Metabolic Lessons Lead to Triumph in Vermont

The Biltmore Syndrome
Since my first AERC ride nearly 20 years ago, I'd never had a full-fledged metabolic pull until this year's Biltmore. My friend Lisa Green had entered her mare LR April Breeze in the FEI 100 on May 5, and I offered to accompany her on
Breeze's older full sister, LR Amana Tabi. I'd competed "Moo" twice before and crewed her for more than a decade, including the 2006 US team trials and 2008 & 2010 national championships, so I thought I knew how to take care of this mare.



Amana & me at Biltmore: not our day!

Amana is little, but years of training on Virginia's rock-strewn mountains have made her powerful and a challenging to keep in check. Lisa and I knew we needed to start slow, and stuck admirably to that goal our the first loop. We did our best on the second loop, which was long and challenging. Amana kept wanting to go faster despite wearing a severe bit and my consistent use of "half-halt" aids. The two sisters were clearly feeding off each other competitively.

While talking at the second vet check, Lisa and I agreed to split up. I stayed an extra 10 minutes in the hold so she & Breeze could get well ahead. Amana was eating and drinking well, but had not yet peed, so we spread a bag of shavings near our crew area as encouragement. Still no luck.

On the 3rd loop, I ended up riding with a happy young law school student named Clarke aboard Orion, the experienced 100-mile horse of our ride managers, Stagg and Cheryl Newman. Amana seemed content with the slower pace and I really enjoyed getting to know Clarke. As we finished the loop, a light rain helped drop temps but bounced the humidity levels back up. Amana still wouldn't pee, although she had "all A's" on her vet card and continued to eat and drink.

About six miles into the fourth loop, I pulled Amana into tall grass just off the trail to try (again) to get her to pee. No luck. She drank well at one of the water stops, but then got sluggish towards the end of the loop, hesitating pick up a trot. Feeling despondent, I dismounted and hand-walked her the last several miles into to the hold. Amazingly, she trotted out and had a normal CRI during the vet inspection. However, my fellow AERC board member Nick Kohut didn't hear ANY gut sounds and held my card.

Amana ate steadily during the next 20 minutes, and trotted out willingly during our represent to Nick, but he still was not hearing any gut sounds. This mean I was pulled and sent to Biltmore's spaciously new treatment facility up on a rise. As Lisa's son Hunter Green walked with me, we could see several horses being treated ahead of us. The so-called "Biltmore syndrome" looked to be in full force. While waited for our turn, Amana started to act distinctly uncomfortable and Drs. Bob Marshall and Lynn Johnson whisked her into a stall as soon as it came available.

Her bloodwork showed several parameters, including calcium, were way out of normal range, with severely compromised kidney function. As it grew dark, with two out of an eventual four bags of fluids in her, Amana finally peed and began looking happy and alert - just in time as Lisa arrived, having decided to rider-option Breeze.

Lisa has since decided to retire Amana and in July bred her to Erin Champion's stallion Kongtiki in July, while she loaned Breeze to a friend from Holland who successfully finished the even tougher and more humid Old Dominion 100 on June 10.

The "Beast of the East"
The Old Dominion is rightly known as "The Beast of the East." This was the ride's second year using a two-day format, so Teresa and I were able to complete Gryphon and Welcome in the Old Dominion 50 on June 9, then I could still run Waites Run for the 100s the following day. Our horses passed the first vet check with no issues, but the second loop seemed even longer and rockier than usual, with much of the trail turned into a semi-creek from all the rain. During the second away hold, I had asked one of the vets to recheck Gryphon's heartrate. He had dropped to the 40s, but Welcome was still in the 60s. Hmmmmm.

Teresa & Welcome in Ohio

Both horses had good vet scores and CRIs at the last hold. With just 8 miles to go, and discovering we were just within Top Ten, we went faster than we should have to the finish. Gryphon squeaked by with a 64/64 at his completion exam  (he normally drops to the 50s even without sponging) but Welcome failed to recover in the 30 minutes allowed, and did not receive a completion. Dr. Lynne monitored her carefully and gave her a tummy soother of sucralfate and some other buffers, then released us to get the horses home.

