I wish this update was full of jumping and showing photos. We are in the final push toward the Retired Racehorse Project Thoroughbred Makeover, coming up Oct. 9-12 in Kentucky, and I wish nothing more than to be out there schooling and preparing with my young stallion, Capture The Magic. Unfortunately, one of my greatest fears happened at my farm on July 28.
It was a very hot, with a heat index of 110 degrees, so all the horses had come in extra early, and nobody was on the schedule to get worked. I went to drop grain at about 6 p.m. with my husband, Adam. I had also recently gotten a scratch on my eye so was doing my best to keep it out of the sun to allow for better healing, which meant I hadn’t been out to the barn much in the past few days other than to feed, do stalls and turn out. My eye was incredibly light sensitive. We pulled up and were casually chit-chatting and laughing when I saw that my stallion’s stall door was WIDE open. Insert instant panic. My farm is 25 feet from a very busy highway, and I have two different pens of mares. I immediately hollered to Adam, “Houdini’s stall is open, and he’s gone!”
I quickly calmed myself when my inner voice reminded me, “If he were on the highway, I would have gotten an instant call from a large handful of people.” You see, I live on the edge of a town of 2,000 people. If he trotted down the highway, he would be on his way to strutting down main street as a free advertisement for my farm.
Houdini is not hard to catch, despite being a stallion. I realized I just needed to walk to the broodmare pen, and I would surely see him flirting from the outside of the fence. My next stomach flip came when I realized he was likely running a fence line in 110-degree heat. Sure enough, that’s where he was, and he was pouring sweat. I had no idea how long he had been out, as my internet at the barn had been down, so there was no video footage to help us. When I went to him, he immediately approached me like the good boy he is, with this look in his eyes of, “What is going on today? I am so confused!” But when I tried to slip on the halter, he spooked and bolted to the back of our property where all of our extra metal equipment is stored.
I remained calm and walked after him. (If you’ve have ever had a loose horse on property, you quickly learn running after them is not an effective way to catch them. Your heart is racing, but your brain reminds you to not let them know there is anything out of ordinary, and it’s no big deal to come join back up.) As I am doing my best to walk quickly without making him suspicious, I heard a bunch of banging noises. I then sprinted; I could tell he was caught somewhere and trying to get free.
I turned the corner to see that he had run right over the top of a pile of stall fronts stacked and lying in the grass. I saw him jump up and fall again, which is when I realized that his left leg was caught in the bars of the stall fronts. He was down, and he looked at me with eyes that cut into my soul, begging for help. He nickered, panting. I jumped to his neck, to soothe him while I slipped on a halter and tried to see if I could free his leg.
I realized it had fallen through two sets of stall front bars, woven between them in a way I absolutely couldn’t free it. I yelled to Adam to get sedation and the grinder. I knew there was a chance Houdini’s leg was already broken—and if it wasn’t, he was likely going to jump up again, and I was going to watch it break in front of me. I was trembling sitting at his shoulder, just begging him to lay still until Adam returned.
It felt like hours before I saw Adam’s head pop around the corner. But any relief I felt was immediately replaced by Houdini spooking upon Adam’s arrival, causing him to jump up one more time. I tried to put my body on his neck to stop him, but I was no match for his 1,350 pounds. As he hopped up, trying to again free the leg, I was flung under his body. I was now under three legs of a flailing horse, knowing he’s about to fall right down back on top of me.
I glanced at my husband, wondering if it was the last time I was going to look at him. It’s crazy how fast those thoughts come in that split second. Somehow, Houdini ripped his leg free and hopped over the top of me without even touching my skin. I will never know how he did that, but I have fallen off of this horse twice while riding, and he has ALWAYS moved in a way to deliberately miss stepping on me.
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My adrenaline was through the roof at this point. Houdini was free, but he was non-weight bearing on that leg and still trapped in the middle of a million more metal objects just sitting there waiting to impale him. I jumped up and ran to him; he was so afraid. He had to pivot on his hind foot and walk back over where he originally crashed to get out. Somehow—and I still don’t know how—he bravely and calmly just followed me through the debris on three legs and made it to safety without anymore wrecks.
You’d think I would’ve feel relief at that point, but I didn’t. He was still unable to put weight on the leg that had been trapped, and it was spraying blood. I knew he had an arterial bleed, at the very least.
It felt like it took hours to walk him back to the barn, and I still didn’t know if we would be euthanizing my beloved best friend that day. When we finally reached the main barn, I started cold-hosing his leg and body trying to cool him down, because on top of everything else, he was clearly overheating. He was still pouring sweat, with every vein in his body threatening to explode out, and the bleeding from his leg was not slowing. Adam, who is a veterinarian, rushed home to get the x-ray machine while I administered IV Banamine. I did not want to sedate him at that moment because he was calm, and his body was in shock. I prayed out loud to save him, negotiating on everything I will give up if God could just save him.
