A recent thread on the Chronicle of the Horse forums caught my eye: Stop it with the “heart horse” thing. No, really. Stop it.

I don’t recall ever using the term “heart horse” in print, but when I think about the way I’ve typically seen it used on the COTH forums – yes, Tristan is my heart horse. I have ridden and loved many horses in my life. I have fallen in love with a few.

No horse has ever meant to me what Tristan means to me. Whenever I see him, without fail, I get an almost physical pang in my chest, like my heart is too big for its space. Everything about my life is better when he’s nearby. I tried to explain it to someone once by saying it’s like my heart somehow took up residence outside my body, and inside his.

I realize that sounds corny. I’m not trying to say that I’ll never love another horse. I guess for me, it just means that my relationship with him is special.  It’s different, deeper than any other relationship I’ve had with a horse, even ones I’ve ridden quite a lot and loved dearly. We’ve been through so much together. He has saved my sanity more than once. (In between the times when he’s making me lose it…)

What about you? Have you ever used the term “heart horse”? Is your current horse a heart horse? Have you ever had one before?

Dark Victory (1939)
(available on Amazon Instant)

The gist: Bette Davis plays heiress and playgirl Judith Traherne, who is diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor. She falls in love with her brain surgeon, played by George Brent. Geraldine Fitzgerald plays her best friend and secretary Ann, Humphrey Bogart plays her Irish horse trainer, and a very babyish Ronald Reagan plays her drinking buddy Alec.

On the surface, this movie is a melodramatic schlockfest in which Bette Davis reaches hysterical heights on a regular basis. It’s considered a classic of its type.

Look deeper, and you see a darn good horse movie. Judith’s life is consumed by her horses, though the movie can never quite decide what she does with them – steeplechases? hunters? jumpers? saddleseat? She breeds and has a personal trainer and rides herself. Some of the key scenes in the film are set in stables, with really wonderful set dressing.

Judith’s horse Challenger is a central character in the movie, and a metaphor for Judith throughout. Trainer Michael (and oh, I could write an entire essay on Humphrey Bogart’s terrible Irish accent) doesn’t think the horse will ever amount to anything. Judith is convinced he’s a champion. It’s while taking him over fences at the beginning of the movie that she falls and is first diagnosed with her brain tumor. Michael brings Challenger to her bedroom while she’s recovering, and his eventual admission that Challenger is a champion after all is another metaphor for Judith’s acceptance of her diagnosis toward the end of the movie.

Throughout, Bette Davis wears fabulous 1930s riding clothes, and the horses are just gorgeous. It’s not your typical “rich people ride horses” movie; horses and horse sport are clearly central to Judith’s character. When she imagines a long life it includes a big house, a farm, and generations of horses in the fields.

Incidentally, Bette Davis herself was something of a horse person, though perhaps not as deeply involved with the sport as her co-star in this film, Ronald Reagan, or other stars like Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. She renovated a home in New Hampshire named Butternut, and kept a horse there for her time off from moviemaking. I’ve also found mentions of horses she kept for her daughter as well.

Definitely recommended if you like classic film, and classic horse scenes.

It is adult camp week at the barn, and one of those times of year when I realize that despite living in a sleepy corner of Vermont, I actually board at a high-powered dressage barn. (The other times include when they load the rig to go to Wellington for the winter, and the going-away party for same.)

The adult campers are generally lovely people, and they look like they’re having a ton of fun! That said, they are mostly (though not all) of the socioeconomic background that means they can take a week with their horse to drive to Vermont for a pricey adult horse camp. They are all impeccably put together and have very nice horses and I usually spend the week sort of sneaking around the edges. My inner rebel often feels the need to ride in ratty breeches, half-chaps, Ariat sneakers, and bareback all week.

Last night, I took Tris out for a relatively short field hack, mixing it up with some short stretches of trot. (Side note: Endomondo said we topped out at 20mph last night, which seems absolutely absurd unless it was sensitive enough to track the swing of my arm while we trotted up the big hill?)

When I brought him out to the wash stall to hose him off for a minute or two, I saw two adult camp riders leaning over one’s cell phone and overheard the following statement, which I swear to you I am repeating verbatim:

“So that’s our house in Montauk…ignore the construction, we’re having some updates done.”

Yeah.

“And a mistake repeated more than once is a decision.”

– Paulo Coelho

This is just to say that this morning, Tristan got his first dose of pergolide. I’d been reading a lot about the “pergolide veil,” and the nasty side effects horses can have when starting the drug, so I designed a very careful tapering system for him based on the advice from the ECIR group. Today, he starts with 0.25 mg, and he’ll be up to the standard 1mg per day in about 10 days.