Teresa's PEMF machine proved its worth later that evening, after we got the horses home, helping stimulate good appetite and gut sounds to speed Welcome's recovery. The next day, my longtime friend Samantha Zarek and I ran the Waites Run gate & go (57 mile mark for the 100s) and again saw firsthand the toll the unusually hot & humid (even for Virginia) weather was taking on the horses.

Black Sheep Blaahs
I talked Teresa into coming with me to the Black Sheep Boogie ride in Ohio three weeks later, where I planned to compete Siena. We'd loved the trails last November, but hot, humid summer weather made them treacherous. A heavy rainstorm started up just as we were heading to bed, requiring us to buckle on their rain sheets. While the rain stopped by early morning, I was concerned about our horses struggling in the mud and we agreed to downgrade from the 50 to the 25-mile ride. As if confirming our decision, another heavy batch of rain came through as the 50s were tacking up.

Siena somehow dinged her right front hoof bulb near the end of the loop, and was slightly off at the first vet check, so I was pulled again. Switching gears to crew for Teresa, I enjoyed catching up with Sallie Sullivan who was also hanging out in the vetting area as her daughter competed Ivan.

Teresa kept Welcome slow and steady and earned a completion, but while talking to the vet we noticed one of her haunches was higher than the other.  About 20 minutes later, I was grazing Welcome when she peed dark. We found Dr. Bob Marshall, who helped us administer 2 bags of fluids at my trailer, stabilizing her for the trip home. Both mares arrived at my place in good shape, and we felt we dodged a bullet.

Besting Ontario's Heat Wave
My next endurance adventure was working as a 2* Technical Delegate at the Coates Creek ride in New Lowell, Ontario on June 30. I received excellent mentoring from Heather Hoyns, Rocio Echeverri from Costa Rica and Ron from New Zealand. Canada was experiencing a heat wave and the officials and vets decided to reverse the order of the loops for the second day of the ride so that the 21-mile loop would be finished earlier in the day. Since I wasn't needed as an official on the second day, I agree to ride my friend Kelly Corbin's little chestnut gelding, Summit.


Yes, my helmet is backwards.Blame the intense heat!

He was both spunky and smooth, reminding me of a cross between Gryphon and Siena, but refused to drink on the long first loop. Having flashbacks to Biltmore, I finally got him to pee on trail (after peeing myself!) and kept aggressively giving him electrolytes and calcium gluconate. I spent extra time at each water stop, and even used the water hose force some extra fluid down his gullet. All this effort paid off, and "Sum Sum" finished in good shape, much to my relief.

Side note: My friend Libby Llop, her son Quentin Peter and wife Anne Dewar had just started their trip home from the ride when a van of Canada Day vacationers (returning to Toronto and using a side road to avoid traffic) ran the stop sign and hit them sideways, totaling both truck and trailer but miraculously leaving them and their horses relatively unhurt. PHEW!)

Armed with these experiences from our recent rides, Teresa and I tackled the Vermont 75, with Rich (her sister's boyfriend, a farmer & CDL driver) flying in to help us make the 600+ mile drive. We drove through the night Thursday and arrived by 6 a.m. Friday, giving the horses a full day to rest and recover. Teresa discovered that the bed & breakfast she'd rented was only three miles away, and came to fetch me for a go-see. I was gone less than an hour, but that's all it took for G to scare W into the portable corral, where she somehow scraped the inside of one back leg.



Welcome the unicorn in cool VT

You can imagine how awful I felt, all that effort and Teresa might not even be able to start. We trotted Welcome for DVMs Pam Karner and then Heather Hoyns, who much to our relief said the mare's hind end looked fine but she might need some work on her right shoulder (a perennial issue). Teresa used her new generator w
ith the PEMF machine, then went to pulse our friend's horses while I stayed with the treatment vet to get Welcome pre-loaded with fluids. She advised we keep icing the hurt leg, which I did every hour on the hour, using an ice pack and leg wrap to hold it in place. Somehow that afternoon we squeezed in a few hours for Rich to pre-drive the holds.


It sure was weird sleeping in, since the 75-miler didn't start until 9:15 a.m. We came into the 20-mile vet check just after noon. As while Teresa trotted her mare out for the vets, I could see a wobble in Welcome's step. The vet did too and held her card. That was a stressful hold, as T did all she could to massage and help Welcome. Libby and I had tacked up and were heading out on the second loop as Teresa trudged back up the hill from the represent. I couldn't tell much from her body language, but when she said that all 4 vets had cleared her to continue, I immediately leapt off G and started tacking Welcome (Libby continued on).

