Final Introduction

Vienna Rose ES

(Vitorio TO x Wild Eyed Rose)

Have you ever had a dream come true? I have. This filly is it. Working at the breeding farm, I helped create, foal, raise some incredible babies. But none of them were mine. I had no say in what happened to them. I raised them as if they were my own, but knowing that they were not.

I schemed and dreamed for years. Vienna's father Vitorio TO (DA Valentino x Sol Natique) came into my life when he was a yearling. My bosses purchased him with another couple and he won his class at Nationals out of a field of I think it was 27. He hasn't stopped winning. He has been US National Champion Yearling Colt, Futurity Colt, Canadian National Champion Stallion, Brazillian National Champion Stallion. And a few years ago, the polish state stud farm Michalow leased him for 2 years to breed to their mares. What an incredible honor. He is one of the most correct and gorgeous horses that I have ever met, and he is as kind and sweet as the day is long. I adore him. At some point, my boss and I were talking and it was decided that I would breed Rose to Vitorio.

 Hubba Hubba

 So handsome

 So so SO sweethearted. Mooching all the treats.

I was stoked. Rose was 18 at this point, and had not had a foal since Reggie when she was 7 so I first consulted with our vet and he examined her to determine if she was even breeding sound at that point. He said she was in picture perfect health. So I decided to go for it. With the costs of collections and shipping etc. it was pretty much a one and done shot. I didn't want to put her through the stress of short cycling if we missed cycles. So we started monitoring her in April, as luck has it she had just started cycling so we closely monitored her. The June cycle was an odd one, and we missed the window and my hopes were dwindling. But she came into a raging heat at the end of the month. We gave it the green light and placed an order with the farm Vitorio was standing at in Arizona. 2 days later, we had stallion juice.

Good Ole Fedex Sex

We were breeding 7 of the farm's mares as well. Everyone had had great cycles and was looking good. So I crossed my fingers and we waited the 2 weeks. 14 days. It seemed like an eternity. Finally, we checked the mares, the first 5 were all preggo. We were on a roll. Then the next two came up empty. I brought Rose into the stocks, my heart in my throat. It felt like the ultrasound took, FOREVER. Finally, my beloved vet said real slowly 'Well...' and I swear my heart hit my shoes. She wasn't pregnant. I got excited for nothing. But then he continued with 'I'm trying to get a picture of baby smiling for your scrapbook'. OH. MY. GAHD. I am not ashamed to tell you that I cried. Big gloppy snotty tears. We would give it another 2 weeks and see if she maintained the pregnancy. 30 day check, and we had a kiddo visible on the screen.

First Baby Photo :)

The next 11 months felt like they took forever. It was so much fun to see Rose flourish as a preggo mare. Again, she's naturally lean so people would ask 'are you sure she's really pregnant?' Oh yes, she's tubby for Rose! When I first felt the little squirmer kick and move in her belly, it hit me that it was real. There was a living baby horse inside my mare! I got so excited. I had names picked out for both colt and filly. I was convinced it would be bay since Rose is liver chestnut and Vitorio is bay. I really didn't have a preference. I would be so ok with another goofball gelding like Reggie, or a filly. I just wanted a healthy baby! (so cliche, I know). I had a very busy foaling season that year. We had 14 babies born on the farm. It was perfect, that Rose was due at the end of the season and as it happened, everyone had foaled by her due date of May 24. Everyone, except Rose. I had friends and family visiting that week in anticipation of greeting the little one. Well, as we well know, mares have their own schedule. Rose spent night after night gazing out the stall door into the night. So one night I let her out into the paddock and she spent the night gazing in the stall door to her stall. Weirdo mare. She was so miserable those last few weeks. She had pony cankles and her edema on her chest and belly was intense. Finally, FINALLY exactly 2 weeks after her due date, on June 7th, 2014 at 12:45am, she laid down. SHE LAID DOWN! She never lays down. My parents were watching the cameras from 800 miles away online which was so incredibly cool that they could be a part of it even after Rose didn't hatch while they were visiting. I texted 'ITS TIME!' and my Dad wanted to know how I could tell. Rose rarely lies down on her own, and she was down, and rolling. I zoomed the quarter mile to the barn just in time to see feet emerging. Everything went smoothly and in less than 5 minutes I said hello to a brand new, bright red chestnut filly! She was HUGE and had legs for days! And wait a minute....chestnut?! Yup. Bright chestnut with lots of chrome. 4 socks, a star and a nike swoosh kiss snip on her lip.

Tada!

I. Can't. Reach. Dis. Stuff.

The sass is strong with this one.

She was everything I dreamed of! I was over the moon. There were tears and that's why half of my photos are blurry, I couldn't see them clearly so they looked like award winning shots when I took them. Then the fun really began. Her little personality was so endearing. She would meet me at the stall door when I came in and want snuggles. But she was such a sass monster! When I head/neck clipped her to get some baby photos, she showed early on that she had mastered the mad mare face. It was so precious. 

Getting to watch her grow, and change colors. After I sent in her registration papers, I was sure I'd have to send them in again... she went from bright chestnut, to DARK liver chestnut. Darker than her mother! Then gradually over the winter lightened back to a honey chestnut. For a long time she was chestnut and flaxen, and now her mane and tail have sadly started to darken so she is a strawberry blonde. It is impossible to get good photos of her because she is a pocket pony. Unless I have someone with me, I can't get her off me. She's such a personable girl who always wants to be with you. We had a photographer come and last minute even though she wasn't gussied up, we added her to the list and she strutted her stuff!

