We've all got a horse story, haven't we. The one who comes into your life, not with fanfare or planning, but with a quiet pull you can’t ignore. For me, that’s Carmen. (Well, okay - MacAttack too - though he bulldozed his way in rather than arriving with a quiet insistence.)

September 2014, I wasn't looking for another horse. As a family we had the perfect life balance with EquiNatural, Murf and Cookie, but then I met Carmen. A strikingly pretty 7yo TB mare, yet standing isolated in a small field, looking undernourished and forgotten.

Carms had started her life as a prospective racer, beautifully bred to fly and win. But - she was born with a pronounced inward-twisted LF hoof and pastern, so discarded to life as a brood mare. By the age of 5 she'd already been passed from home to home, eventually left behind in a field until a kind-hearted family - who were looking at another horse for their daughter - spotted her whip scars and a heavy limp.

Written off

The vet pronounced her effectively 2/10 lame with a script of permanent pain-relief and annual steroid jabs for life. She was turned out and loved, but largely left to her own devices. Meanwhile, her barrel was expanding rapidly, until a few months later Carms produced a perfect foal, apparently the result of an illicit night with a big coloured WB chap.

Fast forward two years, and I found myself standing beside her. I knew the family, and ever the sucker for a sob story, on hearing about her sad background of course I went and cuddled her. Sure enough, there was her pronounced wonky hoof, and in a pretty ropey state to boot. In fact, all her hooves hadn't seen a rasp for months - they were painfully overgrown and cracked, with underrun heels and lami event lines on every one. The family meant well - generous, kind cattle farmers - but with limited equine knowledge.

She also didn't look fabulous - a bit scrawny, with a dull scurfy coat - not what you'd expect for a chestnut TB. I casually asked the daughter what feed she was on, only to hear two enormous feeds a day of 17% molassed chaff and cheap bulk-filler pellets, despite being unridden and out 24/7. When I asked why she was on so much hard feed, the daughter shrugged. "That’s what our others get." Ah. 

The bigger picture

Carmen’s situation wasn’t unique - and sadly, it’s something we've probably all seen far too often - the all-too-familiar tale of the overindulged teen with deep-pocketed parents. Always with an expensive classy horse on standby to fill her socials with glossy photos, a status symbol to match the handbag and the personalised number plate.

But then the novelty wears off. The horse becomes an inconvenience. No more glossy photos, no interest in their care, no understanding of the responsibility that comes with the privilege. I saw this girl cycle through several horses in just a few years. Two died. The third was sent to slaughter because they couldn’t get the sale price they wanted - even turning down a kind, fair offer from a friend of ours.

Those that were sold on left looking nothing like the well-bred, high-value athletes they once were - overweight, bloated, confused, and utterly neglected. And yet, each time she threw a sulk, the cycle repeated. Her parents - well-meaning, but enabling - would dig her out of the mess and trot off to buy the next expensive competition horse for her to ruin.

It was the mother who bought Carmen, touched by the sight of her alone and defeated in that field when they were looking for the brat's next horse. When I saw Carms she was standing in old shoes, her coat was dull, and there was also a particularly nasty fetlock wound on her RH from a barbed wire incident, still raw and untreated - months later. When I asked about it, I was told, “The vet said it would heal on its own.” The daughter hadn’t looked at it since. Carms was already another disposable chapter in her socials pages, and her mother was already keen to shift her on for a pittance.

The decision

With Carmen's story ringing in my ears, I brought it up with Rich (the ever-patient husband), as you do when you're about the upset the apple cart. "Are you sure you want another horse?" he asked, while I hopped from one foot to the other. But I couldn't get her out of my head. She deserved so much better. Apart from anything, her hooves needed serious attention, and that wound definitely needed looking at.

I figured she could buddy up with our Cookie who adored the company of mares; poor Cookie had been very much stuck with Murf for years. I assured Rich that as we already had two horses, one more wouldn't break us. He shrugged in acceptance - even handing me the cash to go get her there and then.

And that was that. Carmen came home. She joined Murf and Cookie like she’d always belonged.

The spiral

First up, we overhauled her diet. Out went the junk, and in went a clean forage-fibre feed carrier, with our EquiVita balancer, and JSTTonic for her lameness. But - she initially looked at me as if I was some kind of mad, and refused it all. Then it dawned on me that of course - she'd been previously blissed out on a high-sugar crap-in-a-bag diet, so naturally she was a bit peeved - she was missing her sugar-hit! Realising I'd forgotten my own advice that we give clients to wean feeds over slowly, I gave in (briefly) and bought a bag of her former crappy feed. Within two weeks she was licking her bowl cleaner than the other two. Needless to say her old feed went straight off to the muck heap pronto.

