The words ‘At best she might be able to be a walk hack in the future’ rang through my ears as my brain couldn’t quite believe and didn’t want to compute what I was hearing.
I’m not an overly emotional person but I wanted to cry. I couldn’t and didn’t, but I wanted to as the physical feelings washed over me like waves of unwanted knives stabbing inside me.
The intense mix of emotions range from disbelief, to guilt, to overwhelming sadness, to feeling guilty again and then for feeling guilty to even be feeling these emotions. My practical brain kicks in – she is a horse – she is still alive – get a grip.
Over the last two years I feel like my resilience has been tested like I’m in sort of training for the Navy Seals. I have no intention to join the Seals – I’d just quite like a smoother ride!
Cianti isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – in fact she the most disliked horse on our small yard by everyone except me – she is 100% my horse and I absolutely adore the bones of her. It took her 14 months to start to love me back, but since that point I am now most definitely her person and she is my heart horse.
It sounds so silly writing that, but if you own a mare and you are their person you will know exactly what I mean.
Despite the fact that she could be spicy, I’d had a fantastic run and we had gone to places that I never even dreamed of. We have turned our hoof to everything with a smile on our faces and we even qualified for the BD Winter National Championships.
This was the one competition that I felt I had really ballsed up and let Cianti down. I had a burning desire to put this right and to trot down that centre line once again and do my horse proud.
But in 30 long minutes, all of my dreams, hopes and ambitions had been swept away and binned forever.
The outcome of a check over before a joint medication had escalated quickly, and Hugh from Loch Leven Equine Practice had spotted some things only an experienced pair of eyes could. My vets are such an important part of the team and I trust them implicitly. Having an experienced equine vet is really important to me and moments like these highlight exactly why.
Hugh knows Cianti well, knows her normal and what it isn’t normal and was absolutely methodical in his expert approach. He did various tests, poked, prodded, palpated and paused. At this point I knew it wasn’t great.
His investigations found that she had an enlarged suspensory branch on her front leg, she was bilaterally lame behind, her fetlocks had started to drop and her hind suspensory ligaments were sore, as was her sacroiliac.
And this was after five months of rehab work in walk (and one canter on the beach) which made it even more of a concern.
In a nutshell the outcome of this is four-five months of field rest – reassess her and the best outcome is that she might return to hacking at walk.
Having lost my Mum last year it seems completely unreasonable to say that I am gutted over my horse going lame – but I am.
I have had so many unwanted feelings, feelings of guilt for not recognising that she has been sore, sadness over the loss of our future, sad for her, disbelief and the practical thoughts of what the bloody hell do I do with another lawnmower!
Having a horse is tough. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, they test every part of your from your inner reserve, patience, confidence, skill, staying power, determination, fitness, mindset and resilience.
I’m not sharing this blog for anything other than to let everyone know when they ask me in a coaching capacity, or through EquiTeam “Why is this so hard?” – I want you to know that I really do understand the ups, downs, highs, lows, blood, sweat and tears. I’m living and breathing it with you.
All I can say is that it is a good job the good bits are bloody awesome otherwise I might take up a less stressful and less emotional hobby!
For those who are interested, resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. I think we can all class ourselves as resilient by default!
As I go and drink copious amounts of tea, eat too much chocolate and lick my wounds I will leave you with a quote that struck me from Winston Churchill –
“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”
Stay strong and smiling,
Liz x
If you would like to learn some tools for helping with your resilience, read our blog from Jane Brindley of Horse Riding with Confidence Scotland – The seven ‘c’s of resilience
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