Green and 14 - chapter 1

When my fellow equestrians see Kitchen for the first time, they often ask me how old he is or is he new to the program? Well, let me chat about Kitchen!

Kitchen is 14 years old. He came to Canter Haven Farm when he was 7. He is still considered 'green'. Why is this and why did it take me 7 years to get him to his first rated horse trial?

When Kit arrived, he had a lump over his knee. After exam and x-rays, a bone chip was found. It was decided to take him to a specialist for removal as, and I will admit, he appeared to be very athletic, sporty and could excel at any discipline. Goals were made for Kit! Due to this, a sports specialist and surgeon was recommended. A few months later, we took Kit to an equine hospital in the neighboring state. Once back home and with a detailed rehab protocol in hand, all Kit activities were planned for the next 8 months.

Are some horses more accident prone than others? I say yes after meeting Kitchen. Picture a day before his sutures were to be removed by our vet, 14 days post surgery, and it is feeding time. There are feed doors on the stalls that are on some of the Behlen stall fronts. They sit up about 3ft from the ground and are wide enough to get a flake of hay through. They stay closed except for feeding time. Being that Kit was confined to his stall for 2 weeks, I would open the feed door to let him stick his nose out, put in his hay, and the turn around to feed another horse across the isle. I then would turn around and go back to Kit's stall and close the feed door. As I was opening the door to another stall, there was a loud noise and as I turned around to see what was going on, there was Kitchen standing in the barn isle, looking a bit stunned. But not as stunned as I. Kit is not small. He is 16.1 hh and standard TB build. To this day, I still an unclear how he got into the barn isle. The obvious answer is he went through the small feed door but I still wonder if there was some temporal anomaly that transferred him from his stall to the barn isle.

The next day, our vet thoroughly examine Kit and nothing found except a small scratch on his hip. Sutures removed and he was allowed to have a bit more room to move about in the paddock attached to his stall. 8 months post surgery, he was slowly brought back to work, with jumping small cross rails a year after his surgery.

Next up - Chapter 2 (the next period of stall rest)