Scratch

So yesterday I was waffling as to whether or not to ride Ben after our weekend extravaganza. On the one hand I wanted to give him a day off before the trainer's ride and my lesson - because Sunday did go a bit longer than I had expected (thanks to his behavior). I was feeling a bit guilty about it, and really looking forward didn't want to be souring my young horse, who is only 4, after all. But then, the more I thought about it, well,  he has 22 hours in a day to do as he pleases. And really, if he did work hard (and he wasn't even all that sweaty), he could use a long walk light trot to loosen up those muscles.

Plus I really wanted to try to canter a bit, just to be able to tell my trainer I did it, just like she told me to (although I am pretty sure she meant canter during every ride...but oh well).

I had the plan all figured out. I'd get out to the barn, take him for a long walk, do some real quick trot work, and then focus on canter - get it a few circles on both reins, and then let it be - maybe go back out for a long walk on the track.

Perfect plan, right?

When I got to the barn I pulled him out of his stall, and saw his eye was swollen shut, and everything around it wet with tears. Crapola. I've seen this movie before- in fact, I'm pretty sure all of my horses have hurt their eye at one time or another.

Some people wonder if this type of this constitutes an emergency vet call.  I say it does- especially if you have a young horse in work. Yes, he might've just bonked his head, gotten a piece of dirt in there. But he could've also had a piece of something in there, or he could've done serious damage to the eye- only to make it worse. If left untreated, that can scar up and cause sight problems. So, the call was made.

Vet came out, sedated him, inspected his eye, could not find any debris. He then did the contrast dye stuff that turns the eye a bright green - which will also show any scratches caused to the eye - the green dye sticks right to it. Low and behold, Ben did have a corneal ulcer- aka a scratched eye.

He's on pain/antinflammatories for the next 5 days, he's got some eye medicine, is sportin a fly mask, and my checkbook is a little lighter.

Work resumes on Friday/ Saturday, and in the meantime we're going to bond while hand-walking.