Cutting My Losses

We all know horses are a money pit.  Unless you're wheeling and dealing at the upper levels, its hard to actually make money on horses or even break even. I'm obviously not at the upper levels and am probably spending way more money on my ponies than is wise. Which makes knowing when to cut your losses hard. 

At the end of June I took Tia in to see where she was in her cycle in hopes of breeding her again.  We still were waiting for the biopsy results, but the vet wasn't super worried about it.  When they scanned her, they found a decent sized cyst that hadn't been seen before.  Either it grew fast, or was never found in her earlier scans.  The vet and I discussed options, and decided to wait till after the Fourth to short cycle her and rebreed. I then got the biopsy results the next day and that brought everything to a screeching halt.  The vet originally didn't think she was as bad as she it, and seemed a bit shocked and apologetic when telling me.

Tia has a lot of scar tissue and some signs of long term, low grade inflammation. Even with a clean uterine culture, she probably has, and has had, a low grade infection.  The infection we can treat. The scar tissue we can't.  The vet gave her a 10-50% chance of the embryo being able to implant after fertilization. If we can clear up the infection, and treat her all winter, the higher the chances.  But then we're waiting another year, and she'll be even older which lowers our chances. But even so, we're looking at a less than 50% chance of implantation. 

Basically he told me, if it was his mare, he'd cut his losses. We could throw a ton of money at her, and still end up with nothing. I'm already about $2,000 into this, which isn't all that bad considering the price of going out and buying a foal at the level I'd hope this one would be. But do I want to double that and get nothing? Embryo transfer is an option, but it's not a magic bullet.  I'd be looking at around $5k with no guarantee. Not to mention the emotional cost.  I'm proud that I haven't cried in front of the vets, but there's been plenty of tears in the truck, at the barn, and at home.  The owners of the barn next to mine just had a mare foal and they were complaining that they wanted a bay tobiano colt and got a liver chestnut filly.  I wanted to punch them and scream that I just want a Tia baby.  I don't care gender or color. I understand a better now how women with fertility issues feel.

So for now, we're done.  I technically still have a breeding to Yorke but I don't have a mare. For a few days I was tempted to contact McKenna's new owner (who doesn't appear to be doing a whole lot with her from what I see) and ask for her back.  But the baby wouldn't be what I want, and Yorke wouldn't be as good of a cross with McKenna as he would be with Tia. And I don't ever want to breed just for the sake of breeding.  I'd like to think that someday I'll find another mare like Tia and be able to breed her.

Here, There, and Everywhere

I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately, but the past week has been a crazy roller coaster. Between hauling horses, the show, crazy weather swings, and being shorthanded at work I feel like all I do is run around.

 Last Thursday I took Tia in for a uterine exam. The clinic was a little over an hour away, but they're one of the top repro vets in the state.  It had been raining off and on all week and cooler, in the 60s, but the day I was to haul her up called for 30-50mph winds.  Not exactly what I want to haul in.  Luckily the wind wasn't too bad, except for the last five miles home.  The exam itself went well; Tia was the picture of perfect uterine health. No cysts, no edema, no visible scaring. I did opt to do a uterine biopsy and culture just to be safe.  The culture came back negative but we won't get the biopsy report back for another week or so.  The vet recommended rebreeding her (hopefully next week!) and putting her on Regumate to make sure her hormone levers are sufficient to maintain the pregnancy.

Mare is not amused

Originally my show was supposed to be on Saturday, but because of the rain, they moved it to Sunday.  It was a USHJA Outreach show held during a rated show and show management was moving some of the rated classes around to save the footing. I was fine with the show being moved back a day, gave me extra time to prep and I spent most of Saturday getting everything cleaned and ready instead of rushing around Friday night.

Gelding is not amused

 But of course Sunday dawned sunny and hot. It was over 20* hotter on Sunday than it had been earlier in the week.  And of course my classes didn't go till early afternoon.  We got to the show around 8 and I was glad I had gotten a day stall.  We threw Peebs in and went and watched some of the junior/AO hunters and the jumper ring. We also grabbed lunch of delicious grilled cheese sandwiches and the teen from our barn that I forced asked to be my groom/ground person found a $360 hunt coat marked down to $20 that fit her perfectly. She's mainly a western rider but is doing English pleasure and dressage in 4H and open shows so she needed a coat. I wish I could find deals like that!

Unfortunately Peebs was not in a horse show frame of mind.  He was super looky and spooky and tried to take off with me in the canter during our warm up.  We spent a lot of time walking around trying to get his head on.  I didn't even think to bring a lunge line, but he could have used a nice long lunge.  I will for sure be bringing one next time and doing an early morning lunge just to be on the safe side. I was debating trying to jump him in the warm up (would it wind him up more or calm him down?) when there was an open gate for our ring.  I said screw it, I'm hot and they're 18" jumps, and I think getting him in the ring and focusing on something will calm him down.  So we went in with no warm up jump.

