This past Nov, my horse Cisco broke his right hind coffin bone. Nasty break up into the joint, multiple pieces, etc. Which then promptly got infected. Cisco was spending most of >80% of the day laying down in his stall licking his hurt foot. My colleagues that I contacted that specialize in equine orthopedics were less than optimistic. The topic of surgery was tossed around. Most thought he wouldn't ride again.
In the end, I opted not to take him to surgery given the exceptionally high complication rate and the likelihood that it wasn't going to change the outcome. TONS of antibiotics. Corrective shoeing. Stall rest. Suppliments. Lots of nursing care.
In Jan, *months* before anyone had anticipated, he was cleared to go back to pasture. And in Feb, he was cleared to ride. By March, he was cleared to go back to jumping. None of us had expected to even have him fully back out to pasture by March!
Cisco has been doing wonderfully.
Decided to enter him in a show the first weekend of May. Let him take it easy and see how he held up. After a lot of adjustments to his corrective shoe (to make it legal for USEF regs), he destroyed the shoe after we arrived on show grounds. But he stayed sound and so I showed him.
My pony is back! He had beautiful rides. Only rode him in four classes over the course of the show. But he felt amazing. He was still a little tightly wound during his first SHUS class but still managed to take second in a decent sized deep class. He took first in his other SHUS class (again a good sized deep class) and first in both of his HP classes (not as big of classes, but some nice horses). He even warmed up one day with the hunter hack horses and had no trouble with the jumps.
Yeah! So excited to have my boy back.
Looks like we'll be headed to Regionals after all. And if he continues to stay sound with increased jumping, Nationals might not be completely out of the question this year.
Not bad for a horse that we weren't sure would live through his injury!