PART 15 - MY JOURNEY WITH MJ

One of the hardest things about owning horses is when you know something isn't right, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is.

In some ways, I think that's actually harder than getting a diagnosis. At least when somebody tells you what's wrong, you know what you're dealing with. You can make a plan, work out what comes next and decide how you're going to move forward.

This wasn't like that.

All I knew was that MJ wasn't herself.

Looking back, it had started with those fences at the showjumping. The little sideways nap away from a jump that was so unlike her. A horse like MJ didn't stop. She didn't really look for a way out of things. If anything, over the years I'd often wished she'd occasionally show a little less enthusiasm for jumping!

That's what made it so concerning.

She was trying to tell me something, I just didn't know what.

The first person I called was our physio. She came out, had a thorough look at her and felt that MJ was carrying quite a bit of tightness and discomfort through her body. She treated her with deep tissue work, ultrasound and advised giving her a short period of rest before bringing her back into work.

At that point I felt fairly optimistic.

After everything we'd been through over the years, it seemed entirely possible that she'd simply tweaked something. A couple of weeks off work felt like nothing in comparison to some of the rehabilitation programmes we'd already survived.

When I started riding her again, she actually felt pretty good. The only thing we hadn't done was jump, partly because I wanted to give her time and partly because, with her history, I was always conscious of protecting her legs as much as possible.

Three weeks later we went back to the same venue.

I remember feeling quite hopeful that day.

Unfortunately it didn't last very long.

I couldn't even get her over a tiny cross pole in the warm-up.

Again, there was no dramatic lameness, no obvious injury and no clear explanation for what I was seeing. Just a horse who was trying her best to tell me that something wasn't right.

So once again, we withdrew.

By this point it was becoming impossible to ignore.

The physio came back out and this time she felt there was a slight lameness there. Very slight. In fact, if I'm honest, it was the sort of lameness I would never have spotted myself. Anybody who knows me will tell you that a horse generally needs to be hopping lame before I notice!

That tiny hint of lameness was enough to start the next stage of the journey and we were referred to the vet hospital.

At the time, I genuinely thought we'd get answers fairly quickly.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

What followed was seven months of investigations, appointments and travelling backwards and forwards to the hospital, desperately hoping that each visit would finally provide an answer.

The problem was that the picture never really seemed to become any clearer.

There were times when I thought we were getting somewhere and times when I came home convinced we'd finally identified the problem. Then the next appointment would come along and we'd seem to be back at square one again.

It felt as though every step forward was followed by two steps back.

At one point, after months of investigations, I was told that she really wasn't showing much lameness anymore and perhaps whatever had caused the issue had largely resolved itself. The advice was to take her home, jump her over a small course and see how she felt.

I remember feeling hopeful, but also slightly sceptical.

Not because I doubted the vets, but because something still wasn't sitting right with me.

Nevertheless, I followed the advice.

We put up five little fences at home, around 80cm, and the first time I pointed MJ at them she absolutely flew round. For a few minutes I allowed myself to think that perhaps we'd finally turned a corner. Maybe she was fine. Maybe all of this was behind us.

Then I reminded myself who I was sitting on.

This was MJ.

A horse who absolutely adored jumping.

A horse who hadn't seen a fence for months.

A horse who would probably have jumped a bungalow if I'd pointed her at it that day.

So I walked her round for a bit, gave her time to settle and then asked again.

This time she wouldn't go near the first fence.

And I remember standing there with that horrible sinking feeling in my stomach.

I still didn't know what was wrong.

But I knew there was something wrong.

So back to the hospital we went.

Looking back now, I think that whole period was probably more exhausting than I realised at the time. Not just financially, although the vet bills certainly weren't insignificant, but emotionally.

Every appointment came with hope.

Every appointment felt as though it might finally be the one where we got answers.

And every time we left without them, it became a little harder to stay positive.

I also found myself constantly second-guessing everything.

Had I missed something?

Should I have noticed sooner?

Had I pushed her too much?

Was there something obvious that everybody else could see but I couldn't?

None of those thoughts were particularly helpful, but when you love a horse as much as I loved MJ, they're very difficult thoughts to avoid.

Eventually, in February 2024, after seven months of searching, we finally got the answer.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the answer I'd been hoping for.

And that answer changed everything.