Gryphon

When I got back into riding as an adult, it was a while before it occurred to me that I have money, and people will give you a horse in exchange for money. I had a vague idea of wanting a friesian – I’ve loved black horses since I was a kid, probably because my childhood horse was white. There is a common saying – “A good horse is never a bad color,” and while I can appreciate that, if you know me, you know color is VERY IMPORTANT to me. While I wasn’t so attached to the breed, I definitely wanted a black horse.

I messaged a co-worker I was acquaintances with that I knew owned horses and asked her how one goes about finding a horse to purchase. We talked for a bit, and then later that day – October 20th, 2020 – she sent me a message on our work chat that started with “I have a horsey proposition/favor for you.” Turns out they had a horse who was coming off an injury and couldn’t be ridden, but she and her husband didn’t really have time for him as they each had their own horse. He was needing someone to spend time with him, maybe take him for a hand walk on the trails, was I interested? Yes. Yes I was.

I was at her house the moment work ended – and it turned out that her house was only about 10 minutes from me. When I first met Gryphon, aka Griffy, I remember thinking “He’s cute, but he’s not what I want.” but hey, horse time is horse time, and I absolutely love grooming. So I curried and brushed and untangled his mane and got his tail gleaming and fed him treats, then we went for a walk on the trails near her house. I’d never taken a horse for a walk like a dog before, but it was a beautiful, sunny day, the trails were peaceful, and he was such a sweet boy.

I started coming to walk him 3-4 times a week. We got attached to each other pretty quickly – I think it was the 2nd week when I was walking along the track to get him and he saw me and started walking to meet me. Co-worker saw it from the house and said “It’s so cute that he came to meet you!” He relished getting attention.

3 weeks later – November 9th, 2020 – my beloved shetland sheepdog, Jester, passed away. He was old (13 years) and his health had been declining, so it wasn’t a shock, but I was devastated.

It was a couple of days later that I went to walk Griffy again, I thought it would help get my mind off things. Of course he knew I was heartbroken, and the whole walk he kept stopping and turning to gently bump me with his nose. It felt like he was saying “Hey, you ok back there?”

That was the day I knew he was going to be my horse.

The first time I ever rode him was January of 2021. I had ridden one of the other horses there a couple of times, and taken a few lessons. Griffy was ready to come back to work, and J. got on him a few times. One day she rode him while I was there, so I went into the arena to watch. She smiled at me from his back and said “Where’s your helmet?”

“In the barn,” I replied, totally not getting it.

“Why don’t you go get it?” she asked patiently. I realized what she was saying and I ran before she could change her mind.

J. had mentioned off-hand that I should not get my hopes up because maybe I wouldn’t like riding him. As if. It was amazing.

I don’t remember when exactly we had the conversation about buying him, but she tried to talk me out of it. I think she wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing it out of obligation, but she needn’t have worried – I knew, deep in my heart, that he was perfect. I remember her telling me that he wouldn’t do mounted archery (I was positive he would,) that he wasn’t the right color (I like blonds!), that he was too short (after getting bucked off a 16hh horse, 15.1hh is just perfect TYVM), that he isn’t very forward (I love a lazy horse) until finally she smiled and said “Ok, I’m convinced.”

This is the part where I’d like to tell you we lived happily ever after, but sadly….that was not the case. Part of buying a horse is getting a PPE – a pre-purchase exam. He failed his, showing lameness on his left front forelimb. We had always known his feet were not great – thin soles, not very strong – and we saw that the lameness improved when he had boots on, so we decided to put on shoes and use a hoof-hardening treatment for a while. This was in July of 2021.

About a month later, he was still lame, in fact a little worse despite having had shoes on for a few weeks. The vet did a nerve block & ultrasound and thought the issue was his coffin joint, so he got some injections into the joint (similar to what they do in humans for osteoarthritis) and given two months’ rest. In October, he still wasn’t better, so we went off to Texas A & M to get an MRI. They found some soft tissue damage in the left leg, so they recommended 4-6 months off and shockwave therapy. Not great news. J. and I had a talk where she said if this was a deal breaker for me buying him, she totally understood and no hard feelings at all. But we both felt pretty confident that he would recover from this, and random soft tissue issues are not the worst diagnosis. We decided to give him the time off, and see how it went.

By January of 2022, aside from some issues relating to the poor condition of his hooves, he seemed to be much better. We began doing short, 10-15 minute rides, focusing on staying in straight lines, and also added a hoof supplement to his diet. I told J. I needed him to be sound for 6 months before I bought him; she agreed that was reasonable. And for the next few months, things went great! We began working more, going for longer rides. We dreamt of dressage tests and mounted archery competitions. In July, J. asked if I still wanted to buy him. The responsibility was terrifying, but I knew he was my heart horse. I said yes. In August, she surprised me with his papers in a folder with purple and blue ribbons on it. I paypalled her the money immediately.

