Stanley-Giraffe is 'raring to go - and feeling great'!

Eaimbry Endeavour and Elli Darling

Elli Darling’s background in eventing ensures that she still enjoys jumping, but the Suffolk-based rider and trainer now specialises in dressage and last year, when her parents bought the then five-year-old Eaimbry Endeavour to join the other nine horses on the yard she shares with her partner Tori Bahal, it was the realisation of an ambition born a year earlier.

Standing 16.3hh, the San Amour gelding Eaimbry Endeavour is known affectionately as ‘Stanley-Giraffe’ and Ellie says: “We first saw him as a four-year-old and managed to buy him a year later. We did the five-year-old classes, but he was sharp and quite naughty – you could be riding along quite nicely and then all of a sudden, be facing the other way without having time to work out how you got there!
“I did a couple of novices with him at the end of last season and he came out this spring to do the six-year-old classes. He felt amazing, we had the changes sorted and were aiming for advanced medium, but then he went lame in April.

Heading for advanced medium at the start of the season.

“It started with him feeling a bit ‘iffy’ for a week, being really argumentative and difficult, yet when we went to a show at the end of that week, he was brilliant. After a day off though, he just didn’t feel right and when I went into trot, he was very wrong – and our vet duly found a shadow on a scan indicating he had injured a front suspensory ligament.
“Nerve blocking proved this was the problem, but although the shadow was tiny, the severity of his lameness had the vet worried about the true extent of the injury. 

He told me it may not repair fully, as Stanley has an extremely athletic action in trot and doesn’t know what ‘half power’ is, so it was going to be difficult to keep him sane during rehabilitation.
“Not only that, but he is too sharp to hack because he’s terrified of traffic, including bicycles. So although he’s not spooky or tense in the way most riders would understand, he uses any excuse to have a ‘hooley’. He doesn’t ‘wind up’ but does whip round – and round – and round – and if he changes direction, it can be a bit unseating. I knew that if we couldn’t rehabilitate him successfully, he didn’t really have a future as he obviously couldn’t go jumping either and he would never be someone’s hack!

“He was put on strict box rest and it was at that stage one of my clients suggested I look at the ArcEquine. I hadn’t heard of it at that point, but she persuaded me to ring the company and I duly did. That conversation, and the fact that I felt I had nothing to lose, resulted in my decision to give it a go – and so far – brilliant!
“The vet has just been out again and on this latest scan, the leg looks normal again and Stanley is feeling great. I adore the horse and so I’m still taking it so, so slowly. We’ve progressed to trotting and are looking at more weeks of trot work, steadily introducing lateral work, before we canter. He still loves to play about, but he never tries to really get me off and knowing him so well helps me to keep things going in the right direction.

“I’m obviously delighted with the result we’ve seen and I now use the ArcEquine for maintenance on the other horses too. I’ve never tried it on myself yet, because it’s either on a horse or on charge. Maybe we need another one!”

Images courtesy of Ana Goodrum, White Cat Photography. www.white-catphotography.com

Alfi's story is still unfolding .....

Alfi

When Holly Davies brought home an 11 month old pure bred chestnut arab called Alfi 12 years ago it marked the beginning of an often difficult journey, but her recent purchase of an ArcEquine microcurrent unit, has opened up the prospect of resolving the last of many different veterinary and management problems affecting Alfi over the years.

Holly has worked as an Animal Communicator and Therapist from her home base in South West Wales for 16 years and she specialises in horses, which account for 90% of her caseload. Most of her work is UK based, but around 10% involves telephone or email contact with international clients. Alongside this she is an enthusiastic author, having written no fewer than seven books in the last year along with college courses in Equine Energy Therapy and Animal Communication.

Her current book Arabian Recipe will be published early in 2016 and is about Alfi, who carries the sought-after Crabbit bloodlines. It chronicles his life and will include reference to the successful use of an ArcEquine microcurrent unit. Holly takes up the story.....

