Against All Odds

Cordia Pearson

Society of Master Saddlers Qualified Saddle Fitter

This article originally appeared in The Morgan Horse December 1990

Can a horse change your life? Make you learn things you never realized needed knowing? Spend every waking hour thinking, planning, dreaming, building a whole farm around him---a 14.3 hand, black chestnut Flyhawk grandson? Can a horse change peoples' lives?

Yes! Completely! Utterly! Inalterably!

In our lives, that stallion's name is Funquest Bosquejo. On April 27th, Joey will be twenty years old.

Time does not lay heavily upon Joey's body. It lays not at all upon his heart. Time and the experiences he's been through have only increased his greatness as a living example of Morgan spirit.

Barn blindness? Not this time. Ask anyone who knows Joey and they'll tell you the same thing. Interestingly, among Joey's greatest admirers are veterinarians, equine health professionals who work with all breeds under the most trying and tragic circumstances. These people know what it means to use all the skills and tools at their disposal only to lose a patient because of the animal's fear or self destructive behavior.

Joey's chances of survival when he first arrived at the University of Minnesota Large Animal Clinic were conservatively placed at "...maybe 10%. Don't get your hopes up."

The speaker was Dr. Trevor Ames, head of Clinical Medicine. In the darkened Radiology room, with the only light coming through a series of X-Rays of Joey's smoke damaged lungs, the pronouncement felt like a fist of cold lead in my stomach. But then, Charles and I were learning to stay on our feet despite having lost two-thirds of our horses in an early March 1987 fire. Dr. Ames wasn't being cruel or unfeeling, he was simply speaking from experience and trying to ready us for the inevitable.

And inevitable it seemed as day one turned to five and still Joey wouldn't eat. He stood in his stall at the U, head down, eyes glazed as an IV ran drugs and nutrition into his veins. Five days crawled into seven and still he turned away the choicest alfalfa hay, carrots, apples, sweet feed: all the things he used to love. And yet, he continued to relate to our presence, to our grooming away the awful stench of the fire . . . of smoke, soot and wet wood. Our three year old Wil-O-Mor Spitfire son was put down before he drowned in his own lung fluids. Jo still refused food, but began noticing there were mares around.

Seven days became ten and he started giving some thought to food. The quality of hay was "fillet Mignon," filling the stall with the perfume of green, green, green! Day eleven. Calmly, as if nothing had ever been wrong, Jo reach up to the hay rack and started eating.

The news went through the clinic: JO'S EATING! His admirers gather to watch the "miracle" of an eating horse. Permission came for "clinic walks", slow strolls punctuated by Jo's hoots and nickers to the girls, no matter their breed. People would stop in the aisle, admiring the gallant Morgan stallion as he flipped his head and parked out for them.

Common comments: "That's a Morgan? Wow, I didn't know they were so beautiful. I always though of them as little draft horses. Is he always this well mannered?"

Had that been the end of this story, all of us would have been ecstatic. Unfortunately, thirty days after returning home, Jo came up lame after making a spin turn in his pasture. His vet, Dr. Dean Peterson, D.V.M. examined him that day and a week later when matters had not improved. At that time, Dean nerve blocked the leg to locate the lameness. When we trotted him with the nerves just above his left fetlock blocked, on the final pass, Joey's front pastern exploded with a sound like a rifle shot.

He was seventeen years old. He had just survived, against all odds, a barn fire. None of us had considered the possibility that the drugs and the stress might have stolen minerals from his bones. Unable to feel any pain, Joe put his full weight on a hairline fracture and blew his pastern wide open.

For an hour, I held Jo's leg on a hay bale as Dean raced back to the U for a walking bar and casting materials. We trailered Jo back to the U and waited with our stomachs in uproar for the X-Rays.

Dr. Mickey Trent was head of surgery. Once more, we stood in Radiology, this time the room lit by the light coming through X-Rays of Jo's pastern. "His survival chances are 3%, tops. The joint is like corn flakes. The best thing to do is to put him down. No horse has ever survived a P2 break like this."

I couldn't' talk, not when my body was trying to decide whether to faint or throw up. Charles brought the conversation to an abrupt end. "We're not giving up."

With Dr. Chris Little, an Australian race track vet, doing the actual casting, an hour later Jo was back in a stall at the clinic, this time one of the Laminitis stalls with a special padding over the concert and about two feet of shavings on top of that.

Though tired, he hooted his presence to the entire aisle, then went about figuring out how to lay down with everything below his left knee in plaster.

