. Abby said the vet thought it was surgical wire rather than from a fence or similar, as it had not rusted.
“My vet estimates that it’s got to have been there at least three or four years because of the amount of scar tissue beneath it, which means it’s been migrating out all these years,” she said. “I tried to do some research but the guy I bought him from didn’t know, and I haven’t got the previous owner’s details, so it’s a mystery as to how it got there.”
BG had the wire removed – “I’ve still got it!” Abby said – at the end of March.
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“Initially, when we found it, it was a Eureka moment, this is what’s caused this behaviour,” Abby said. “At that point, every time somebody had ridden him after the first time he did it with me; the second your butt hit the saddle or maybe an hour in, he exploded. I thought ‘This has got to be it’, and the vet said ‘If it’s not, I’ll eat my hat’. It was about a millimetre under the skin, and sharp, so every time he moved, the ends were probably poking the skin.”
Abby gave BG a few weeks off after the surgery, to get used to the absence of the wire, then lunged him before he was mounted – but he “exploded” again, so she sent him to horsemanship trainer Dan Keen, to be restarted from the ground.
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“He has high hopes that he’s going to make a full recovery, but I have no idea,” Abby said. “But the outcome is almost not important; even if he just lives in the field and retires, and he’s never a ridden horse again, I still feel like I did the right thing.”
Abby said this is one reason she wants to share BG’s story; whether or not the wire was the cause of his behaviour, the investigation of it is the key.
“One thing I really enjoy with my horses is trying to answer their questions or listen to the statements they’re making,” she said. “And this was a horse I had been riding, a good horse, and such a sweetheart on the ground. I think if my takeaway is anything, it’s how awesome it must have been for him to have said something and be listened to. I think that’s a success, even if nothing else comes of it.”
Abby, who is British but moved to the US a few years ago, added that when she initially spoke about the issues, before the wire was found, many people were still recommending trainers to sort the behaviour rather than investigating the cause of it. One trainer said he could resolve it by tying BG to a tree for three days.
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“If you’re not coming to this from a place of love then maybe having horses isn’t for you,” she said. “I’m hoping that, worst-case scenario, maybe he’ll be good enough that I can just ride him. I don’t think he’s ever going to be a horse I trust to put a beginner on, but maybe he can learn that life is good. When he’s out in the pasture and eating well, he seems fine, and if that’s his destiny, that’s fine too.
“And your intuition is so valuable; I drove away from the vet that day in tears of relief, as I’ve trusted my gut and it had such a huge effect on this horse’s life. It’s not about me, it’s about that lesson and how grateful I am that I advocated for him. I’m proud of myself for that, and if one person could read an article about that, and think ‘Maybe I should get this horse checked out’, that’s worth sharing.”
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Eleanor is an experienced journalist who spent over eight years working for local and national newspapers before joining H&H as news editor in March 2016. Passionate about equine welfare and exposing the truth, Eleanor has reported on all aspects of the industry, from Brexit to anti-bullying campaigns, and from dressage rules to mules. Her sport of choice is showjumping, in which she competes her own horses, and she also enjoys reporting at local jumping shows through to international championships.
