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[RC] Longevity and 'comebacks' - rides2farSo What about 'comback ' horses. Ones who had a good career and had either a severe injury or illness that usualy ends a horses career and camback to ride again? There's Cass. He was in such a serious auto accident that both owners were air lifted out and a policeman wanted to shoot him but was worried about liability (that's how I heard it may have been changed some in the telling). Word was they had to teach him to walk again. He went on to win medals. Desert Ballad. He was a successful endurance horse, then got a horrid infection from an injection in his hip(whatever causes blackleg in cattle). He literally had all the meat rot off his hip. Had so many IV's that one jugular (they have 2) scarred over. He went on to win many championships and was on the silver medal team in 1995. He was easy to spot with a huge scar over his hip. Baskhari had never been treated and very few pulls (I believe 18 100 milers and 4000 miles) when he was leased for the World Championships by a Brazillian. Though Lynda was very happy with the rider and said he did everything exactly as she asked him to Baskhari had a metabollic crash after completing. (you just can't tell someone all the subtle things you do to get your horse to drink on the trail or whatever). When they were treating him he got a staff infection that almost killed him and ended up having to have about a foot of one of his jugulars removed. He came back and she rode his first 100 back to guide me through my first. He's competed another 6 years of so. Looking at the 10 year horses' records I noticed that none of them had started out in LD, except Baskhari who was 4 at the time and had no choice. Their fastest years tend to be their third or fourth season. The ones who did the most 100's started them early in their careers. They weren't "slow" but didn't run up front for the first couple of years. I've known several horses who *could* have continued if they hadn't been so determined to go hard. The riders really wanted to just start completing on them but the horses were *determined* to race. These horses love what they do and they have a lot of pride sometimes. I kind of had to get Kaboot confused last week to go a calm pace. We were half way through the ride before he could tell whether we were actually in one or not. >eg< Angie ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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