Lilly has been going brilliantly. I took her to her first ARC Rally on Sunday 24th Feb and boy did she excell. We did very small jumps (cavaletti's and logs on ground only) and she didn't bother with anything, she did drop jumps and anything else I pointed her at. She never once got hot or silly and was cal and cruisy all day. The instructor commented about 5 times on her temprement saying she couldnt believe she is just quiet for such a young horse (Lilly turned 3 in Jan 2008). Flat was also wonderful and we worked on bending and flexing and Lilly really tried so hard I just couldnt be more impressed. She floated like an old pro and had her buddy Kahlua there with her for the day as she did the rally with Emma for the day.

Lilly is going brilliantly. I guess you could say she is officially broken in now. I have taken her out on a couple of short trail rides and on the road and she has not put a foot wrong.  She has a great mouth and responds very well to the bit, she also listens to my leg and moves off it quite well. Although she is a slow plodder, she happily trots and canters without requiring much of an ask from me.

She is a responsive ride and is exceptionally quiet, we've seen semi trailers, tractors, motorbikes etc and she couldnt care less.

Even though Lilly only has a handful of rides under her belt, I can safely say that I feel 100% safe and confident on her. No doubt in a few months with more experience, she will suit a complete beginner, she is just that quiet!

I love her to bits and could never part with her!

I often put her out on the front lawn on the road side in just a string yard and leave her there all day to eat the naturestrip. She has cars flying past tooting their horns and being idiots trying to scare her and she doesnt even give them a second glance. She really does have a real been there done that nature, if you didnt know better you'd think she was 20 years old, not 2 !!! :)

Finally I’ve had the time to be able to update on Lilly’s progress under saddle.

Unfortunately due to no longer having daylight savings, I am only able to ride her on the weekends and so far its even been a while since I’ve had a free weekend to ride her!

Anyway, below are pictures of her 4^th ride on the 15^th April 2007. She’s calm as anything under saddle, I think she thinks she’s done it all before!! She’s rather lazy but I much prefer that to pulling! She steers a bit like a truck at the moment but we’re working on that too. All in all I’m super happy with her progress and can’t wait to get her going with a bit more experience under her belt. She’s such a sweetie!!

I’m going to do monthly updates on her leg now as the healing process is quite slow while the hair grows back. There is no point doing 3 pics per month as they are all practically the same. Monthly will be a lot easier.

Lilly's leg is progressing very well as the pics show....

However that isn't the exciting new.... The currently excitment here is that Lilly had her first ride the other day!! I have been doing a lot of ground work with her lately now that her leg is coming along so well. I've mainly been focusing on lunging her at the walk only, in the hope that she'll gradually start to build up some muscle in her leg. She has had no problems hooning and bucking whilst running around in her paddock so I'm sure a few laps on the lunge at the walk wont hurt her 

In fact she's been going so well with everything that I have even been putting the saddle on her and girthing her up to get her used to it and she isnt bothered by any of this. On new years day I thought I would just lay across the saddle to her to feel some weight on her back to which she didnt even care - she took about 4 steps backwards in an effort to steady herself and get balance, then stood there half asleep while I layed across her looking rather stupid I'm sure.

As she was so calm about the whole thing, I thought I'd have a sit on her properly so I swung my leg across her rump and sat in the saddle properly - Lilly still half asleep at this point. Now during this she was in a halter and lead only becuase she hasnt been mouthed as yet so I didnt have much control but knew I was completely safe up there even without a bride on. I had my fiancee lead Lilly up the driveway and back with me on her - I chose a straight line so she could balance herself easily. She plodded along behind Glen as if she'd done it a million times. I then dismounted - didnt want to push her too hard - good to finish on a good note. This was such a beautiful thing to be able to do with Lilly - we really have a special bond after everything she's been through and I think that she has so much trust in me that she allows me to do whatever I want and she doesnt really stress about it as she knows I'll never hurt her. This is one very special young filly.  Unfortunatley I was too silly to remember to take a picture of her firs ride which I'm quite upset about so I'll just have to do that next time. She's not really at the point her where she can be broken in properly as she's still young and her leg is still recoving, but I hope to very gradually break her in over a good few months so when we start to really work her properly, she'll already be pretty clear and what's happening.

