The Beginning of the End

    I'm not sure where to start the story of Classy Dan so for today I'm going to share what I believe was the beginning of the end of her career as a barrel horse. She was well bred, well put together, well started and very trainable when I got her as a 4 yr. She was lots of fun to ride on a pattern or working cows and had tons of heart. As a 5 yr old she made futurity short go's and was used by a peewee that needed a horse at the SBRA finals. At 6-7 she was a consistent 1D horse inside and although lacked the speed to be low 17's on a standard she was as solid and honest as they come. She won me the SBRA 2D saddle 2 weeks after getting a cast off my broken leg. She was fabulous but wasn't clocking like she had in earlier yrs
Enter my desire to win..... I only needed 3-6 more tenths depending on the pattern surly it could be found. I started feeding her up (she looked like a shiny penny) I took her to the vet, to the witch DR, to the chiropractor, the dentist, the horse whisperer etc none which did any harm but to my pocket book, there was often some small improvement but not a real tangible result that lasted. Not because these people weren't good at what they do, I will explain more in later posts. I tired herbs and vet prescribed steroids neither got me my 5 tenths. My beautiful calm steady mare slowly changed shape and personality. She was stressed I decided she just wasn't destined to be a pro horse so I would sell her to a lucky high school rodeo girl. A few came and rode her she worked well for all the last girl fell in love. They were going to come get her on the weekend. That Thursday I caught her to bring in and she was lame, very lame. I took her to the Vet Friday he says abscess, poultice and clean she will be fine. Days go by she’s way worse take her back find out the abscess is from a puncture through her deep digital to navicular bone. She stays at clinic and Charles saves her. I say saves because most vets wouldn't have. She came home still in pain with a long road ahead. For a long time I thought this injury ended her career but her career spiraled years prior when I made the choice I just wanted to win. Now I know she ended up staying with me for a reason and each day this week I'm going to share parts of our story in hopes to help any of you wanting to know what I have learned. I'm not an expert, just a girl who made some mistakes and is learning from them.
Stay tuned :)


Originally Posted to Facebook April 24, 2015