By the time Adam pulled up with his vet rig, I was investigating the foot and could see two very deep lacerations, one which penetrated into the hoof right at the coronet band, about an inch across the entire back. I couldn’t feel any broken bones in the leg, but Houdini still would not let it touch the ground. We hopped him into the barn for x-rays.
When Adam told me there were no fractures, the tears finally started. I knew Houdini may never be riding sound, but at that moment I knew he at least had a chance to live.
We packed and wrapped the foot to control the bleeding. I knew he very likely has a soft tissue injury, but the swelling was already so bad that it would’ve been impossible to see on ultrasound, and quite frankly it wouldn’t change any level of treatment at that point.
“He can make it through this,” Adam told me. “You may even ride him again.”
I couldn’t believe it. It was so awful looking, but I trust my husband. He’s an incredible vet, and he knows not to fill me with false hope. I am a realist. I want to know both ways something can swing so that I can prepare myself.
Fast forward to rehab, and Houdini is doing incredibly well. By the second week, while still on strict stall rest, he was walking sound from his stall to the crossties to get rebandaged and have his foot re-packed ever other day. He got the Bemer blanket, cold laser and leg treatment three times daily, and Back On Track standing wraps with Surpass. We also utilized our shockwave machine to promote good healing.
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He remained the absolute sweetest horse on the planet through it all. He developed a very bad abscess (one of many I thought may come) two weeks in and was non-weight bearing again for four days, but once it broke, he again was walking sound.
At 3.5 weeks, we were able to ultrasound the leg with a lot of his swelling resolved: No soft tissue tears. At four weeks he was cleared for small pen turnout on the sand, and he was sound at all gaits. At five weeks he got his first corrective shoe, a heart bar with an entire section missing on the medial side so that it took all the weight bearing away from the largest defect in the hoof. My amazing farrier also trimmed the detached hoof away to help prevent bacteria growth and prevent it from catching and getting pulled. It was pretty crazy looking.
At the end of the fifth week he got to go on the longe line for the very first time since his accident. He was so happy he really couldn’t contain himself, which led to some pretty hilarious video footage. I may have been skiing behind him in my sandals (I broke my foot a couple months back, and it’s about all I can wear that doesn’t hurt me. This is setting a terrible example, I know!) but I have never laughed so hard trying to keep ahold of the line. To see him feel so good and expressive, well I’ll take it. He is such a sweet boy, and I am so proud of him.
I am proud of this horse from trying so hard to remain calm while we tried to free him. I am so proud of him for holding all his brain cells together on stall rest when he had to watch his friends go out every day. I am so proud of him for being kind and sweet to me when I doctored him even though I know it hurt badly to get rebandaged. I am proud of him for healing. I am so grateful he is a Thoroughbred, because I truly believe there is no other breed that tries harder to please their people. I am grateful for everyone in my life who helped me through this physically and emotionally—with extra emphasis on my amazing vet, who also happens to be my husband, and my amazing farrier Zach Kaup. I am thankful to my best friend Jade Favre who answered every call every morning to hear how he was and sometimes listened to me sob because I felt so badly for him.
How this happened is a question that runs through my mind daily. Just days before the accident I was riding him bridleless in my arena thinking how excited I was to showcase him at the Thoroughbred Makeover. I take extreme measures on my farm to try to keep my horses safe. Houdini’s stall has two latches and a pin that keeps it shut.
However, none of that accounts for a non-horse person just stopping by. There are so many great things about living in town, but one of the harder parts is when random people pass and want to “pet the horses.” People who live in my town are excellent, but if you have owned horses on a main road, you know that people passing by often stop. The horse directly across the aisle from him also had an unlatched stall, so the only thing I can come up with is that someone stopped to pet the horses, opened the stall door to pet him and did not relatch. If you know me as a person, you know I am a creature of habit and a person that double-checks constantly. There is just no world where I skipped all three steps that I do every day without fail. We will never truly know, but we are very thankful we have the internet back up and running so I can constantly look at my security cameras the second the “what if?” fear creeps into my brain.
Will Houdini and I make it to the Makeover? I honestly don’t know, but I am living every single day like we just might. This horse has proven how resilient he is many times in his life. His brain is just amazing, and I know what we worked on will be right there waiting for us. So, for now we are just working day to day, and I thank all the powers that came together to save him. I am so grateful he is still here with me, and I tell him that every day when I kiss his nose.
Brit Vegas is a professional trainer who specializes in restarting Thoroughbreds for equestrian sports, such as eventing, show jumping, fox hunting and other English disciplines. She owns and operates Royal Fox Stables in Southeast Nebraska with a winter base in Aiken, South Carolina. In addition to campaigning her own horses through the intermediate level of eventing, Vegas also retrains and sells between 50 and 70 Thoroughbreds per year and has competed in the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover each year since 2015, with multiple top-five finishes in eventing, show jumping and field hunters. In addition, she manages a sport horse veterinary practice for her husband, Dr. Adam Gengenbach.