Oh and she's officially 2 years old this month - She was born in Jan 2005 (exact date unknown).

Here is a better picture of Lilly in all her glory - looking fabulous!!
Lilly had her feet trimmed for the first time since her horrific injury so I was expecting her to be a bit of handful when it came to doing her back feet but she was such a little sweetheart. She was cautious to begin with but once she understood what was being asked of her she tried her very best to oblige and did such a good job. Her feet are now looking really great and are very hard and healthy the farrier said so we are really happy to hear that.

Lilly is looking really good. She's really filled out and is starting to grow out of her lanky baby stage.

Lilly is going from strength to strength. She has put on a lot of weight and has filled out quite a bit now. Will get a body picture soon...

Let me start this update by saying a HUGE THANKYOU to everyone who has emailed with support, well wishes, offers of donation and general advice. I sincerely appreciate everyones input and it is all appreciated.

Lilly is doing really well. She has had another couple of vet check ups and is proving to be a wonderful healer. A lot of people have asked about the treatment she's having. Its quite basic really. She's on Bute powder daily, the wound is being hosed with pressure twice a day and then being sprayed with Illium Oticlean to keep the proud flesh at bay which so far seems to be working very well. It is not bandaged as per the vets advice.

We were lucky enough to receive a pot of "Equaide" as a donation to Lilly's cause from a kind caring person - THANKYOU Raylene!!. This product has had amazing results with would healing and I'm sure it will be of great benefit to Lilly in the coming months. At this stage Lilly simply wont stand for us to apply it so we're hoping that as the bone covers over, she'll start to allow us to apply it... Time will tell..... Its hard becuase Lilly's only issue is that she's always been touchy with her back legs and it is a very difficult task to get handle them (especially now!!) without getting kicked.

During the last vet visit, Lilly had her wolf teeth removed while she was sedated and also had her teeth filed as they were VERY sharp. We hope that this will help her gain some much needed weight.

Lilly is doing very well. She's happy in herself and is a fantastic patient. & YES THAT IS BONE YOU CAN SEE!!!

**CAUTION** 

Very Graphic pictures below of an open wound

The Beginning:

Where do I start…..

Thursday 7^th September 2006 – Emma and I went to the paddock to check the horses. It was approx 5.30pm when we arrived. As we approached the gate to the big paddock where most of the horses are housed, we saw Lilly lying down flat out with her leg in the fence. From that distance we immediately assumed she was dead. With both our hearts beating like crazy and tears welling in our eyes we approached our little girl. As we got closer her head lifted ever so slightly and at that point we realised she was still alive. Although afraid of what we were going to see, we walked to Lilly swiftly but calmly so as not to frighten her as we needed her to stay as still as possible so we could assess the situation.

What we found was enough to make your stomach turn. Poor Lilly had somehow gotten her near hind leg caught up in the barbed wire fence. She had got the wire wrapped around her hock and had torn the inside of her leg open. What made this situation worse is that her leg was trapped in this position by another strand of wire that had imbedded itself into her pastern and cut deeply. Lilly had obviously tried to free herself and must have thrashed about quite a lot and when she couldn’t get free, she just collapsed and lay there bleeding and in a great deal of pain.

I write this with tears welling in my eyes. You see the worst thing is that Lilly must have been there for 2 days. I had been at the paddock Tuesday to check the horses and all was fine, however on the Thursday visit this is what we found.

Lilly was very flat and had no energy at all. She was chronically dehydrated from being without water for such a long time and her digestive system must have been struggling from the lack of food. This story truly does point out the importance of daily checks and horse-safe fencing. I can’t help but feel extremely guilty about what has happened to our beautiful girl. I keep asking myself “If only….”