That was August 27th, 2022.

Things were going okay in September, but he developed a habit of not standing still at the mounting block. He would step back so that he could look at me. He seemed to only do it with me, and I thought maybe I caused it because I had been giving him treats during our ground warm up and he was trying to get more treats. I stopped, but he was still doing it. I asked J. to ride him and he didn’t do it, so I thought it must be me. In retrospect I realize he was telling me that he was in pain, but at the time I didn’t see it.

During one lesson in September, he didn’t want to canter. That was odd for him – canter his is favorite gate. He hates to trot – I always say he trots like a surly teenager, tossing his head, but he will float right into a canter. I asked J. and she said he was probably tired & hot.

In late October – It was October 31st, in fact – I was in a lesson and we had to stop. He was lame again.

Vet came back and we saw his left hind was swollen and felt hot. He and Merlin had been getting into it and having more than just mild scuffles in the pasture, so we figured maybe he injured it kicking out. Gave him some anti-inflammatories, and a month off. At the end of the month, the swelling was gone, but he was still lame. The vet thought it was the MFT joint, so he got more injections and another month off. During this time he had a lot of stall rest – more for inclement weather than the injury, but kind of the thought was the horses have to be inside when it rains, someone has to go in the stall, might as well be Griffy. Poor horse was SO stir crazy, he became hard to handle when I’d take him out to graze, and it really gave me insight into how shitty it is to stall horses all the time unless it’s medically necessary. We put him on a long-term mild sedative called respirine which helped, but he had a stronger-than-usual reaction to it and we were very reluctant to keep administering it.

In January, he still wasn’t better. The vet came back out, did a nerve block, and determined it was the suspensory ligament. 8-12 months off. That was the hardest blow – a whole year. No riding. I was crushed. Around this same time, we noticed he was also lame in his right front, but we dismissed that – he has a tendency to bang on the gate if he feels that I’m not moving fast enough to come get him, or his dinner isn’t ready, or he’s just mad at the world, and sometimes his foot gets stuck and he pulls on it. We figured it was from that.

Fast forward to April – his left hind is much improved, but his right front is still…not. Huh. Vet blocks the right foot all the way down, and he immediately goes lame in the left. Ok, dual lameness means probably feet. Time for shoes again. I don’t remember when we stopped them from the last time, but I quietly decide he’s just going to have shoes forever. They make a big, positive difference, so I start doing 10-15 minute rides in straight lines again.

Improvement slammed to a halt in June, and he was seriously lame in the right front. Again. Ok. Time for an MRI, which doesn’t happen until July due me and then J. being out of town. Texas A & M is about 1.5 -2 hours away, and it’s he closest place to get an MRI, so he has be hauled there. We get it done, and the findings are swelling of the coffin bone joints and the collateral ligaments around the coffin bone joints in both the left and the front forelegs. Vet feels like the swelling in the joints is probably impacting the ligaments, so he does new, very expensive injetctions into the joints which we hope will resolve everything. We give it a month, and he’s better, but not as much as we hoped. Vet suggests one more month, and then he seems….much better!

So in December, we start with our short rides again. I struggled a lot with actually putting time in the saddle – after so many issues, so many things wrong, I was afraid to start bringing him back to work. I joked that as long as we weren’t riding, he was Schroedinger’s Lame – both lame & sound. It was hard to get through a year off, and I wasn’t sure I could deal with another bout of lameness. It felt like we always got near the problem, but not actually a definite “Yes this is it” even with MRIs and nerve blocks and everything else.

Eventually I got over it and we start slowly, gradually getting back to work. More 10-15 minute rides. We worked on standing at the mounting block, and he’d been doing much better. I started to become cautiously optimistic. He seemed to be feeling good – really good. We took some short lessons and he seemed more forward, more eager to go. When I ask for a trot, he launches into a canter. We have one terrifying yet fun ride where I drop the reins in the canter and he channels Secretariat and races around the pasture while I scramble to get my reins back. He just wants to GO and after months of not being ridden and not feeling good, it seems like we’ve finally got the issues fixed!

Things are great until April. Then you know what I’m going to say…right front. Lame again.

