Last Weeks Question

The correct answer is Strangles, which is a disease that affects the lymph nodes in the respiratory tract.
Exertional Rhabdomyolysis is the medical term for the syndrome of exercise-related muscle damage. It adequately defines the condition as one of skeletal muscle and cell break down. Other terms used are Monday Morning Disease; Black Water-because many affected horses will have dark urine; Azoturia-describes the excess of nitrogen-containing compunds, such as urea, in the urine of effected horses. Myositis-a general term that implies that the primary disease process is inflammation, which is not the case. Tying-up-probably the most appropriate term as it describes the short, stiff stride and tight muscles seen in affected horses.

Love Affair

My herd consists of 4 horses and a pony. Trick is the boss, followed by Alcott, Eva, Tequila and Sage. Trick and Alcott are geldings, Eva, Tequila and Sage are mares. I would consider their pecking order arrangement textbook. Youngest gelding is boss; old pony mare is at the bottom of the list. None of the group members were ever buddies, until this past Fall.
Alcott was leased-out for the summer. When he arrived home in September, he was at "deaths door". (I'll write about this nightmare at another time) For a month Alcott was kept separate from the other horses. Towards the end of the month, I noticed he was taking some interest in Tequila, by going over to the fence that was separating him from the other horses, and watching her. Now Tequila is 4, very impish and always busy pestering the other horses, trotting around the field, and getting into whatever trouble she can find! Trick and Eva ignore her, or chase her away. Sage usually just trots away. Its always amusing to watch Tequila and her antics, I guess even for a horse.
One day I noticed that Tequila was watching Alcott over the fence. She probably wondered why he got to have a field of grass all to himself!! Both horses gradually starting hanging out closer to each other along the fence line. Eventually, they could be seen nuzzling one another over the top of the fence. I've owned Alcott for almost 5 years. He has always been a loner, and never shown any affection or interest in any of my other horses. The two of them started spending more and more time next to each other.
Finally Alcott was strong enough to join the herd. Tequila and Alcott walked up to each other, and then as they say "the rest is history"!! Now when they are together, they nuzzle, groom each other, eat together, bite, squeal, and run around the field chasing one another. It always make me smile to see the two of them together, especially since Alcott is 26 and Tequila is 4. What a great way for Alcott to retire, having a young chestnut mare chasing him for his affection. Its every mans dream come true!

How Old is Too Old?

Whats the oldest horse you've ever owned, played, ridden or loved?


This is ours--

I bought Alcott at one of the Univ. of Conn. horse auctions. He had been a polo horse that had been donated to Yale. Yale couldn't use him; so they donated him to UConn. He was in their polo program for several years before being retired at age 21. The description in the auction list described him as a "fantastic polo pony. A perfect gentleman. Needs a home to retire and be loved in." When I bought him my idea was to have a trail horse for myself, and something that my son could use for "stick and ball" in the yard. Alcott is a great trail horse. In our first judged trail ride together, we recieved a 5th place ribbon, he was perfect for "stick and ball", and he'd give pony rides to the nieces and nephews. His life went on like this for about 2 years. One day I was talking to the director of the UConn polo program about Alcott. We would see them frequently at polo games, and the subject of Alcott always seemed to come-up. I mentioned his being too old to play polo, and he commented that Alcott probably could play at the level my son was playing at, at that time. We got Alcott back into playing condition, though it took a bit longer.
He looked great! He actually seemed to enjoy going to the games! My son played him for 1 1/2 more years before finally retiring him for good at age 25. He was always our "best playing pony". Sometimes I think Alcott could have played the game by himself!
Ally, as I call him, will have a stall in our barn until his final day. He is handsome,sweet, gentle, and as his auction description said "a perfect gentleman".

Sunday's Winner

The winner on Sunday was Country Farm from Medford,NY. Final score was Country Farm 14/Culver 13. It was a very exciting game. Ponies got high reviews from the players. Best playing pony was NUAZ, a large bay mare from Newport.Monies were raised through raffles to fund an electronic scoreboard for Glen Farm. Country Farm will advance to the USPA National girls interscholastic tournament held at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY on Feb. 26-March 1, 2009. They will play against the winners of two other regional playoffs as well as the Brandywine, Garrison Forest, Maryland, Shallowbrook, and UConn teams. This will determine the 2009 National interscholastic girls champion team. It is amazing to watch these girls play, and every year there seems to be more and more interest in polo at the high school level.

Correct Answer To Last Weeks Question

A shadow roll is not allowed in a USPA tournament.
Everyone answered correctly. Congradulations!
The adorable Palomino QHx pictured was Sugarfoot, now retired from the Stanford Polo Club.

The Umpire

Since Thursday my son has been umpiring in RI. The Northeast regional playoffs for interscholastic (high school age) girls was held from Feb. 5-8, 2009 at Glen Farm in Portsmouth. Competing were Newport, Westchester, Culver Academy, Country Farms and Cedar Valley from Toronto. Needless to say, its winter here in the Northeast, so this is Arena polo. Back to umpiring. My son got involved in umpiring last year. He still has more training to take so that he can advance. Right now he can only umpire at the lower goal games. He really enjoys umpiring. It is a great way to keep-up with polo during the long winter months and it keeps his mind sharp. Its also a few extra $ in his pocket. Since we don't use our horses, I like the fact that I don't have to worry about tending to horses, and can just enjoy watching polo, and visiting with everyone.

Donating My Money

For Christmas 2008, I asked family and friends to not buy me any gifts. Instead, I wanted them to either donate to a charity, or to give me money to donate to a charity of my choice. My charity of choice was a horse rescue. Surprise. Surprise. I had many requirements for the rescue that would recieve my money. One was that they must rescue horses from kill pens/horse-slaughter auctions or directly donate money to places that do so, such as Alex Brown Racing/Friends of Barbaro. I am opposed to the inhumane treatment of animals, and until someone proves to me otherwise, I consider horse slaughter to be inhumane. We can debate about this later, but let me assure you that I have spent hundreds of hours researching both sides of the issue!! Now I thought it would be easy finding the "perfect-in-my-mind" horse rescue. After all, there are thousands. I put my list of requirements in front of me and started Googling. Hours, days, weeks later, I had my list down to two places. It was now time to start making phone calls, and emailing with specific questions. I know this sounds extreme, but I don't very often have extra money to give away, so I was being fussy! Here's my gripe. Neither place ever returned my multiple calls or emails. I know they are very busy and use volunteers, but don't say on your website things like "email for a list of feed stores, hay suppliers, veterinarians, etc, to send your money directly" if your not going to email back. I am not going to "blindly" send you my money without some kind of human contact! This,to me,is bad business. What if I was someone that was going to be regularly sending money, or on my deathbed and looking for someone to inherit my millions! At about this time I got an email from someone forwarding the story of a TB that was rescued from a kill pen. I know that lots of TBs are rescued from slaughter, but this one caught my eye because of his name which was/is "Clever Allemont". One of our polo horses is "Twilight Trick" by "Clever Trick". Its turns out that the horses are half brothers. I figure this must be a message from above. So, I sent some of my Christmas money to Winding Road Equine Rescue & Retirement in KS who found Clever Allemont, and some to Old Friends TB Retirement, which is where he is now retired. I still have a little in the bank which is collecting interest (though not very much) until the "Perfect Rescue" comes along.