T & Welcome leading the way, as they did most of the day. I'm brandishing a half-eaten bag of carrots. 

The day passed in a happy mix of trotting and cantering wherever we could, walking the steeper hills and allowing the horses to continually grab grass from the side of the trail. A nearly-full 5 lb. bag of carrots I grabbed for the second loop was all gone well before it ended. One of our favorite memories was being given beers at Margaritaville, one of the runners' stops. As much as we tried to stay hydrated, we quickly felt drunk and happy. I even managed to turn a cartwheel after clearing the second vet check!

Rich continued to be the best crew ever, always meeting us at the in-timer after helping Libby. It was like he'd done this many times before, and best of all, Gryphon really took a shine to him so I was free to eat or nap or whatever during the brief rest stops.

During the third hold (pronounced "Talkenback") Libby gave us some great advice about making time to get off single track before dark. We were able to do so, and got into the final hold around 9 p.m.

Teresa's bright pink-lighted breast collar was the perfect beacon to help us through the final loop. We occasionally rode with other riders or runners, and got great help and both horse and people food from Kristi Johnson's husband at the midpoint crew station. With only a few miles to go, Karen Isaacs, her 9-year old daughter and friend in the 100 came zooming by, on great horses bred by the Meutens. We played it safe and arrived at 12:45 a.m. Gryphon was freaked out by the lights and took a few minutes to calm down enough to vet, but thankfully we made it through. What a great feeling! All our hard work and lessons learned paid off.

The perfect weather held until around 9 the next morning, when the rain that had been steadily moving north finally hit our area. Just as well, it kept temperatures cool for the long drive home!

The Cold, Wet Rides of Spring: Leatherwood, No Frills and NYA

The spring of 2018 passed like a blur! Fresh off his six-week rest, I planned to compete Gryphon at the March 24 Leatherwood ride near Winston-Salem, NC. Teresa wasn't cleared to ride, so we recruited my old friend Cat Carter to ride Welcome, with Teresa to crew for us. After setting up camp next to Amy Stone and her mom, the three of us took our the horses out for a quick warm-up ride so I could show Amy and Cat, who hadn't been there before, some of the super-challenging trails.

Visiting with the Stoneburners and other friends as the last rays of light faded from the sky, we nervously scanned our phones. The next day's forecast called for a return to winter with near-freezing temperatures and a mix of rain and snow, and the first drops began falling as we tacked up the next morning.

A rain/snow mix made Leatherwood even more challenging.

Amy's horse kicked out at Welcome early on the first loop, but both horses seemed fine. The rain fell more and more steadily, so by the first vet check we were all soaked. Somehow it was Amy's horse, not Welcome, who came up lame and not able to continue. Leaving my horse with Teresa, I headed to the stable bathroom, where I hung my wet coat and began drying myself in front of the propane heater before bundling up again. As Cat and I headed back up the mountain at the start of the long second loop, we ran into snow at the slightly higher elevation which began sticking to evergreen branches and turning the trail to mud. We got a break during the long flat section in the middle of the loop, but were again soaked and slightly miserable on our return to camp. Despite carrying the extra weight of our wet selves and all our clothing, Gryphon and Welcome again vetted through just fine, and I repeated the process of thawing myself out and applying dri(er) clothes.

In 20 years of competition, I've never had to steel myself to go out on trail again as that day. The last loop began with several especially steep climbs. While I usually let G-unit pick his pace, knowing momentum would be critical to getting through that loop, I used my voice to keep him moving. Cat and Welcome kept up, eventually giving him a break by taking the lead. What I remember most was getting facefuls of snow from the low-hanging branches that made my face feel as if it was on fire from  the after-effects. We finally finished just after 3 p.m., tying for 7th. I'd planned to head home, and while the others cared for the horses and took showers, I packed up camp and lined a tractor to tow us to the main road through camp (4WD can't get you out of every situation!). Once we were back on the interstate and refueled, Teresa took over driving just as it grew dark and we hit a microburst snowstorm near Charlotte. Cars had skidded into ditches on both sides of the highway, but T kept the rig slow and steady and by midnight we had dropped off Cat at her car and made it back to much my much warmer and drier home on Mt. Airy Drive. How appropriate that the Top Ten award was wool socks with the Leatherwood logo!