Vet came out to evaluate him, and I was hoping it would just be further injections. He sadly shakes his head – there’s nothing left we can do. He is never going to be sound at anything more than a walk. This cycle of injury/rehab/back to work/injury is his life now. We can maybe do a neurectomy when they cut the nerve in the foot so he just doesn’t feel pain, and that might get us a couple more years of work, but it can also be dangerous because if something bad happens to his foot, he can’t feel it.

I was absolutely devastated. I asked about further injections, but the vet said that we should have gotten 2 years out of the ones from October, and if they were not working less than 6 months later, more wouldn’t help. Stem cells & PRP were not a good fit because of the location of the injury.

This was really it.

When things got bad in 2023, when nothing seemed to help, I promised Griffy we would figure this out, we were in this together until a vet told us we had no other options. I knew that was always a possibility, but I was wildly unprepared for it. I remember going into his shed and just bawling my eyes out. He stood near me, continually yawning, trying to tell me in his horse way that everything was going to be okay. I couldn’t bear to think that it wouldn’t be.

J. kindly told me the best thing would be to find a therapy barn for him. She has another retired horse at a local one, and he gets loved on and groomed and lots of attention. He only has to be sound at a walk, which he has been for years, and they achieve this by keeping him in a small paddock with older horses. I knew this was probably the right decision for him, but I just wasn’t ready to let him go. However, he needed to find a new address – J.’s place is lovely, but it’s not the best fit for a horse that isn’t in regular work. And the only thing we haven’t tried is a new space. Softer footing, a different arena, the sun rises at a different angle – who knows what will help? I was willing to grasp at any straw. Plus, new place uses a different vet, and I would not mind getting a 2nd opinion.

He moved to the new place May 7th. He settled in surprisingly fast – he liked his new pasture, he got along with his new pasture mate instantly, there was hardly any strife between them. We did some hand walking around the property, we met a lot of new horses (there were 40+ horses on this property…at his old place there were 3!) and things seemed pretty good. About 3 weeks later, it was time for new shoes, so I sent the radiographs we had taken in April to the farrier. I’m kind of chilling at home when I get a text from the barn owner:

Her: Holy shit these radiographs?
Me: Why???
Her: His side bones in both feet are wild
Me: What’s a side bone?
Her: I have to hold for farrier, give me a minute.

Obviously I wasn’t going to wait, so off I went to Dr. Google, DVM. And here is what I found:

Sidebones are the ossification of collateral cartilage in hoof. It is extremely common – some estimates suggest 80% of all horses have it. 95% of the time, it causes no issues and is not a contributing factor to lameness.

Sidebone – SmartPak Equine
“However, fracture of these cartilages or damage to nearby ligaments may be an issue when lameness is localized to the foot.”

Sidebone in horses – Causes, Symtpoms, and Treatment
“There are reports of sidebone associated with changes to ligaments elsewhere on the limb, suggesting that sidebone may cause abnormal stress during movement.”

Horses with extensive sidebones have an increased risk of injury
“If the condition is extensive enough, you should carefully consider this horse’s future and be aware that he is at-risk for collateral ligament, distal interphalangeal (coffin) joint, and distal phalanx (pedal bone) injury,”

I was reading this in amazement – this sounds like it could definitely be the issue!! Article after article talked about how they usually don’t cause issues, but in rare cases they do.

I looked up an image of a normal hoof x-ray:

Now here is Griffy’s – see if you can spot the difference, it’s subtle:

You know how you treat sidebones? With correctives shoes.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Untold vet visits. Multiple rounds of shoes. Two MRIs. Do you know how hard it is to get a horse an MRI!?

And it’s this fucking simple.

Every article acknowledges that usually, these aren’t a problem, and if 80% of horses have them, that is probably true. But you would THINK that a vet would think to say hey, maybe this is one of the rare cases….

Now you might be thinking what I did – it can’t be this easy. We had a good vet! We had a good farrier! Surely one of them would have said something!

New farrier puts the shoes on. I ride him the next day, not even 24 hours later.

I didn’t recognize the horse I got on.

His walk was free and swinging. He was forward. He walked FAST. He has always been one to “talk” under saddle – he grunts, he stretches, he snorts. He had never had so much to say. He offered to trot – he NEVER does that. He HATES trotting. Except this time, when he trotted off into a cloud, because his feet finally didn’t fucking hurt.

So, there are 3 possibilities going forward:
1) The sidebones continue to develop, and eventually will make him truly, permanently lame.
2) The sidebones stay as they are, and nothing changes.
3) The sidebones dissolve or break, and he’s fine.

The most likely option is #2, which is a-ok. We’ll probably never be doing tight 20 meter dressage circles, but there are a lot of wonderful rides in our future, and I absolutely can’t wait to experience them together!