First injury of 2011

Despite my good intentions, Bootcamp had to be postponed.  We managed all of one day.  I arrived at the stables on Monday, saddle in tow.  Wolfie was still in the field, I looked over at him, he appeared agitated and I knew straight away something was wrong.  I headed over to the gate and he came galloping over.  Blood was dripping onto my jacket, coming from a wound under his chin.  I got him into the stable and managed to clean it up.  Looks like a bite and a pretty gruesome one at that.  The hair has been ripped out and taken a huge chunk of flesh with it.  It's not big in diameter, but deep.  It was really swollen and very tender all around it.  He couldn't manage to put his head down to his feed bucket as it must have nipped or pulled at that last stretch.  He was pretty upset.  In hindsight I don't know whether I should have called the vet and got it stitched.  I just left it open after I'd cleaned it and gave him some Arnica and Hypericum.  A good scab had formed yesterday and it was much less swollen and tender and he had full range of movement.  Today it's better again.  I just need to keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn't get infected.  So he's had the last few days off again.  I'm hoping to get on tomorrow and have a little walk around the school.

I'm going to put it down to an 'accident' in the field or horseplay getting out of hand.  It was this time last year that Wolfie started to come in week after week with a different injury, each one worse than the last.  I can't even begin to describe how frustrating I find these scrapes he gets into in the field and the resulting injuries which keep him off work.  Never mind the constant worry and wondering what I'm going to find when I get to the stables.  I have never known a horse like Wolfie, even a youngster who requires so much mental stimulation and interaction.  The only thing I can think of at the moment is to get him into work and keep him tired, so he doesn't have the energy to noise up the others.  In the meantime I will get him a gum shield and some boxing gloves.

I had put together a 4 week fittening plan, just for walk.  Well, it's really just stage 1 of hardening and strengthening him up properly.  I don't have enough daylight at the moment to really put it into practice, so I will see what we achieve over the next couple of weeks and then I can modify it.  I also want to get some ideas of distances so that I can measure speed over distance.