I'll devote another blog post to our adventure at the World Endurance Championship test event (pre-ride) in Tryon, NC on April 20, where Teresa and I helped crew for the Oman team and their French trainer, as well as Tom McGuiness of Ireland, owner of Horseware.

No Frills was cold but at least no rain!

Since I couldn't get off work that Friday, Teresa also hauled G&W to the Old Dominion's No Frills ride, held April 24 with basecamp next to our friend Lisa Green's. Temps dropped to the low 20s overnight so tacking up was a shivery experience, but the day warmed up beautifully. We decided to aim for Top Ten, and on the long second loop didn't stay an extra minute at the grassless gate & go, but let the ponies pause for a few bites in a small field about 8 miles further down the trail. Lisa happened to be driving by as we started on the long dirt road back into camp, and accompanied us part of the way back, handing us a beer to start celebrating early.

By now, Azzam had graduated and headed west to work at a ranch in South Dakota. Taking his place as our training partner was Jeannette Lazzaro, an Air Force flight technician and event rider getting ready for the Mongol Derby. Jeannette was a great match for Siena, and with Lily Kuhn again helping me make the drive, we competed together at the New York Adventure on May 27, taking our time to help ensure a completion for Siena, while Lily again used Shiloh for drag riding. So cool to have my three veteran endurance horses together at a ride!

A Siena sandwich at the New York Adventure.

On a Roll: Broxton & Take No Prisoners

Fueled by the prospects of being able to tackle some major endurance challenges in the coming year, Teresa and I began strategizing how to prepare our horses for some of our sport's rockiest and most difficult rides.

Teresa and Siena at Broxton.

As a baby, Teresa had kidney issues and was treated with steroids, a side effect of which was growing up with a DDD chest that made riding horses a sometimes uncomfortable experience, even wearing two bras. She'd decided to get breast reduction surgery in February, and we were able to enjoy 50 miles at Broxton Bridge in SC the week before, with me aboard Gryphon and her on Siena. Back in Virginia, my new friend Azzam, a mechanical engineering student from Saudi Arabia, kept

Siena and me at Take No Prisoners

Welcome fit while Teresa recuperated.

My mom and I were enjoying an afternoon in Virginia Beach with Teresa post-surgery, when I got a call from Barb asking me to fetch Chrome, who had gained weight and height over the winter and was becoming a bit of a pest. Gryphon needed a break anyway, so I swapped him out. We'd taught Chrome how to lunge and started him under saddle the previous summer, and to my delight he remembered enough so that I could pick up on his training to lunge and be backed.

Meanwhile, my friend Caron began patiently schooling Siena into a dressage frame, having great success in getting her to round, use her back and develop the neck muscles just in front of the withers. I could tell the difference by early March, when I competed her at the Take No Prisoners ride in South Carolina.

My friend Lily Kuhn and I packed up Chrome and Siena, heading southwest on I-85 just in time to escaping the brunt of a windstorm that caused hundreds of thousands of power outages. After a short warm-up ride together the day before the competition, Lily took Chrome through his first pre-ride vetting experience. he also got his first experience staying behind in camp the next day while Siena was on trail, devouring almost an entire bale of hay. As we began the trek home last that afternoon, it felt great to watch the two of them munch clover at a roadside stop.

All about EPM & Sarcoids: Perseverance Pays Off!

The year I turned 50 was difficult for Siena and Gryphon, my two competition-age horses. After we spent 90 days (late May-late August) treating Siena's Lymes with minocycline (17 pills per feeding, $1,600 total), she continued to act fearful and hesitant at the trot and canter, even though technically sound.

My friend Teresa McCarty suspected EPM, so my local vet did the standard neurological exam of turning her in circles, etc. He didn't see much of a physical issue, but I insisted on getting her tested. Yep, she came back positive.

Hoping I'd caught the EPM early, I began treating Siena with Rebalance (cheaper than Marquis) and spent September & October administering 2X daily syringes of a sweet-smelling but nasty-tasting clear liquid that she came to hate.

Gryphon at Big South Fork - left chest
strap loose so it didn't rub his sarcoid.

