Bloody noses

Guys, I've been a bit preoccupied lately...

Welcome to the family Cooper!

We found a new family member 2 weeks ago and he's a full-time job/he's perfection -- more about him later<3

A few weeks ago when Scout was coming in from turnout, he and his turnout buddies had blood all over their flysheets. After careful inspection of all the usual causes (lacerations, etc), we found that Scout was the culprit and was bleeding very slightly from his right nostril. He had no other symptoms of any kind and no outward sign of trauma.

First day

Second day

It's not completely uncommon for a horse to get a nosebleed, so we took the wait and see approach as it was just barely a trickle. Our thinking was, we'll wait until the end of the day and if it's still bleeding actively, we'll have field services stop by. By the afternoon, it was still trickling bright red blood so we had our vet swing by to take a look. She was able to scope him to rule out anything going on in his lungs, etc (which would have been quite scary) -- through the scope she could see a few blood clots quite high up in his nasal passages but the scope couldn't go any further than that to figure out the cause of the bleeding. She gave him a clotting agent to help stop the bleeding and we would recheck in the morning.

Welp:(

Overnight, the bleeding continued, not enough blood to completely panic about, but enough that despite the clotting drug it was not stopping. I met the vet later that day to rescope him with a different device to see if we could go a little deeper. I had a real proud mama moment when the vet told me how wonderfully behaved my horse is. I mean any horse you can scope with zero sedation is a GOOD BOY:) She was able to show me what she was seeing in the scope, which was more blood clots way up high and we STILL couldn't see the cause of bleeding. At this point, the vet recommended that I bring him into New Bolton for further diagnostics. Again, she wasn't completely alarmed and it wasn't emergent, but since we couldn't figure out where the bleeding was coming from we needed to rule out every possibility. The next day we brought him to NBC for more tests and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pretty concerned.

By the way, when your horse has unexplained bleeding from his nose, don't Google stuff... that's just not helpful at all. All I kept imagining was Scout having guttural pouch mycosis and bleeding out.

All the while, he never acted like anything was wrong

Realistically, I knew that the outcome was probably very good... but it's never a great feeling taking your horse to a big clinic. And now that Scout is insured it was a no-brainer to allow New Bolton to take whatever measures needed to figure out what was going on.

Scout was not impressed

They decided to scope him AGAIN, and were able to see that there was a small amount of active bleeding way up high in the nasal passage. The suspected cause was probably roughhousing in turnout (or bumping it somehow), so they wanted to rule out any kind of major trauma in his head before sending him home. They took radiographs of his head and they could see a small amount of fluid (blood) which confirmed their suspicion about the cause of the nose bleed. We were able to take him home a few hours later with a super prognosis. He was confined to small paddock turnout for a week and no riding, and once the bleeding had completely stopped he could go back out and resume work.

A few days after going to New Bolton

After resuming turnout, some discharge but mostly clear

I was so relieved to see the bleeding resolved and he was super happy to get back to work. All told he had about 10 days off and with an event on the horizon, we were eager to see how he was feeling after a little break. Thank god for thoroughbreds who don't miss a beat!

Creating Value

How is value of a horse determined and why is it important? I started thinking about this recently after reading a post over at A Yankee in Paris which talks about the kind of life she prepares her horses for and why. For me, an adult amateur who helps co-raise two children, works several jobs and has lots of hobbies outside of horses, it is important for my horse to have some intrinsic value. But beyond that I want him to have some actual value in the horse world -- so how is that determined?

What's this guy worth?

When I first moved Scout to his current barn, he jumped a 4'6" hotwire fence TWICE to go play with some neighboring horses. The BO was recalling watching Scout trot half-heartedly up to the fence line and just ping over it when he asked me what my plans were for him. And I gave him my generic answer which is that I'd like to take him BN, maybe Novice some day. But that I'm not super interested in heavily competing but just enjoying my horse. I explained that I knew he was more athletic than my goals warranted and that was okay with me.

And recently, while getting Scout insured I discovered that whether I knew it or not I've been adding to his value all along.

So how is all of that determined? Well, from a fair market value Scout has a lot going for him. He's big, bay and a gelding. He's just turning 6 this year and he's conformationally pretty correct and desirable. When I bought him his value was ~$5000, and now it's nearly doubled due to a couple of choices I've made along the way that have helped to increase his value.

When I started reaching out to professionals throughout owning Scout it was for two specific reasons... 1. the further his training and 2. to prepare him for me. At the end of the day, I want Scout to be much more advanced than my goals will get him to and beyond that, if life gets too hectic down the road, I want Scout's "value" to be more than just a BN event horse. If I ever decided to lease him out his value will be determined by his versatility and experience.

Has talent, needs direction

But before he gets to BN or anything else, he needs quality mileage. All of the pieces need to come together to help create a foundation for a great athlete. I've put a nice start on him, but my skill set only goes so far.

With my BO, playing at being a jumper

For Scout, that means time in a various rings. My BO would love to play with him in the 6 year old jumpers this year. I fully support this idea!

And even though I want him to be an eventer, it doesn't mean he has to be a one trick pony:)

Maybe cow pony?

Western Dressage???

So I was stunned when I went through the process of insuring him and they helped me to quantify his value. Obviously if a horse has a recognized show record that adds value, but what I didn't know was that professional training also is included in a statement of value. And while we've intermittently used a professional, the overall dollar amount equates to increasing his value by nearly double. I was very excited to learn this, but it was never the reason for me using a pro.

I just need him to be a solid partner

And having value goes beyond his monetary value, or worth in the show ring, because I also need him to have value as a solid citizen. When I recently stopped at the barn to organize some of my stuff, I ran into the main guy who does all the day-to-day stuff and he expressed how much he was missing Scout (he calls him "domestic" and always tells me what a nice horse he is). If nothing else, it's nice to know that my horse is a barn favorite, admired by many and an easy guy to handle and deal with daily.

But what's he worth to me?

#priceless