Burghley 2007
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‘Please help, Mike, quick; we can’t get the drip high enough.’
I take the muddle of saline bags, tangled plastic pipe and baler twine from a slightly distraught Polly and hoist it the extra twelve inches that my height allows.
‘Great. Just hold it there.’
I looked doubtfully at the bags. There is several litres of fluid here and, much as I love this little horse, I’m not going to be able to hold it this high for very long. I wedge one elbow on the other arm, watch as the tension subsides marginally and reflect that cross country day was not, definitely not, meant to end like this.
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Frostie tied up as Phoebe walked her back, after retiring half way round. The event vet, Joe, is an old colleague of Polly’s. He’s calm, reassuring, but watchful, coming back every few minutes while we all wait for the little horse to wee; the colour will tell us how much damage has been done to her muscles.
The thought reminds me of my own arms, already aching, and I look more carefully, realising that if I flick the baler twine round one of the supporting struts in the temporary stabling, it would take at least part of the weight. I was never a boy scout but I can tie a double granny with the best of them and, thirty seconds later, the bags are self-supporting.
Wine. We all need a good slug of red wine. Burghley is convenient this way; the tent and the horsebox are both within two minutes walk. I slip away, locking the cameras in the boot of the car. Now is not the time to take pictures, whatever the outcome.
‘Drink it! All of it.’ I hand Polly a plastic cup and watch the tension subside another, tiny notch. I’ve brought plenty of cups and everyone is grateful, sipping quietly beside the little horse. Poor Frostie. Joe re-appears, with that sixth sense that vets have for alcohol, and another is poured.
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‘Keep the bucket ready,’ he urges, casting a professional eye over the saline bags. It won’t be long now.
The urine will be red, he predicts, full of myoglobin, the products of muscle damage. The question is, how red, and how long does it stay that frightening colour.
‘Here she goes!!’
Frostie assumes the position and we all hold our breath. The bucket is in place.
‘That’s not too bad.’ As the flow starts, Joe is already relaxing. ‘Keep the bucket there.’
‘It’s ok. It’s changing colour already.’
Never have so many people, I am sure, concentrated so hard on one stream of urine.
‘Clear! Look, it’s clear.’
A muted cheer goes up, and I see people looking up from other stables, smiling, sharing our relief. Frostie is very popular.
The flow ends, and we all peer into the bucket.
‘More wine, anyone?’
‘YES!’
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It had all started so well. The dressage, while marked no higher than Badminton, had been so much more solid, so less in danger of imminent explosion from an over-contained horse.
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We had all been delighted, Phoebe’s face, moments after, saying it all….Or was she just looking into Ian Woodhead’s eyes?
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And the track, while undeniably huge, hadn’t seemed impossible. Even “The Drop”, a six foot three inch launch onto a terrifying steep slope, and coming so few strides after an enormous table that, hadn’t phased Phoebe. (click here for some film of the course walk on cross-country morning)
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But she’d stopped, at the rails into the coffin, unseating Phoebe. And, although they'd got going again, making some horrendous combinations look easy; the huge hedge, the Trout Hatchery, the Waterloo Rails and that appalling Rolex corner, they'd stopped again at another downhill rail after overjumping the fence before, and finally ground to a halt in front of the eggcup. It was, Phoebe, knew, time to stop.
And then she’d tied up walking back.
I’d never heard this phrase before, and now it was the centre of my evening. ‘What is it exactly, Polly?’
She takes a deep breath, more happy to immerse herself in the details now that the immediate drama is over. We will eat quietly, drink plenty and, in the morning if the course vet is happy, take Frostie gently home. There is always another day.
'Tying up is one of the names for a condition where the energy supply from stored glucose to muscles goes wrong- and ends up damaging the muscles themselves. Some horses are just more prone to it,' Polly's voice becomes a little jerky here, 'But Frostie's never shown any signs before and lots of things can contribute.'
She sips her wine and carries on. 'I might have got her diet wrong. She's always been itchy but--remember last Thursday?--her skin came right up after just a couple of hours in the paddock. Those lumps were completely raw, and some of them were nearly under the saddle.'
I nod, give her a quick hug, refill her glass. 'Did you give her any drugs for it?'
'Too late. She'd have been 'positive' if they'd dope tested her. A friend of mind treated her 'topically'.
'What's that mean?'
'On the outside, cream, or in this case a spray. Doesn't get into the bloodstream that way. It worked, but that's why she looks a bit moth-eaten now. And we took her off anything that she hadn't been eating for months.' Polly sighs, twenty-twenty hindsight breaking through, 'which might have meant she ended up on too much of a high glucose diet. Which could have been the cause...' Polly trails off, patting her beloved horse in a vaguely absent-minded fashion. I leave her be, and move the half-full bucket of urine to where it can't be kicked over quite so easily.
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She will be lame too: an intermittent, annoying unevenness that starts with a return to fast work (in preparation for an Open Intermediate run At Little Downham horse trials in October) and which defies diagnosis until she is scanned at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket. And prescribed three months walking.
‘Frostie doesn't do walking. She explodes. I can’t cope with this. She’ll have to go to Phoebe for the winter. Polly pauses, sentiment breaking through. ‘I’ll fetch her back home for Christmas.’
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