Her little floof tail!

This wasn't even the darkest she got

I watched her grow. I weaned her (she was furious that we took the milk truck away). She was so independent and headstrong she never cried for her friends when I took her in to work with her. Dream baby. 

I moved home and the Nerd Herd migrated with me. One night in March, 2.5 months before her 2nd birthday I got a call from the owner of the barn where she was at that said she had cut her legs and it was bad. I dropped what I was doing and raced to the barn. She was down in the mud and wouldn't get up. She had been playing and stepped over the board placed against the barn (was a kind of quansett hut with curved metal roofing that wrapped around to the ground) and gotten her right feet wedged just right that when she pulled to step away, it sliced. We called the vet and he arrived but it was so muddy he wanted to take her back to the clinic to do xrays and examine her better. 

Nothing was broken, but it was bad. The hind leg was the worst of it. It sliced diagonally through all of the structures from her outer pastern, the foot was able to flop back. When the vet brought me back into the surgical suite to ask me what her purpose would be (he wanted to euthanize her that night) because you could see the bursa from her coffin joint. It was pretty gruesome. Looking back, I think looking at it from the scientific standpoint. My brain flashed into naming the structures and picturing all the musculature, tendons/ligaments etc that had been sliced. Keeping me from completely freaking out. 

If you're sensitive, don't look at this next photo:

Hind leg injury. You could see the bursa of her coffin joint.

He recommended that we euthanize her. He wasn't sure on the prognosis. IF it would heal and if she would even be able to walk. I was devastated. But in that moment, I knew I couldn't just quit. I had dreamed her up and brought her into existence. I needed to give her the chance. I told him to clean it out, patch her up and we were going for it. He cleaned the wounds and stitched up both legs (front was more of a vertical slice rather than the diagonal horizontal slice through the hind), bandaged them and put a cast on the hind. They would leave her like that for 2 days and re-evaluate. I was able to see her as she came out of the anesthesia  and got to her feet. She was able to get up and stand. I kissed her nose and told her she's a fighter and Mom would be back to see her. I made the big burly vet cry.

 Princess getting her beauty rest

Her 'Moon Boots'. Each time they changed them, they'd use diff color vet wrap.

Rainbow Girl. <3

They were able to take the cast off and put her in a gauze/quilt/duct tape 'moon boot'. For the next month, I visited her as often as I could. Did I mention I was unemployed at this time? Yup. The day her injury happened, I had quit the job I moved home to take after an unpleasant encounter with my boss. Nice. No income and my pony is in the hospital. Thank GOD she was insured! I visited her and for the first few weeks, she wasn't eating much. Her pain was difficult to manage. I was heartbroken. I had convinced myself that she was in too much pain and was trying to prepare myself for the worst but finally, after a few weeks. She started taking interest in her grain, would perk up when she heard the treat wrappers.  She had the vet techs wrapped around her little hooves. They were so taken with her and my update phonecalls each morning were raving about what a good girl she was and how sweet she was. So many of them commented on 'are you sure she's Arabian??' Haha, she won some fans over for the breed! I was given the all-clear to start hand walking her in the arena for 5-10 minutes when I was out. Between that and the acupuncture treatments she was getting, her pain seemed to become manageable. Her limp was awful and I felt like I was torturing her when I walked her. After about a week and a half of walking her, she felt good enough to rear when I brought her in the arena. SHE PUT HER FULL WEIGHT ON HER HIND LEGS! Long story short, we set a date for her to come home. I was so nervous bc I would be in charge of her bandage changes and did not want to screw that up. Miraculously, a week before she came home, the bandages came off her front leg. 2 days before that trip, Doc took the bandages off the hind leg and said it was good to go. 

Then commenced 4 months of stall confinement. I could hand walk her daily for 30-40 minutes but that was it. We wanted everything internally to heal before she was allowed to be a horse again. She was so fed up with stall rest and I generally started out with a pony-kite at the end of my lead rope when we began walking. She had fun bucking and leaping but I wouldn't let her go anywhere. She was doing airs above the ground in her very best Lipizanner impression. Spot. On. There wasn't a great place to start turning her out because as I mentioned previously, the mud management at that barn was not the best. Paddocks were ankle-fetlock deep in mud and the turnouts were perfect sized but full of knee high weeds. But we managed. Slowly she gained her strength back. Sadly. Xrays did confirm that the pastern/coffin joint on her front leg was collapsing which is why her limp had not gone away as she healed. While the hind leg had taken the worst of the injury, 60% of her weight is borne on the front legs, and more strain with the hind leg out of commission so... low ringbone on that joint. Vet said she may need surgery (plates/pins or alcohol injections) to fuse the joint. I opted to let her grow and see what happens naturally instead of putting her through another procedure and months of stall rest/pain. Thus far, she has remained pretty sound. Has occasional gimpy days if she steps wrong (but who doesn't?). I will be starting to break her out this spring, to see how much she can handle. I gave her an extra year of just being a horse and not pushing her, so that she could heal naturally. We'll see what nature accomplished and if I have a trail pony I can have fun with. I'm just so so happy that she was able to endure that ordeal and is still with me today. My fighter. The miracle.

If I am able to get her broke out and ride her. There will be ugly crying happening the first time I get on her back. Guaranteed. 

Love my Nenner girl. <3

Doing her best Princess Elsa

Pretty Girl

Pocket Pony