And so it went, four to five times EVERY hour, Jo laid down for 5 to 10 minutes. The laminitis that would have spelled his doom never got a start. While on his feet, he would often lift the cast, swinging it back and forth, as if circulating the blood better. (2000 note: he will still do this whenever his arthritis acts up. While it would be normal for his left hoof to grow slower, amazingly there are times when his left hoof has to be reset but not the right.) The vets, clinicians, surgeons and students gathered at his stall, speculating over the intelligence of an animal intent upon saving his own life.

While one dose of Bute did get past us that first night, we wrote on his chart in bold letters, NO MEDICATION WITHOUT OWNERS' PERMISSION. Our reasoning was simple. If he couldn't feel the pain, he wouldn't take pressure off his legs.

The first time I met with the new head of Clinical Medicine, (a rotated responsibility), he was on his hands and knees, crawling into Joey's stall so as not to disturb him.

That man was Dr. Brad Gordon and for the first time, we had someone who talked to us in terms of "when" rather than "if." Dr. Gordon ran interference for us, seeing to it we were allowed in after visiting hours, arranging storage for Joey's 'home' hay and grain. He was the one who encouraged my herbal supplements and came up with a supplement of his own, MSM, a nutritive form of Sulphur, at that time just being tested on the race tracks for swelling, pain and bone related problems. (Jo has remained on MSM ever since.)

I'd be in Jo's stall, grooming him during rounds, and would have to smile as a student described the other cases on our aisle by numbers and maladies, and then say: "And this is Joey, and he's doing fine!" During this point in time, Jo got to star in a video promoting the vet school, playing the part of the 'beautiful Morgans stallion' with one of the students.

One day became thirty-three. (Does this sound familiar?) Chris Little and his team gathered in I.C.U. for the first cast change. I was at Jo's head, talking him through the scream of a saw going through the cast, the stocks and belly strap. The X-Ray tech got two fast shots as the old cast came off. Immediately, Chris pulled a new stocking over Joe's leg. First came padding, then layer after layer of fiberglass plaster bandages.

Chris disappeared for a while. When he returned, his expression was smug, almost conspiratorial. "Cordia, there's something out here you've got to see."

I followed him to the X-Ray light boxes in the hallway. This time, the surroundings weren't dark, . . . anymore than the look on Chris' face as he pointed out the "corn flakes" of Jo's pastern. "Look. There and there. See those smoky places. That's new bone. He's growing new bone!"

That was Friday. Monday, once they were certain the new cast was sound, Jo went home, belting the back of the trailer in sheer high spirits.

It became the summer of leg wrapping. Every day, the quilts and Champ bandages on his other legs had to be changed. His mares came into heat. The U came out, already convinced there wasn't anything Joey couldn't do. With the assistance of Dr. Harry Momont, we collected Jo, Charles and I catching his legs, me on the good one, Charles with the cast as Dr. Momont handled the AV. The U returned, this time with cameras and video, wanting proof that a stallion would allow himself to be collected under these cindidito0ns, literally trusting his handlers to hold him in their arms while he bred.

Twice, we returned to the U for cast changes, at 60, then 90 days, when he came out of the plaster cast and went into a walking cast, a complicated arrangement of padding, PVC pipe and tape. Two shoes were welded together at their ends so he wouldn't put undue pressure on the newly healed pastern.

We went on "grass walks", slow tours of the farm. The walking cast was traded for quilts and Champs; the extended heel on his shoe got shortened. Every time a question arouse about "What do we do now?", the U responded with, "Cordia, trust Joey, he knows better than any of us what's best."

And so we learned to teak our cues from Jo. When he signaled that he wanted more freedom, he got it; the use of our indoor arena. When he wanted to trot, we grit our teeth and didn't stop him.

This spring, Jo had six foals born to him, four fillies and two colts. This spring, he went back into harness. And this fall, we rode him, laughing so hard we were doubled up over his neck as he took little crow hops every other step, telling everybody HE WAS BACK!

His pastern is fused now and there is a slight stiffness in this trot, but he doesn't favor the leg in the least. As for his attitude, we don't call him "Daddy Horse" for nothing. He is senior stallion, the farm is his and we all know it. No one owns a horse like Jo, because, like all the great ones, he is his own horse. It is a privilege to live with this kind-hearted Morgan stallion. And thanks to the caring and wisdom of many people, this wonderful animal, is, and will continue to create a legacy of his loving heart and never say quit spirit for generations to come.

Cordia Pearson