Horse who ‘ripped ligament off’ heads to Badminton – with rider who severed hand tendons
An eventer who was told she might not ride again when she severed the tendons in her hand is heading to Badminton – on a horse who has overcome a potentially career-ending injury, and kissing spines.
Equine vet Katie Brickman and Black Jack V will contest the BE100 Voltaire Design Grassroots Championships at Badminton Horse Trials, presented by Mars Equestrian, next month.
Katie told H&H she bought “Flash” as a green four-year-old, nine years ago. She started eventing him with success but in 2017 she was injured at work – and Flash in the field.
“It was not a good year!” she said.
“I was giving out some antibiotics and where I worked then, they used glass bottles. I slipped walking across the yard and landed on the bottle with my left hand. It went into my palm and shattered.”
The glass had severed not only an artery in her wrist but also all the tendons in Katie’s left hand, in multiple places.
“I had to have emergency surgery and they repaired the tendons as much as they could,” she said. “I couldn’t move my fingers for four to five weeks because of the risk of the repairs rupturing; if they had, the doctors wouldn’t have been able to do anything. They said they didn’t know if I’d be able to use my hand properly, to ride or operate or anything.”
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At the point Katie was injured, Flash was fit and ready for a season’s eventing. But because he has his quirks, Katie said, she did not think anyone else should ride him while she was out of action.
“It was probably because he was fit and not doing anything,” she said. “I went to see him, me in my cast and him pretty much on three legs.”
Scans showed Flash had ruptured his middle patella ligament in his left stifle joint, a rare injury that can be caused by a horse “doing the splits”.
“He’d completely ripped it off the bone,” Katie said. “My friend who’s also a vet said he’d never be sound again, and talked about putting him to sleep. But I absolutely adore that horse – you love them all but he’s so special – that I wanted to try.”
Box rest followed for both Katie and Flash, the former undergoing a second operation and painful physiotherapy, the latter having treatment including stem cell therapy and PRP.
“It was pretty stressful,” Katie said. “Me and Mum do a lot together and we said if he wasn’t coping, we’d make the decision, but once he realised what was going on, he was ok.
“I spent a lot of time sitting in the stable with him; my colleagues thought I was crazy because I’d be driving round on jobs and stop to pick grass for him to help keep him entertained – and both of us returned to eventing 18 months later.”
Katie had built Flash back up to full work very slowly, and he won three BE80(T) events and one at BE90 the next season.
“He came back,” she said. “I remember worrying as we did more; the first time we jumped and went cross-country schooling, but he never looked back. I remember going out across country feeling elated; I didn’t care how we did, it was that feeling of being back out with him. I’d missed it for so long, I was buzzing, and I just cried the whole time. There’s nothiing quite like it, and he loved it too.”
In 2019 they qualified for the Badminton grassroots final but 2020 was lost to Covid, then the next year, Katie thought Flash was not quite right.
“He came ninth at Buckminster in the BE100 but he was chipping in a bit across country and didn’t seem comfortable,” she said. “I switched to my vet head at home, X-rayed and he had kissing spines, in nine spaces.”
Flash underwent a standing interspinous ligament desmotomy and after more rehab, was eventing again the next season. And last August, the pair qualified for Badminton.
“After I qualified, I took him to Blair and did the one-star, which was amazing, but Badminton has always been the dream,” Katie said. “I’d qualified another horse, Mary, in 2021 and she did a suspensory ligament in the February, so you can imagine what the last year has been like!”
But Katie will not only be travelling to Badminton with Flash; she has also qualified her eight-year-old mare Greenkeld’s Moondance (pictured, above) for the BE90 championship. She bred “Millie” out of Moonlight Matilda, a mare she had evented as a teenager, with the help of her mother Rachel Brickman and best friend Kim Richards of KR Equestrian.
“Tilly was really good jumping but didn’t really have the movement so we put her to Grafenstolz,” Katie said. “We were incredibly fortunate to get Tilly, but with his movement! I used to keep the horses at my grandparents’ house Greenkeld, before my granddad passed away, and she was born there. She’s named after the house, and my granddad helped me pay for the stud fee, so she’s kind of his legacy.”
Katie wanted to share her story to give hope to others suffering with equine lameness issues.
“It’s so disheartening and frustrating and you feel it’s never going to end, and you don’t know what to do for the best,” she said. “I just wanted to give people hope.”
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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.