Alita's Story

Day One

June 3rd

    Alita is a beautiful, dapple gray Arabian mare in-foal to our stallion for 2003. She is big and powerful and she loves to run in the pasture with the other horses. She is a sight to see with her tail flagged and her proud head raised with her nostrils flaring. This is the story of how Alita’s life would change in an instant and to this day is still not the same.

  May 31^st was like any other day. The mares were out in the pasture enjoying the sun and taking the occasional run around the 13 acre pasture. I video taped that day and made the comment on the tape: "Man, I really love that mare!" I guess that is one of those comments that you wish you could take back because usually when you love something that much something is bound to happen to it. Well unfortunately it did.

  Early in the morning on June 3^rd I received a call from the caretaker where our horses are boarded. He told me that it was critical that I get a vet out to see Alita ASAP. He told me he had found her on top of the hill and that her knee was "messed" up severely. I had just had a baby a little over a month earlier and I could not get there at that time. I called my vet and he was out of town until the afternoon. It figures that when I really needed him he wasn’t available.

  We called another vet in the area and she agreed to come out and treat Alita. She arrived @ 10:00 am, 1&1/2 hours after Alita was found and began her treatment. She worked on Alita for over 2 hours. They had to sedate her in order to flush out the flesh around her knee. She pumped 2 bags of saline in to flush it out. She cut away all the dead and hanging flesh and told the caretaker that Alita needed to be seen by someone that knew about and could treat a severe injury such as this.

  She finished working on Alita and told the caretaker to tell me to bring a stock trailer so she could ride backwards. This was so if I had to stop suddenly for any reason she could support herself with her back legs. She wrapped the entire leg extensively in order to give her some support. Then she gave her a high dosage of pain killers to ease the pain and make the ride easier on her. She finished @ 12:15pm.

  I had in the mean time borrowed the vets trailer which just happened to have a flat in it so I had to spend ½ hour getting it fixed before I could get Alita. I arrived 45 minutes after the vet had left. Alita was standing very groggy and not feeling much of anything. She hobbled to the trailer and stepped right in. At this point I had not seen her injury.

  I drove VERY slowly to our vet which was some ways away. About 45 minutes. I took each corner at about 5 miles an hour. I stayed well behind any vehicles in front of me however every one kept darting in front of us. On a highway of a speed of 55 MPH I think we topped 40. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  When we arrived at the vet we un-loaded Alita and put her in the stocks. One of the tech’s un-wrapped her leg and for the first time I saw the severity of the injury. Her knee had a lot of fluid draining from it and it looked like bloody raw hamburger meat. She must have been running full throttle during the night and fallen with all her 1,000 lbs of weight on that one leg. She had other small scratches in various places on her body as well.

  The vet came out and shook his head the minute he saw it. "What happened?" he asked. I explained how we thought it had happened and he confirmed the theory by the other marks on her body. "Isn’t this one of your mares we just checked in foal 3 days ago?" I nodded my head yes. He proceeded to examine the wound.

  "This isn’t good Sherri." he said as he put his thumb into her joint. "I shouldn’t be able to do this as there should be tissue protecting the outside of her joints which I now believe she has blown out." he continued to clean it and examine it closer and then told me she would need a surgery to flush out the joint to avoid infection. Then he asked me "How far are you willing to go for this mare? Is she just a broodmare?" I told him that we would do whatever it took and that none of the mares are just broodmares and especially Alita as she has some riding under her belt let alone my favorite mare.

  I left her there after I gave her a kiss and hug and told her that I loved her and that the vet would take good care of her. I would be back to see her everyday until she came home. With that I left knowing she would have surgery that night or the following morning.