Jess update

Jessey

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Dec 20, 2004
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Suffolk, UK
Since Jess got the all clear on her heart in January I’ve been biding my time, waiting mostly for the weather to be better so I could be more consistent with her and also working on getting her intermittent lameness under control.

I rode her once just for a walk around the block, but her old boots are too tight, and she’s put on so much weight her saddle doesn’t fit 🤦‍♀️

As part of getting her consistently sounder she’s been having casts on her front feet with pads since the first week in February and she’s been really sound, so after many long chats with my farrier friend and a few experiments along the way I’ve decided to try yet another type of shoes on her which go on Friday morning 😬 🤞(Id happily stick with the casts but they don’t hold up to roadwork) I suspect she’ll need pads with the shoes but we’re going to try without to start with as she gets disgusting thrush with pour ins and non poured ones are likely to get sand under them which would probably make her lame!

So I’m crossing everything for a bareback ride this weekend (if she isn’t like a raving lunatic because her feet feel better!) and if she holds up to some light work over the coming weeks and once her weight has stabilised a bit I’ll schedule the 3hr round trip to take her to get the saddle adjusted 😁

I’d appreciate any spare NR vibes for her appreciating our efforts 😉
 
Ooh interesting. What was the heart issues and why casts on her feet?
It’s a long story but the short version of her feet is she came up lame in 2015 when we were training for a 30 day trek. After extensive and repeated work ups in Newmarket we didn’t really get a proper diagnosis (I couldn’t afford an MRI) but there was suspected DDFT injury/navicular syndrome. In addition she gets low grade lami and has very thin soles. I’ve tried several different shoe packages but they all resulted in her going lame but barefoot, with careful work and management she stayed sounder with only occasional lameness.

Then last year at her annual mot the vet found a grade 3 pan systolic heart murmur (as opposed to diastolic which are the more common) and I was advised that basically there was a significant chance her heart could give out without warning and she’d be dead before she hit the floor 😱 so she was retired without further investigation due to all her other issues making it unviable.

This year at her mot the vet (completely unexpectedly) found the murmur reduced to less than grade 1 and pronounced her fit to ride! They suspect she must have had an endocarditis infection that she somehow beat without intervention against all the odds.
 
Oh, I'm so pleased you've got some good news about Jessey! Fingers crossed for her return to work 🙂
 
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Well I am hopeful. The before trot up she was what most would call a little unlevel (lame but not hugely). She was flinching having the left nailed on (but not exactly used to being shod) and then a bit of a twit snatching the right away (possibly because the Guineas were carrying on). The after trot up she was striding out and as the vet would say ‘will pass a vetting as sound’ (I take that to mean good enough but not eventing sound).
It normally takes her a couple of days to get used to changes so 🤞
 
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