I’ll longe him tonight. Last night, I dropped the pergolide off and gave him a thorough grooming and couldn’t stop looking at his topline and neck and getting teary. He does not look good right now, and I can’t believe it happened so quickly. Here’s hoping that he’ll pick right up soon.

I feel like this blog could just become a neverending round of “hey so here’s another vet visit!”

I’ve been sitting on this announcement for about a week, because while it does help me with some answers, it’s also kind of heartbreaking and difficult for me to process.

Two weeks ago, when the vet was out to take x-rays of Tristan’s RF, she took one look at him and wanted to draw blood for a Cushing’s test. More accurately, she wanted to test ACTH levels, which are indicative of a malfunctioning pituitary gland, which is the cause of Cushing’s Syndrome.

Bloodwork came back last Tuesday. Normal ACTH levels are 9-35; Tristan is at 47.8. Definite positive.

I’ve been swinging wildly back and forth since then. On the one hand, it’s a low positive, and he only has some mild symptoms that are very recent. He’s still relatively young at 19, and he has a very good chance of responding positively to medication and being eminently manageable. Right now is typically considered a “high” time of year for ACTH levels, and they’re usually more elevated than is typical, so even a low positive will be lower over the winter.

On the other hand, he’s 19. Cushing’s is typically an old horse disease. The very idea of Tristan as an old horse sends me into a horrible tailspin of anxiety, depression, and terror. I can’t even touch briefly on the idea that maybe someday my life won’t include him. My brain shuts down.

I’ve taken the first steps at management, emailing back and forth with the vet. We’ve switched his grain to Blue Seal’s Carb Guard. For now, he’s on limited grass and we’ve made no changes to his hay. His pergolide is on order, though it is delayed.

His biggest outward symptom is muscle wasting. With that in mind, I’ve been rethinking my riding program. I need to ride more often, and I need to focus more on long slow muscle building. I’m pushing to get out and walk the big hay field almost every day, which is about 40 minutes of hills, either up or down. Hopefully a balance of that with some longeing and dressage mixed in will keep him mentally with me (usually he burns out pretty quickly on a more intense schedule) and will let him build muscle. Once he gets on the pergolide, I hope we can give him the support he needs to really get it back.

I’m not always game for random fundraising campaigns – I work in nonprofits, I know way too much about fundraising – but I like this one. It’s been covered a little bit in the blogosphere already (thanks to Adventures with Shyloh, who featured the story here) but I just thought I’d mention it again.

Short version: Emilie from A Blonde, A Brunette, and a Redhead is raising funds to purchase a very special Haflinger stallion and take him in training down to Wellington for the winter.

I had heard the story but today I learned about something of a personal connection: she’s hoping to be a working student with my trainer in Wellington. Small, small world!

Read the full story on their Go Fund Me website, and please consider donating. (Please note, the total there apparently does not represent the total amount raised so far; they are much closer than it looks.)

I remember most of my dreams, and I dream a lot. Last night’s was a doozy.

It started as I was packing to drive to help Hannah ride at Tevis. She called and told me to bring Tristan, too – it would be fun to get the boys out together again!

I thought that sounded like a great idea, so I hitched up the trailer and brought him. On the way, I decided that if he seemed like he wasn’t up to it, I could just ride the first 12 mile loop.

(Please note, I have no idea whether or not Tevis has a 12 mile loop. I rather doubt it. I also doubt that my horse, much as I love him, could handle even 12 miles of the Tevis trail.)

We arrived and as we prepped to start the race I decided that the trail was too rocky for Tristan, and I hadn’t brought any boots, so I scratched him.

I did, however, decide to hike the trail instead. There were a bunch of people doing this, in a sort of shadow of the Western States Endurance Run.

(Note the second, it is even less likely that I could run 12 miles than that my horse could. As in, I’m not even sure I could move my body in an approximation of a jog for one mile.)

We then started out on a trail that was like some bizarre dreamworld. At one point, we jogged through a mall’s parking garage. Then we exited that to slide down an icy, snowy hill onto a river that was barely frozen over. Several people broke through the ice and were swept over the waterfall. (Yes. Really.)

Soon after that we crossed a desert, complete with cactii and camels. More people dropped out here, but fortunately I had some sort of bizarre apparatus rigged up and had enough water.

After the desert, I arrived at a check-in point and decided I’d run enough of it, and would grab my truck and meet Hannah at the next hold.

My brain is a frightening place sometimes.