Hope you have all had a good January! Wurzel and I started the month how we mean to go on by having lessons, lessons a plenty! Dressage lessons, jumping lessons, pole work lessons! We need to learn to improve so that’s how we began our year :)
In our last blog I told you about how I came to purchase this great big oaf and our journey in our first 4 years together. I left the blog with the promise to tell you about Wurzel’s near death experience and his claim to fame, so here we go!
About 2 years ago I moved Wurzel to my parents’ house that they bought, it has 3 stables and 4 acres. Wurzel and his Shetland buddy Rosie loved the freedom of their own yard, coming and going as they please! Our jumping improved as I made cross country jumps for the field and was able to create bigger and better jumps to jump!
I also bought our own wheels a 4×4 and a trailer. Wurzel isn’t the best loader so I wanted something easy for him to get into when he was protesting and the trailer seemed the easiest option. plus, he always seemed to travel well in a trailer.
Our biggest highlight of that year was when I signed us up for a “Champagne Breakfast Ride“. Oblivious, I didn’t realise this was a hunt ride and would be ridden as such! They post pictures of the hedge jumps on Facebook. I spent weeks looking at the photos, thinking I can do this! It doesn’t look THAT high! So, me and my happy hacker wander round the tremendous gathering of horses that was the Champagne Breakfast Ride. Wurzel nearly knocks the champagne table over in his keenness to get to it! He thought that smelt good. Before I knew it, we were off. In canter straight away!!!!! Wurzel immediately finds this very exciting and just bronks, bronks, bronks, bronks! Within a few bronks they were jumping a ditch, I wasn’t sure how I was going to bronk over the ditch, but thankfully he stopped bronking to jump the ditch and landed the other side where everyone gathered.
The relief, I felt that we had done it! Then they go back over it!!! Back over and off over another jump. I try to put wurzel through the gap in the hedge but in the confusion he just wouldn’t move so we ended up going over the jump anyway!
Then it just went on, jump after jump, proper hunt jumps, until we got into a field and I wasn’t sure whether it was because we were jumping into the dark or whether he was just tired, but he didn’t want to do anymore and the rest of the field were leaving. I hear a “Are you ok Rebecca” a voice I recognise and it was an instructor we had been to a few times, that friendly voice meant so much! After a few minutes we got Wurzel to jump out the field, nearly hit a tree on landing! that should teach me! We rested after that and then entered the hedge field!
Suddenly the group splits, big hedge this way, little hedge that way they say! The small hedge group seem to disappear so me and a few others head for the small hedge. it was a very small hedge, I don’t even think wurzel jumped, just glided over in a canter stride! Our group was chaotic, horses going everywhere, I follow onto the other group and slowly cantered/trotted up to the hedge I remember seeing in the photos. As I’m cantering up, I’m thinking, gosh, that looks big! but I’d made the plan to go over it, so I had to follow through! We take a leap over the hedge, it was wide! Very wide! We were coming down, in the hedge! Then out of nowhere our friendly instructor joined us in the middle of the hedge, giving wurzel that extra reach to clear the hedge! I lose everything reins, stirrups, everything! But stay on and so ecstatic that little old happy hacker coblet and me jumped a hedge!!
That ride was amazing and improved our confidence to canter out in open spaces. We went on a few sponsored rides after that and had a super time cantering about. What a wonderful horse I had!!
Then it happened.
I remember taking him to the school on the Saturday, it’s quite a long ride, plus the schooling. He schooled beautifully. On the Sunday I thought I’d unusually give him the day off as he worked so well the previous day. On the Monday morning he had not done the usual amount of poo’s in his stable, which was odd. my mum said he was lying down in the field, which was unusual. Put him to bed that night, by the following morning he hadn’t done any poo’s. I wonder if he’s off his food maybe? Turn him out, again my mum says he’s lying down. By this point I decide to get the vet out. The lovely Alister from Shotters and Byers in Dorking comes out. I don’t think we had ever met him before. We tie wurzel up and I take the plait out his tail and half the hair falls out. Alister quickly diagnoses he’s backed up so sedates him and puts his arm inside Wurzel to retrieve the backed up poo! Immediately Wurzel is relieved and begins eating again. The vet goes Wurzel goes to bed again no poo’s overnight. The vet comes out again the following day. I had turned Wurzel out in the morning as he would stress if kept in and Wurzel has unhelpfully decided to lie down at the furtheest point of the field. I really did think we were never going to get him back, he just kept trying to lie down when we were bringing him in. Again, Alister manually evacuated Wurzel, immediately Wurzel was relieved and back to himself. Thursday came, the same situation and then we decided to take him to hospital. Annoyingly the MOT had run out on my 4×4 so I had to hire a box. But I’m glad I did, as if he had gone down in the trailer he probably would have tipped it. He was able to free stand in the box for the trip to the hospital.
X-rays, MRI scans, blood tests, you name it he had it. They decided they could see a faint hairline fracture where his tail joins his spine :( But he had also damaged the nerves to his gut, tail and back legs!! The vet said his prognosis was poor :( If they had to sedate him every time to evacuate him, they wouldn’t do it as it’s not fair. So wurzel let them manually evacuate him without sedation! (First hurdle!) Then as a nurse had her arm deep inside him, his gut squeezed her arm so hard he nearly broke it! His gut began to start working again! (Second hurdle!) And he continued to improve from that moment! He had 6 months off work, which he was thoroughly bored during! The vet said once the bone was healed he didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t work. Work has strengthened his back legs, when he is in work his back legs are strong, out of work they trip and stumble a bit. He has gone from strength to strength after his accident. (Still don’t know how he did it!) He loves his jumping again and moves very nicely for dressage!
The final point for this month! Wurzels claim to fame! What would naughty Wurzel do to claim fame? Why he jumped the 6-bar gate during a free schooling session of course! From basically a standstill too! This was 2 years after his accident! There’s not much wrong with him! The video had millions of views and was shared all around the world on Facebook. They loved his carefree attitude to his work! Horse and Hound did an article on us and a Dutch magazine has done a 5-page spread on the incident! See it for yourself on YouTube search “Team Wurzenator“! Until next time.
Keep horsing around people!!
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