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So...the horse I adopted from the kill pen turned out to be a flipper

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So...the horse I adopted from the kill pen turned out to be a flipper
  • http://s780.photobucket.com/albums/yy83/Impdreams/?action=view&current=IMG_0919.jpg

    So beautiful and so dangerous.  Went great for over a week.  Slow collected jogs and canters.  Then started bucking.  OK...bucking isn't a HUGE problem, but this horse bucked different than any other horse I've met.  Instead of bunching at the shoulders and trying to throw his head down, he would gather his rear and launch himself upwards without ever pulling on the reins and then kick out.  He would have all four hooves five feet in the air simultaneously.  He would do it almost in slow motion.  It was a perfect dressage capriole.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEpu8d8Zqw4

    Still...no problem.  All things can be fixed.  But while I was trying to fix the "bucks", Renegade decided to take it a step further and launched himself backwards.  As with any experienced flipper, it was so quick that by the time my mind processed what was happening, he was on top of me.  As he was getting up, I swung back into the saddle and he barely stood up before he did it again.  His head hit the ground so hard it sounded like a pumpkin cracking open. (Or maybe that was my head.)  After the second time, I was 1) cussing myself for having set myself up for it and 2) laying on the ground deciding if I was still alive.  Finally got back up and rode (yes, the idiot said "rode") him back to the barn.  I am bruised, battered and sad.
  • Sorry to hear that and glad you are okay.  That could have been really bad for you.
     
    I guess you now know why he was in the kill pen.
  • Wow!  Glad you are OK but sad that such a beautiful horse got ruined somewhere along the line and that someone without a conscience could just let him possibly kill someone who buys him unsuspectingly........
     
    What's your plan now?
  • Close friend got a FREE horse. It was long before we learned why he was free! Sometimes you get what you pay for!
  • I agree and flipping is the one thing that's dangerous and never totally cured.  I may have patience and the ability to work with every flaw BUT that one.  It's deadly and I've seen it kill horses AND people.  Don't quite know what to do with him now.  Hate to condemn him to death, can't sell him and put someone else at risk and can't afford a permanent pasture pet.  Sigh...
  • Sometimes the best you can do for a horse is to humanely euthanize it.  To pass it along down the line is to be responsible for death or injury to another person.  Sorry folks, I LOVE horses with all my heart, but there is a line that needs to be drawn.
  • I'm with you 3.  Sad as it is, why take the risk?  People are more important than horses.  Thank God you're okay and weren't killed, Imp!!!
  • im glad you are ok. i hate to see such a pretty horse put down, maybe you should try some Clinton Anderson groundwork with him. i think clinton has a video on youtube that addresses rearing and flippin
  • Thank God your okay.

    Human life is more important but if you do not want make him into a pasture horse you could always teach ground stuff on him but anything other then that i would lean towards putting him to rest. Its sad that someone scared this guy for life though.
  • I'm sure glad you weren't hurt. That's an incredibly dangerous thing for a horse to do.
     
    Occasionally a horse will be run through the local sale barn, with the instructions "don't send him back to the farm, he'll hurt someone". Kill buyers only. Yeah, sometimes there's a good reason for a horse to be in the kill pen.
  • I'll look into the Clinton Anderson thing, but from my past experience with flippers, is that you can go a day, a week, or a year and never have a problem and then suddenly it happens again when the horse decides enough is enough.   But life is about learning and if there is a way, I'm game to give it a try.  After I'm finished mending, that is ; )
  • Now that you've had time to inventory the scuff marks, what all is wrong with you?  It's a HUGE blessing you weren't killed! 
  • Blood blister the size of my fist high on  my inner thigh.  Swollen wrist.  Bruises across my stomach and sides.  Field rash across my back.  Broke my nose so two black eyes to go along with the nose.  And a goose egg on the back of my head.  Far from the heart as my dad always says.
  • Did you hear me gasp when you said you broke your nose???  Kylah!!!  Did you go to the hospital?  The blood blister bothers me, too.  Do they form blood clots?  Ones that travel? 

    Oh where is that 3equines?  She's practically a doctor!  [':)']  j/k, she just graduated a nursing program in case you missed the thread.

    Did you have a helmet on?  Just wondering cuz it would be easy to get your little grape squashed with a fall like that! 

    Again, SOOO glad you're not hurt worse!
  • Actually, I did go to a doctor after three days because the blood blister kept getting larger and larger.  They drained it and offered pain meds, which I brought home, but didn't take.  I WAS wearing a helmet since I didn't know the horse well enough (just grooming and groundwork and he always seemed pleasant enough, but I did know he bucked before I brought him home), but it cracked in the fall, so I'm very glad that it wasn't my bare head that hit the ground that hard.
    I had a vet come check out the horse because I thought maybe a nerve might have been pinching his back somewhere due to the strange way he was bucking.  Also, for a gelding he acts like a stud horse and I wondered if perhaps he was retaining a testicle.  Vet gave the all clear on his physical and couldn't find a partially descended testicle caught in the inguinal ring so his hormones are now being tested to see if there is one that hasn't descended.
    I got to thinking about it and while he was going well, I had him all by himself.  Then I put the little mare with him.  He immediately mounted her, and I took her away.  After that he became an extremely angry horse.  Pinning his ears and swinging his butt towards me, never actually biting or kicking, though.  Kind of like a child throwing a tantrum.
    Just imagine if you could get all that athleticism working in a positive way.
    Not that I'm climbing on him any time soon.  Just thinking at the moment.