Molly is not amused

We trotted into everything and cantered down the lines, and the first class was a shit storm. He was spooky, tried to run across the diagonal line, and wouldn't come back to the trot after our last line.  So I stopped him hard, made him wait, then walked out of the ring. I think that knocked some sense into him because our second round was much better.  Still jumper-in-the-hunter-ring like, but we actually got the correct number of strides, and decent transitions without having a battle over it. 

While waiting for our third trip and flat class they brought a water truck and tractor into the warm up.  Peebs lost his shit at the water truck and went flying backward and spun.  I hopped off to hold him and every time the truck came at us or close to us he'd try to vacate stage left. At one point he backed into a trainer who wasn't paying attention.  Luckily she was fine and I apologized profusely. I was really hot and done at that point so I scratched the rest of my classes and took him back to the stall.  I figured he was an ass in warm up and the first round but we redeemed ourselves in the second round and while I was pissed at him for being THAT horse at a show, I was never scared or felt like I was going to die.  I didn't get mad at him, tried to keep my hands down, and release in the half halts.  And the 18" fences looked tiny. Big wins for me! He was just not his normal unflappable Peebers self, but we survived and got better, at least until the water truck.

I wasn't expecting to place at all considering most everybody else in the class cantered the fences and we exuberantly trotted everything. But I checked the results online when I got home and we somehow managed a 2nd for our second round, out of 8.  I was shocked! Not shockingly we did place 8th out of 8 for the first round.

We're going back to the same show ground for a two day Outreach show in July and I will for sure be lunging him and avoiding water trucks!  Hopefully he won't be as much of a nutcase!

To Good to be True

Tia went in for her 30 day check up on Friday afternoon, and they weren't able to find the embryo.  Sometime between day 16 and 31 she lost the pregnancy.  I had been thinking that everything had been too easy, going too well and I was right.  For an older mare, that has had reproductive issues in the past, I was shocked that she took on the first try and everything looked good at the first check.

I admit to crying the whole way home from the vet's. Which is about 5 minutes, but still. Once at the barn and after unloading Tia, I sat in the truck and cried some more while texting my mom and BO. The vet asked me if I wanted to try again, and I had said I didn't know.  My fear is that we'll rebreed her and it'll happen again. At that point I was too upset to even think about trying again. I don't recommend trying to back up and park your trailer while crying; I might have almost hit another trailer. Damn tears make it hard to see.

I spent most of Friday night/Saturday morning crying and trying to figure out what I want to do. I looked up repro specialists and after talking with my mom, BO, and another boarder I decided to take Tia into another vet about an hour away and get her opinion. If she thinks Tia could hold a pregnancy we'll try again.  If not, I  think we're going to try embryo transfer.  Our barn manager, LT, has offered her husband's trail mare up as a surrogate, pending vet approval.

 It's expensive, but as my mom put it, not that much more than going out and buying another horse.  And I don't want another horse, I want Tia's baby. I adore the mare and would love to have a piece of her for my own. If I could have bred Phoenix, Buddy, or Peebs I would have.  It's not about having a fancy, upper level horse for me.  It's about having a piece of a horse I love. I never plan to have human children; my horses are my kids and I didn't think I'd be so upset about losing Tia's foal. But it feels like I've lost part of my heart.

Coming April 2018

If you've been following my blog for a few years, you (hopefully) remember how much I love my BO's mare Tia. She's the ultimate hunter, loves her job, does it well, isn't marish, doesn't give a crap about anything except having her mane pulled, and anyone can ride her.  She does have some arthritis issues with her front end, but I believe a lot of that was due to being over jumped/showed as a baby. My BO got her for $1, and it was hands down the best dollar ever spent.

Tia with a former leaser

We were told when we got her that she had been bred in the past, but had had an issue getting pregnant. I've said for years how much I'd love to breed her and get a baby, but was worried that it would have to be an embryo transfer and that's expensive. My BO has always told me that if I want to breed her I can. When Yorke moved into the barn last fall, I really, really, REALLY wanted to breed them.  He's more refined and lighter built than Tia, which is what she needs. Both have awesome temperaments and are easy to work with and be around. And how awesome would it be to have mom and dad in the barn?

When I used to jumper bigger fences

I kinda hemmed and hawed this winter/spring until one of the other boarders at the barn gave me a kick in the ass.  I talked to the vet, and basically she said to have Tia ultrasounded to see what was going on in there, and if I really want to breed her, this is the year to do it; she'll be too old next year.  So in early May right before I left for San Diego I dropped Tia off to be bred to Yorke.  She was bred on the 8th, and they said everything looked good and she had a nice big follicle. Yorke has very good semen and has never had to rebreed a mare, so that was a good plus.  I took her back yesterday for her pregnancy check and there was the little black dot on the screen!!  Tia's officially 17 days in foal to Yorke for an April 2018 baby!! 

She did have a bit more edema in her uterus than normal, so she goes back in for another ultrasound in two weeks, but they didn't seem too worried by it.  I have a list of dates for her pneumabort shots as well as updating her vaccinations and deworming. But hopefully, if all goes well, we'll have a baby around April 13th of next year!!