Colorado Day 0

Sadly, Colorado day 0 did not involve any bucket list items, and was just the final trek of the beginning of my summer showing.  That said, given that it is me, there was just simply no way that it would be as easy as dropping horses off and calling it a day. 

Stephen and I woke early in the morning with another 7 hours of driving ahead of us.  I immediately went out and checked on the horses.  One of the nicest things about Bed and Bale is that they have both bedded stalls for horses and cute bungalows for people to stay in.  Ten steps and I was at their stalls. 

First thing I noticed was that both horses had drank two full buckets of water, and TJ was snoozing. 

Ok, pretty normal, and he looked super comfortable, no biggie.  He popped up and nickered when he saw me.  I went back inside and got ready to leave for our drive.  When we were ready to go, I walked to the barn, only to find TJ down again.  This time when I talked to him he laid all the way flat instead of popping up. 

O.K. small red flag time.  I mean I understand sleepy, but down twice in one morning?  I went in and did some quick rundown of diagnostics.  All seemed well, gut sounds, gum color, heart rate, and capillary refill rate all normal.  He drank another half a bucket, so I decided my best course of action was to continue on.

We had a smooth ride all the way to the outskirts of Denver.  At that time, off to our left was a large, ominous looking storm.  I checked the radar, and sure enough it was on track to follow us directly into Parker and the horse show grounds.  I also noted that the temperature had dropped to 50.  BRRRRRRR 

As we continued to drive, the temp only got colder, and the weather more nasty.  At one point we passed through an area that had had so much sleet, the ground looked like it had snowed.  Fantastic. 

Keep in mind that last year as I was making this drive it was 105 degrees and a horrible forrest fire was raging.  We drove through smoke, ash, and fire.  As we were driving they were evacuating the area around us, and closing down roads.  Quite the opposite welcoming weather this year!  We arrived to sopping, freezing show grounds, with rain coming steadily down, and the wind howling.  It is a good thing we only had about three hours of unloading and organizing to do before we could call it a day (does sarcasm come across in blogging?).

As soon as we unloaded the horses and bedded the stalls, TJ laid down once again.  He wasn’t acting colicky, just like he was simply tired and wanted to rest.  My equine paranoia was on full alert now.  What horse comes into a brand new place where it is freezing, storming, and crazy windy, and lays down?  UGHHHHHH. 

I once again did all of the diagnostics, including taking his temp.  All normal.  After a quick chat with the vet….I make this sound so normal when it was really more like

Me: OHMYGODSOMETHINGISWRONGWITHTJHE’SLAYINGDOWNANDSLEEPYANDWASLAYINGDOWNTHISMORNINGANDEVERYTHINGISNORMALBUTHE’SJUSTNOTRIGHT.

Vet: Um.  Slow down.  Take a breath.  What?

Me: I’m worried!

Vet: I got that much.

End result was to give him some banamine and check in an hour.

DH and I finished unloading all of my stuff.  Horses require A LOT of stuff.  On top of the unloading was my stress of a possibly sick horse, the weather, and being soaked to the bone.  

After an hour, TJ was up, perky, and drinking well.  Of course me being me, I felt the need to wait another hour to make sure he stayed that way.  DH thus gets gold star number two as he endured all of the rain, wind, cold, and stress to help me get my beloved horses settled and happy.