“When I first brought Alfi home, I was aware he had something of a parrot mouth and a rather odd hind leg action, but somehow I knew he was the horse for me. Straight away though, he had problems, starting with a ‘snotty nose’ virus from which it took him six months to recover.

“Other problems over the years included ongoing mud fever and persistent cellulitis and various often severe sensitivities and allergies. However despite all of this, he was backed when he was four, then turned away again for a year.

“He has also suffered from sarcoids and I remember one occasion a vet banded a sarcoid in his foreleg ‘arm pit’ and it rubbed, eventually causing a split in the skin. This developed a horrible infection in just two hours – and it took him three months to recover.

“Along the way, I discovered his current cranial therapist, a brilliant lady called Lucinda Munchhausen whose expertise has helped him enormously. Managing him was easier than it might have been, as I was working from home, but these experiences meant I started to work more in natural therapies, zoopharmacognosy* and remedial nutrition and I’ve used all of that knowledge to help Alfi.
“Earlier this year, when Alfi was fit and looking well, he came in from his nice flat paddock very lame and we discovered that he had somehow damaged a stifle joint quite badly. At one point we were near putting him to sleep as we didn’t expect him to recover, but we didn’t and happily, although it took many weeks, he did indeed recover. However he was only sound for two weeks then he suffered a puncture wound (and developed a splint) on the other hind leg, which led to an abscess that subsequently burst out along the coronet band. Between the two injuries, he had spent a lot of time standing on whichever was the sound hind leg and as a result, it emerged that he had seriously damaged both hind fetlocks.

Alfi's worst hind fetlock on Oct 10th

“When the equine vet scanned him, his near hind had suspensory damage and a thickened annular ligament which measured 5.5mm rather than the normal 3-4mm. The off hind also had suspensory damage, along with an annular ligament over three times the normal thickness at 11mm and a tear in the deep digital flexor tendon. The vet basically told me that his only chance was to have the worst annular ligament cut.....

“I was very upset, but the next day, having decided that after 12 years, that wouldn’t be kind to him, I started researching other options. Although I work in lots of different therapies and have researched more, I looked in depth at the ArcEquine and sent a link over to Lucinda, who told me she had a unit and would get one sent to me. It arrived in two days and since then – five weeks now – he’s worn it for 10-14 hours every day.

Improvement - the same fetlock on Oct 20th

“We saw dramatic changes in the worst fetlock in just 17 days and he came sound again, but it is still distended and we are now waiting for his next scan, which we hope will show that repair is going on ‘inside’ the tissues. He’s also on nutritional support to facilitate cellular repair, including amino acids and vitamins C and E. I was told to either box rest or yard rest him whilst still ensuring he used both legs evenly, so as he’s incredibly sensible, my version of that is to turn him out in the yard or a small paddock so he is wandering, not standing still and resting one of his hind legs.

More improvement by Oct 27th

“Lucinda is thrilled with his improvement and his usual vet has described the images as ‘pretty impressive’. How much repair we’ll end up seeing I don’t know, but we are only five weeks in, so expectations are high and the equine vet says that even if there’s a marginal improvement that we’re on the right route.

“I love the ArcEquine, as the programmes run for several hours, so there’s no need to frequently re-set it. It’s so simple to use and the straps and unit are very straightforward to put on. With a boot over it for protection, I just pop it on and leave him to wander.”

Alfi is one of three Arabs Holly owns and like his grey half brother Harree, she describes him as a “gentle, sweet horse”. Her third arab is an eyecatching black horse called Manta.

Holly concludes: “All of the horses I’ve taken on to date have had some sort of a problem and I wanted my perfect horse, so I went looking – and found Alfi! As it turned out, he is the perfect horse for me as I’ve learnt so much and if it wasn’t for him, I would not have done the research and learnt all the things I now use with other people’s horses. His story has provided not just content for books, but also strategies I now use for working successfully with other horses.

“I am waiting to see how much healing we get - and it would be wonderful to see my granddaughter, who is eight, able to ride him around the fields again without tack.”

*pharmacognosy - the study of medicinal drugs derived from plants or other natural sources.