Freedom has been doing a really good job staying quiet. Sure, the Ace has helped, but I really thought he was getting used to being left behind.

Until today.

When his friend Willow left this morning on a hack, Freedom blew through four tabs of Ace and ignored his good friends Curly and Fortune and ran. He ran and bucked and snorted.

I dropped everything (I had Sheldon tacked up and ready to go) and did my best to stop 1300 pounds of over excited horse from re-injuring his ligament. It was like one of those movies where the speeding car comes directly at the heroine and seconds before it plows into her she realizes that it isn’t going to stop and jumps out of the way.

Eventually, he did stop. It helped that Fortune and Curly didn’t get caught up in the game. Three running horses would have done me in.

Luckily he was wearing a halter (our horses generally do not wear halters in turnout) so I grabbed him as he slowed down. He didn’t show a second of remorse. He’s probably been storing those buck up for weeks.

I cold hosed his leg. There was no immediate swelling but it did feel warm. Up until now it’s been healing so well!  Finally, I poulticed it with Sore No More poultice, wrapped it up and gave him some bute. This evening I went back, iced and poulticed it again — although I left it open (I don’t like to leave him wrapped overnight while he’s turned out as I figure he could get into more trouble by getting a wrap loose). The leg still shows no swelling so maybe he’s dodged a bullet on that. It would be very discouraging to be back at square one again with the rehab when we are 7 weeks into recovery. Fingers crossed that when I feed tomorrow his leg still looks good.

Have any of you used Sore No More poultice? From what I’ve read, many people use it without wrapping which is a new idea for me. When I evented back in the 80s we always wrapped and poulticed after an event. Now that I foxhunt, I just turn my horse out — so haven’t poulticed in years. Not sure if this is making Freedom or me feel better.