Meanwhile, our trimmer got those shoes off then carefully took numerous photos of Carmen's hooves, giving her her first proper trim to something functional. She was impeccable throughout, as if she knew she was being helped. Her fetlock wound, however, had been left for months to fester. It didn’t look great, and I was already cleaning it up when disaster struck.

The fall

Two weeks later, Carmen suddenly couldn't walk. She was fine that same morning, but now she was stock still in her field. It didn't take long to see she was beyond hopping lame on her RH. Somehow we got her to the stable - she was very stoic, but each step was a military manoeuvre in itself - she was clearly in agony. I had a good look at her, yet nothing seemed out of the ordinary, other than a bit of heat around her fetlock wound.

The vet came, took one look, got out a very nasty looking needle and drew fluid from the joint, twice. Then gave me the bad news - joint sepsis. The infection had likely been brewing for weeks, she said, and had only presented itself that day as the infection finally reached her bloodstream.

The vet understandably prescribed bute and antibiotics, but there was no way Carmen would make the 4-hour trip to the hospital on three legs as recommended - it would mean balancing on her twisted LF, with all the misalignment above in her skeletal frame to throw her off further. The vet then hit me with it - apparently there was only a 5% chance the antibiotics would work, so if there was no improvement within 48-hours, Carmen's prognosis was PTS.

I went home in absolute shock. Tears were shed. I barely slept until the next morning when I syringed her drugs into her. 24-hours came and went. Day two and she was still in agony, unable to weight-bear on her leg at all. Day three - no better. I rang the vet, heart in my throat, and we agreed to speak in the morning. I'd barely got to know this beautiful girl for 5-minutes and now I was counting down the clock to end her young life.

The pivot

That night something flipped. I couldn’t accept that this would be her end. Not after everything. Then the red mist came through ... what the heck was I doing, prepared to rely on a mere 5% chance for a recovery? Not to mention all the damage the pharma drugs were doing to her gut and immunity, just when she needed the strongest immunity she could muster.

It was a Kelso deja-vu all over again. Vet meds not working - hang on, worse than that - didn't have a hope of working. Suddenly my brain kicked in through the emotional fog, remembering that sometimes, when conventional meds fail, plant actives still have a card to play. So I gathered everything I had - immune support, antimicrobials, anti-inflammatories - and created a blend on instinct to draw out and kill off that infection as best I could. Day four - I gave her a double dose and crossed everything. And I didn’t call the vet.

The next morning when I peered over her stable door, Carm's hoof was flat on the floor. I couldn't believe my eyes! Then I noticed a flipping great hole on her coronet band right below her wound. She'd abscessed beautifully - I've never been so happy to see an abscess in my life! She walked out of her stable that same morning after her breakfast, a bit hobbly but with a flat foot and moving, determined to get on with her day.

She’d turned a corner. And that blend became our BioCARE.

From crisis to catalyst

From that moment on, Carmen blossomed with a ton of TLC, nutrition, herbal support, and time. Her coat gleamed, and with careful trimming her wonky hoof - while always a work in progress - became a little straighter, while her hooves began growing stronger and more functional. 

Of course, she’s still a TB, and a very enthusiastic one. Three years on, she’d settled into life with us and loved nothing more than hooning around the field. But one summer, mid-hoon, she came up properly lame, so much so that I couldn’t get her in. With massive inflammation around her LF fetlock, I suspected DDFT.

So, it was back to the toolkit, and acute support first - she went straight onto TriBute to ease the early-stage inflammation, alongside her everyday JSTTonic and her next tailor-made blend - what would become JointReflexa. As I couldn't move her, I left her out with the others so she could mooch within her own comfort levels (instead of sharp pivot turns in a stable, which would only risk more damage).

By week three, she was ready for very gentle, straight-line shuffles where I could get her down to the yard for x-rays. As I suspected, it was a torn DDFT.

As the pain eased, I switched her down to our DuoBute. Within 2-months she was walking with barely a nod, seemingly remarkably sound considering the injury. 

Today? She's thriving

We don't call her 2/10 lame, because that twisted hoof will always be part of her, but Carms doesn’t seem to know that!

These days, she lives in harmony with her body, growing the hooves she needs with a bit of flare for balance. She gets her daily joint support and minerals, pastern magnets on both fronts, and the life she was meant to have - friends, forage, freedom, sunshine.

Rich is her favourite human (though I keep telling him it’s because he paid for her). She’s whip-smart, incredibly grounded, and occasionally sassy when she has something to say - compare that to how shut down she was when I first met her. She reminds us every day of why we do what we do, especially considering she's responsible for two of our most popular blends - BioCARE and JointReflexa.

It's barely worth thinking about, but imagine if I'd followed the vet's protocol (which in my emotional state I so nearly did). I'd have ended the life of a beautiful 7-year old mare who'd already been through enough of a horrible life.

We're so lucky to have her in our world. Oh - and she does not get an annual steroid jab.

Image below - Carms 10-months after she joined our family, taken Jul'15