After careful evaluation we managed to determine what wires to cut and gently removed her leg from the tangled mess of wire, flesh and hair. We had to cut her tail off at the dock to free her quickly as this was also inter-twined with the fence. Once she was free we managed to get her to hold her head up enough to have a drink. After a drink and a rest she was showing interest in food. We offered her grass, which she happily munched on.

The vet came out approx 10pm and assessed the situation. As Lilly could not stand up it was not possible to fully assess the damage. After much deliberation on whether to ‘put her to rest’ or ‘give her a chance’ we decided to boost her up with painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs and set the deadline of 10am Friday.

Lilly was very flat and uneasy all night. We slept by her side in the freezing cold and kept her as warm as possible with blankets and rugs. When it was raining we took it in turns to hold the umbrella over her head to keep her dry. Lilly seemed to be doing well until about 11.30pm when the food must have started to reach her gut and that’s when the problems got worse. She started thrashing her legs about and squealing in pain. She was suffering a bad case of colic – even though we were only allowing small amounts of food by the handful; it seemed to just over do it. She was in obvious pain and we decided to call the vet to end her pain, as it was not fair for her to suffer. By the time the vet received the page and rang back, the colic seemed to have passed. What a relief. We advised him to leave it be for now and we’d continue to monitor her.

Throughout the night Lilly attempted to stand numerous times but each time she’d get half way up and just collapse and then would take about an hour to recover. She also got another 2 bouts of colic through the night and thankfully both seemed to pass like the first time.

Amazingly at 6am Friday morning Lilly stood up. We were absolutely gob-smacked. Not only did she survive her leg injury, but she also pushed through the 3 colic attacks and managed to stand up at the end of it all. She’s one tough cookie.

Assessing the Damage:

Once Lilly was up we managed to lead her to a safe yard where we could assess and clean the wound. Our vet arrived again that morning to check her out and he too was surprised that she was standing, let alone walking as well as she was. Due to the swelling it was hard to assess if there was tendon damage but the fact that she was walking was a good sign. We were given medication of Penicillin, Bute and Gentamiacin to treat Lilly with planned for the vet to re-visit on Tuesday afternoon.

Friday night and Saturday night Lilly spent some time lying down resting her leg, and caught up on some much-needed rest. But from Sunday onwards she has been standing up without a break. She appears to be feeling good in herself and things are looking positive. The main concern at the moment is the chance of infection as the wound is so deep that her bone is exposed. We will keep hosing the wound twice a day and continue with the med’s and take each day as it comes.

We can’t help but feel that if we didn’t stay the night with her on Thursday that she wouldn’t have fought as much as she did. I personally feel an amazing connection with her and think that she pulled through and stayed strong because she knew how much she was loved and that we weren’t’ going to give up on her as long as she didn’t give up on us.

Pictures of Lilly's leg just after she stood up (before hosing or cleaning) -

Pictures of Lilly's leg during the vet visit (after cleaning and hosing) -

Below Left - The wire that Lilly's Leg was stuck on.   Below Right - The makeshift bed (saddle blanket, tarp, rug and umbrella). -

Scene of Events - Lilly was lying where the blankets are (we put the boards up to stop her falling on the fence if she stood up -

Lilly just couldn't get any cuter if she tried. She follows me everywhere. Its like having a giant puppy - she's the most affectionate, kind natured filly I have ever met. She has picked up immensely in condition and looks truly amazing.

She has let me lightly saddle and girth her up a few times now and just takes it all in her stride. She has total trust in me as I do in her. She has no nastyness whatsoever and never deserved to be sold at the sales, nor malnourished like she was.

Here she is looking divine at the age of 18 months 

Stay tuned to read up on Lilly’s progress. She is not for sale at present. She will most likely stay with us for a year or so while we break her in and educate her, then we’ll assess if she is to become a permanent resident or if she’ll be re-homed… ..