There is a travel post coming, but I’m troubleshooting image uploads – so til then, something with just text.

On Saturday it was misting when I got to the barn. Polly got a brief turnout in the round pen (unenthusiastic) and then we practiced ground driving around the barn in a rope sidepull uneventfully. It’s not perfect – she still wants to turn around towards me and then we get stuck – but it’s pretty respectable for how much actual work we’ve done. This was maybe the fourth time. I came home full of optimism and dreams and sparkles all around.

On Sunday it was wet on the drive to the barn, but good weather once I arrived. Turnout and then another ground driving session, easy enough! Except that halfway through a walk over to find an open space, I heard hiccups, and my heart broke a bit.

I didn’t blog about the first episode. I had no answers yet. But a few months ago, I had just taken her out of her stall when I heard pony hiccups. I happened to ask another gal at the barn with a young horse.. and she told me it was thumps. She had never heard of it before asking the vet and was all ready to try to explain it to me. Thanks to Dom’s blogs about the endurance horse with thumps, I have a passing knowledge. Abort exercise plans, give electrolytes. It didn’t show up again, so I wrote it off to a fluke thing, but noted that I should get the vet to pull blood.

Our regular vet visit was a bit over a week ago. She did the bloodwork, and came back a few days later talking about how various things were elevated, it usually takes a week or two for it to normalize after an episode, so here’s some things to do til then.

But wait: her thumps was several months back. (Since it didn’t recur, I felt OK not having an immediate vet followup.) She wasn’t involved in strenuous exercise right before the visit – a bit of a run 3-4 hours prior but not even enough to get sweaty. Did that change her assessment? Yes: while it doesn’t come up often, the bloodwork also lines up with symptoms of horses that eat the leaves of box elder trees. I just so happen to have one above her stall.

Vitamin E ordered on vet’s suggestion. The SmartPak will take a week and a half, so I ordered from RW too. That arrives tonight. The leaves aren’t falling, so we figured best to bring her back to normal, then avoid re-exposure when they start again.

On Saturday she got extra dinner, but Sunday’s meal came mid afternoon when I arrived. Maybe she was picking at the fallen twigs in the stall? Maybe she found the seeds? I don’t know. She got dinner and an electrolyte mash. I took Fetti out for a moseying walk. I contemplated going home and drinking wine. The highway was closed. Thanks, universe, just what I needed. I bought myself sympathy chocolate and drove the back roads home.

Where do we go from here?

1. Hope and pray it’s a non-issue again.

2. Get a quote to take out the tree, or cut it back really substantially. If that fails or is not something I can manage, swap the horses.

3. Vitamin E supplements starts tonight.

4. Resume earlier Sunday morning feedings.

We’ll re-test in a month or so to see where she’s at and adjust management accordingly.