Some Bad Mojo!!

 

 

There must be some bad mojo going around!

Quite a few blogger friends have been seriously hurt lately, either while riding horses or while working around them: Donkey Sense, Drafts with Dots (Caution: Graphic!), A Good Horse, and now Fantastyk Voyage !

Tonight my neighbor friend, Val ( Fantastyk Voyage Blog  ) was riding her gelding, Scout, out back in the fields behind our houses when some out of control dogs ran up to them and freaked out her horse. Apparently Scout ended up flipping over backwards trying to avoid the dogs, and she fell off.

I was sitting out in Apache’s paddock just enjoying the warm, sunny day and watching Yalla! galloping around the arena while calling out for her herd mate, Scout. I heard a commotion out in the fields and soon after I saw Scout running back to Val’s barn but I figured I would soon see Val come running after him. But she was nowhere in sight.

So I went looking for her. I stopped off at her house first and asked one of her sons who was home, if Val had called him with her cell phone but he hadn’t heard from her.

He was worried, too. So he came out and joined me in looking for her. I stopped off at her barn to see if she had come back while I was at her house and she hadn’t. I checked on Scout, who oddly enough had walked right past the hay bales in the barn and walked into his stall. He was just standing there, looking rather uncomfortable and confused. He seemed to be in shock. So I removed his halter and bridle and the bareback pad, and closed the stall door. And then I walked behind the barn to continue looking for Val.

Her son had returned to the house to pick up some emergency items, but I soon saw Val in the distance and noticed she was limping. I yelled out to her son that I saw Val and that she was struggling to walk. I soon reached her and he was right behind me. She thought she could try and walk back to the house, but it was still quite a ways back to her house on uneven ground, so her son told her to stay put and he would drive his car around to the dirt road that goes past there.

We could both see that her ankle was already swollen, bruised and misshapen. It was obvious that she was going to need to go to the ER tonight.

Her Mom happened to be visiting and she and Val’s son drove her into town to the ER while I told Val not to worry about her 4 horses. I would feed them their dinner and check on Scout again.

After I fed everyone, I stayed for a little while to observe Scout. Apache looked very surprised to see me over at Val’s barn.

Scout seemed stiff in the hind end and moved very slowly, and looked uncomfortable.

When he peed, he spread his hind legs far apart and stood there long after he was done in that same position, as if he couldn’t figure out how to straighten himself back out again.

Scout also seemed to have trouble eating. He’d try to chew his food but after a couple minutes he’d end up spitting it out. I’m going to go back over tomorrow to  see how he’s doing.

Update: I just called Val and her ankle did indeed sustain a fracture and she now has a temporary cast from above her knee down to her toes until she goes to see the Orthopedic doctor on Monday.

Bummer.

(Yalla! was so focused on her dinner that she only lifted her head briefly for my camera, hence the blurriness)

 

Of course with a horse flipping over backwards, it could have ended up so much worse. Thankfully Val was wearing her helmet.

Update: Val just called me and she told me that she had a bad feeling during her ride, even though Scout was being good and the ride was going well. And there has been other bad things happening in her family, too. Ironically, just the other day, her youngest son slammed his finger in the car door and he had to unlock the door to get it out. He probably broke the tip of his finger and it looks like the nail will fall off soon, too.

Val also told me that she wrenched her ring finger, but it doesn’t appear to be broken. But she does have a sore tailbone and that could be broken, but the ER didn’t bother x-raying because they can’t do anything to fix it anyway, so she’ll just have to take it easy.  

She’s on her way home from the hospital after a brief stop at Walgreens to pick up pain prescriptions.

**Please keep Val in your thoughts and prayers. And drop her note or leave some well wishes in a comment on her blog.**

Beware! There is some very bad mojo going around!

And a Full Moon, too!

(I took this photo tonight with my Canon PowerShot, from Val’s barn)

 

Everyone, please be extra careful!