Lucky Star got to visit Dr. Randy Huenefelg (Dr. Randy) at Adrian on Friday morning. It was a dentist vet visit for Lucky Star. He also got his picture taken to be put on his Coggins paper. For the non horse people that read the blog, Coggins is a test that every horse must have to go visit a horse show, another boarding place etc. It is a test that makes certain the horse doesn’t have the horse form of HIV. The Coggins paper will show that Lucky Star had his blood tested and he does not have the disease. It also gives Lucky Star’s name, color, breed and age. His picture will be on the certification. The age was a matter of discussion. Horse have baby teeth and then the adult teeth. A vet is well trained to be able to tell the age of the horse by looking at their teeth. Also the horses’ teeth continue to grow. Grazing on the grass that the mustangs grazed on, keeps the teeth under control. Sadly, we don’t have that kind of grass here on our pastures, so the horse needs his teeth “trimmed” yearly. If the teeth continue to grow without enough saw grass grazing, the teeth will start chewing on the horse’s tissues in his mouth. You know how painful it is when you have a condition that causes you to bite the inside of your mouth. That’s what happens to our modern day horses.
Anyway, Dr. Randy told me that Lucky Star is four years old. He has a four year old baby tooth that hasn’t yet been replaced by an adult tooth. I called up Teresa for another reason and she checked his papers. Indeed, he is a 2007 model! He’s in his fourth year. When his birthday comes next May, he’ll be five. For horse show purposes (and racing) every horse attains the next age on January 1st. That means this coming January, if Lucky Star and I were in a horse show, he would be five years old.
For the trailer ride to Adrian, Lucky Star rode in the first position in the trailer. The divider bar locks Lucky Star into a narrow place in the head of the trailer. The bar is made so that Lucky Star can’t get his head over the divider and bite the horse next to him. When we got to Adrian, I got Velvet out and tied her up. I got back into the trailer and Lucky Star had somehow got his head turned around so he was looking backwards. There isn’t really enough room for a horse’s head and neck to be in the same place in this narrow confinement. His nose was touching his withers. That made his body press on the divider bar. There was too much pressure for me to release the divider bar. Probably there was nearly 700 lbs of pressure on that bar. No way could I get the release to work. I called for Dr. Randy and then Lucky Star was able to get his head back to where God made horse’s heads to stay and I released the divider bar and got him out. Good GAD! I didn’t have the strength of will to put him back in the lead trailer position on the way back home. I just couldn’t get that vision of his head squished against his shoulders to go away.
Velvet went to for a chiropractic adjustment. Velvet has been telling me that her back, sternum and neck are out and that she needs me to get that adjustment done. Velvet is well able to make her needs known without using the English language. Velvet uses her ears-flattened against her neck, her head snakes, and she clicks her teeth when she is really trying to get her point across. Let me tell you, it would take a blind person to ignore her expression of displeasure!
Velvet had an extensive adjustment done. She was out of place nearly everyplace a horse could be. She gets some time off to heal up that soreness. I’ll be anxious to see what she tells me the next time I ride her.