A Soft Place to Land: Welcome Maritza!

A Horse Named Mare

We were contacted a few months ago by a woman who was trying to re-home her 23 year-old Quarter horse mare. We tried to network her, and sent several potential adopters to her, but everyone passed. The owner was unable to see her horse at the stable very often and she was getting farther behind on vet and farrier care. The people who were supposed to be feeding at the stable started to became unreliable.

Marelena was very much loved by her previous family, but as they were unable to see her regularly, she suffered from a lack of regular care. She had some open wounds on her belly, legs and above her eye, and she seemed itchy and slightly uncomfortable. The owner told us that she was about three months overdue for her feet to be done, and she had never had her teeth floated, and was behind on her vaccines. She also told us that Marelena had EPSM (also known as PPSM), a musculature disease which is hereditary and can be managed through diet.

We want to make sure that everyone understands that the owner has been trying to find her horse a new home, and once she realized that keeping Marelena was impossible, she did everything she could to find her a new home, including contacting us.

In a perfect world someone else would have seen Marelena’s potential right away and snatched her up- in today’s uncertain world, however, people are much less likely to take on a horse who might need some basic vet care. Unfortunately, even though the owner was trying, the situation was such that Marelena was not getting the care she needed in the meantime.

We usually don’t take in horses who can easily be adopted out- we do try to network those horses instead- but in this case we decided to step in and help with getting the vet/farrier care taken care of so we could find her a new home. The owner was able to find someone to transport her, and brought her to Hanaeleh.

First Week at Hanaeleh

The horse’s name was Marelena, and she was a bit unsettled when she first got to Hanaeleh; although she was fairly calm and stoic, it was obvious she was a bit frazzled from the trailer ride down. Still, she settled in well and the owner had provided several bales of hay for her, so we let her munch for a bit while she figured out her new surroundings. She also got some grain and electrolytes, and enjoyed the mash quite a bit.

The first thing we did was address her wounds and put a fly mask on to cover the wound over her eye. We put some bedsore boots on her front legs to help protect those from reopening, and started her on an antihistamine, some Equioxx and a joint supplement. We scheduled a vet visit for that week.

What Marelena really needed was someone to fuss over her, and so one of the first things we did was change her name to Maritza. Maritza has multiple meanings, but it can mean grace, strength and love, all of which we think she has in abundance.

One of our volunteers came out the next day and gave Maritza a full bath with medicated shampoo, which Maritza LOVED. She not only stood well for the bath, she went to sleep during it! After the bath it was obvious that her skin felt so much better! Maritza is a lovely blue roan, and her coat is now soft and shiny.

The vet visited her and did an overall evaluation of Maritza, noting that she had granules of sand in her eye which were causing her discomfort, and left us some medicine for her eyes. She is such a good girl and just stands there while we put medicine in her eyes- we don’t even have to put a halter on her! Maritza also had a ton of sand in her belly, and was in danger of coliccing because of it. The vet prescribed an extreme psyllium regiment in order to clear some of that sand from her belly. She also left us some medicine for Maritza’s open wounds and started her on her vaccines (she will need boosters in a month).

We could not exercise or work Maritza because her feet desperately needed a trim. Our farrier was out of town that week, but when he came back we were one of his first stops. Maritza’s heels were quite overgrown and she was obviously uncomfortable walking. He took off a lot of heel, and it was probably like stepping out of high heels- she seemed quite relieved, but we gave her a few days to let her legs and tendons adjust to the new trim before we exercised her. When we did, she ran around the arena, enjoying her new feet.

Next Steps

Maritza will get her teeth done next week, and that should help her gain weight much more quickly. The vet indicated that she had some very sharp points on her teeth, although that hasn’t stopped her from eating everything we can throw at her; she is literally an eating machine! She has also learned that if she nickers at the volunteers, she gets treats, so now she nickers at EVERYONE! Because of her diet, she has to be on low-sugar or sugar-free treats, but we thankfully have some of those because of some of our other horses are on a low-sugar diet.

Maritza does NOT enjoy peppermints, unfortunately, but she does love the other low-sugar treats we’ve offer her.

Overall, Maritza is an incredibly calm, sweet girl. She has been zero drama so far with the other horses at the ranch, and ties and picks up her feet easily. She leads well and seems to make good decisions. After all of the drama we’ve experienced with our other mares, Maritza is truly like a breath of fresh air. Once her teeth are floated and she gets a little more weight on her, we will assess her for riding.

Marita’s registered name with the AQHA is Blue Lobo; if anyone has an AQHA membership and would like to help by looking up her registration number and family history, we would appreciate it- just let us know!