Happy birthday to me.

It's my birthday.

River is lame.

Thanks a lot.  Jerk.

Rode him last night, asked him to trot, oh crap you're lame.

It appears to be an abscess on his left hind...

I picked out his feet and the hoof pick went into his foot.  He pulled away, I said "well, that's got to be it", but finished picking his feet just in case.  Look at the left hind again, and gee, it's dripping blood!  Great!

He looks so cute and innocent...

Until you notice the foot soaking.  It took several tries to get it soaked.  I finally remembered I had a soaking boot in my car, and that did it.  Of course, I had no vetrap or duct tape.  So I slapped on some epsom salt poultice on a pad and used painter's tape to hold it on while I ran home for supplies.

This morning, I went out to the barn to rewrap it.

He wears a size 3 diaper, in case you were wondering.

Poor guy is pretty uncomfortable.  When he moves, he just steps on his toe :(.  I sent Super Awesome Farrier a long, rambling, paranoid email.  SAF super-fast reply was essentially "it's fine, stop worrying."  The barn farrier is coming out next week, so I might have him take a look, just to be safe.  (SAF recommends barn farrier, so he's good.)

*sigh*

Horses.  Princess is on stall rest.  Amazingly, The Mare was not having a heart attack this morning when she got turned out alone.  (Yesterday, she was one of the first out and I put Riv out last, so she was alone for about 30 minutes.  She spent the entire time standing and pacing at the gate calling to him.  She wouldn't even look at her hay.)  BO said it was like she knew he wasn't coming, so there was no point getting upset.