I learned there's a link between ulcers and EPM - those nasty little protozoans are able to cross the blood/brain barrier at ulcerated areas - and also that Lymes and EPM can create a double whammy. If you suspect something similar might be going on with YOUR horse, go to www.panthogenes.com, print the form and mail it with a red top of your horse's blood to save a bunch on diagnostics (thanks Jennifer Smith for this tip!)

Meanwhile, Gryphon's chest sarcoid grew from the size of a walnut in May to baseball size by July (the Xterra ointment my vet prescribed seemed to piss it off). Located just to the right of the breast collar center strap, this big, red, bloody blob made me embarrassed to compete him.

My vet's next attempt to eradicate it involved chopping off as much as he could using local anaesthetic (afterwards I spent 20 minutes holding gauze to Gryphon's red spurting chest until the clotting process finally took over). The little guy then suffered through two rounds of chemo that caused patches of hair to fall out, so that he reminded me of the Velveteen Rabbit. He made it though a tough 55 miles at Big South Fork in September, then the damn thing started growing again and I feared it might be cancerous.

Most of the remaining sarcoid mass was subcutaneous, so my vet now suggested a trip to Blue Ridge Equine for complete sedation surgery (estimated cost $2,500).

Welcome at Fort Valley,
thrilled to be back on trail! 

I'd already spent over $5,000 that year on my two horses, so partially motivated by cost savings I instead tried the treatment suggested by longtime endurance vet Dr. Stan Alkamede of Ontario, whose company developed Novavive, an immune system booster that offers a more modern approach to combating sarcoids. I bought two 5 ml vials for about $400 and with help from Teresa, divided it into four 2.5 doses given at weekly intervals. Following Dr. Stan's instructions, we sedated Gryphon each time and perfused the area in and around the sarcoid using a fine gauge needle, finishing up just before Thanksgiving.



Teresa and me at Black Sheep Boogie, well bundled
since it was only 19 degrees at the start of the ride.

While G&S were out of commission, we got our competition fix on borrowed horses. For Ride Between the Rivers in August, Lisa Green graciously let Teresa and me use her wonderful mares Breeze and Amana. Then Barb Horstmeier let me swap out 3 year old Chrome for her 12 year old mare BR Welcome Tarika, who'd been on an 18 month layoff. Once we got Welkie fit, she completed the Sand Hills and Fort Valley 50s in October with me aboard, followed by  the Black Sheep Boogie and JD's 50s in November with Teresa aboard.

Princess Siena sails through JD's 50.

 

The 2017 AERC ride season ended on a happy note, with Siena achieving a Top Ten finish at JD's with energy to spare. And with short days giving me little opportunity to see my horses in daylight, it was almost Christmas before I noticed that Gryphon's sarcoid had miraculously disappeared. You need to give it several weeks to take effect, but Novavive WORKS!

On a windy, below-freezing afternoon just before the New Year, Teresa and I packed up her 5 little dogs, along with Siena, Welcome and Gryphon, and headed to Florida for 10 days. We spent the first weekend at Leah Greenleaf's ride, with Solstice Pecile doing a lovely job aboard Siena. The next day, New Year's Eve, was the warmest of our entire stay. While the horses rested, we trekked to Cedar Key with the dogs for a wonderful afternoon of walking around the quaint bayside town, then enjoyed steamed shrimp and tropical drinks at a dog-friendly outside bar.

Snorkeling at Devil's Den on New Year's Day.

Bob Gielen again gave us a place to spend the week, and facing cold and rainy weather, Teresa used his electric hookup to ensure we stayed warm and toasty each night. I normally hate cold water, but on New Year's Day, Teresa's excitement at having Devil's Den in Williston practically to ourselves helped me take the plunge into this subterranean river to enjoy paddling around with a snorkel tube, fish and a turtle surrounding us as we hovered above the scuba divers, their lights shining in and out of subterranean caves.

Siena's front legs were a little puffy after the deep sand of the Greenway ride, so we rested her and competed Welcome and Gryphon on the Friday of the Goethe ride. The next day, I volunteered as an official while Teresa crewed for our friend Alisija Zabavska, who finished 2nd in the FEI 100. Meanwhile, Virginia was enduring an arctic blast, with single-digit temperatures and a heavy snowfall just before we returned, grateful that our endurance adventures had provided a temporary reprieve from winter.