Heart Hurt Horse - Cassie Part 1

There are so many other posts I should be writing. I have taken some time off to recharge and plan for the new season and will be back at it around March, so should really be marketing and prepping, but I have to take some time out and write about my Thoroughbred, Cassie.  I have spoken about her a bit before, but having the time off, has given me time to reflect on how far this girl has come.  So bear with me, get comfortable and I want to tell a story, a story which has been able to be changed.  Something on days, I didn't think would.  We still have a long way to go, but my heart hurt horse is learning to trust and be a horse again.

I bought Cassie last February (2021), bit of an impulse buy if I am really honest.  John (my long suffering husband) and I had enjoyed dinner at a local restaurant and was waiting for our daughter to finish her shift.  John had popped to the washroom (so you know I wasn't checking my phone whilst out with him :-)) and I flicked onto Facebook.  Cassie came up looking for a home.  This beautiful girl looked at me from the page and I was smitten.  I thought, OK, if she is close by, I will maybe go and see her.  So, I inquired, she was close by, in Mission.  Crap, I had to ask more about her.  She was being sold as a brood mare only.  I was the first to ask about her.  Roll forward a day or two, I had a lovely chat with her trainer and explained what I do and hoped that maybe Cassie could become a therapy horse and since she was rideable, maybe I could ride her as well.  I even played with the idea of breeding her for about 10 seconds anyway!  I went and met her and it was love at first sight.  The owner had told me they had had about 30 inquiries about her, but needed to find her the right home.  She came out and placed her head on my chest and I gave her a snuggle.  I stood with her a bit and something just felt right.  I do love a big horse.  She is 17.1hh.  The owner and trainer both saw the connection and said she was mine if I wanted her.  My long suffering husband sent the etransfer as I was driving back home.  She arrived at the barn a week later. 

Now, her previous owners are lovely, amazing, gave her the best home, but I feel they were not sure what to do with her.  The bit of history I do know about her was that she was a race horse for the first few years of her life and mistreated.  We know she is terrified of sticks, so you can imagine what happened and her tongue was tied, which is very common in the racing world.  So one side of her mouth is fairly paralyzed and she cannot have a bit in her mouth.  Her last trainer had worked with her, and she works beautifully on the flat and showjump's to a decent height.  Cassie is such a gentle soul and will try her heart out for you, whatever you are asking of her.  However, the trainer mentioned to me that she could go into a full PTSD mode, I nodded, didn't really take any notice and figured if it happened I would deal with it.  She mentioned that she had taken her out and this is when the PTSD made an appearance.  So, for the last seven years of her life, she had been breed to three different stallions and produced beautiful babies and was a tender, loving mother. 

So, Cassie arrived at the barn and I turned her straight out in her little turnout and everything was fine.  In the evening, I brought her in first and she lost it.  I put her in her stable and she was rearing, tearing around, kicking out, bucking, screaming for her field mates and in a sweat.  I stood back and thought, what the hell had I done!!!  As usual, I jumped in and figured I would deal with the consequences later.  However, that also being said, I am of the opinion that I am never going to get a horse that does what it says, because I work differently with horses. I let them have a voice, I build relationship, trust and love between us.  It is so important to me and I can't work any other way.  It doesn't matter if it takes months or years, but I want my horses to have a say in their life.  

Something that did resonate for me, was how sad Cassie's eyes were.  In the following weeks, I took Cassie out for walks, in the round pen, on the lunge.  She did everything I asked of her.  We would go for grass, she would eat.  She did like to be near her herd, but other than that, she was an easy horse.  My friend who does Masterson came and did a session and we saw how well she responded to it.  Masterson is a bit like acupressure for horses and helps release anything that has built up in the horse, whether that be trauma mentally or pain in their body.  We figured she had been through quite a bit, so thought a session would be a nice release.  I feel this opened the door to the start of Cassie's healing. 

However whether it is a human or animal that has had trauma, it goes in stages.  The trauma happens, it stays with us, it can replay again and again, for a human this is in their head, the story keeps going and it is hard to change it.  For an animal they hold it in their body and it can appear at any time.  I believe this is what happened with Cassie and her PTSD moments, she would relive what had happened, but at the same time she was so disassociated in her body. All those compliances in the round pen, grazing, walking where like walking in a fog.  When a lot of animals "misbehave" they are told off for it, but they are trying to tell us something.  For Cassie, she would go into fight and flight all at the same time.  Again, I think this was her going back to the trauma she had endured.  Seeing her in full flight was scary, I am not going to lie and again, I wondered what I had let myself in for.  Cue my lovely friend the animal communicator......