It's been awhile since I posted, and people have been asking about Snoopy. He's doing really well, so well, in fact, that he's trying to eat anything and everyone who comes into his stall. And who can blame him for being bored? He's a four-year old who's been standing in a stall for a week. For those of you without horses, this is the equivalent of a 1000-lb teenager.

The latest update is that tomorrow Dr. Fisher will take Snoop's cast off, take some x-rays to see if everything's still holding up, then put another cast on. If the leg looks good, they'll send him home for about 10 days, then bring him back for another cast change.

The costs, of course, just keep coming. Tina just switched the stalls over from shavings to rice hulls (they're very cushy and the horses love them), but the vet would prefer Snoopy be bedded in straw, because he doesn't want small pieces of wood or rice down in the cast.

Not only would it increase the risk of infection, Snoopy can't get a coat hanger in there to scratch any itch!

BTW, we'll send out announcements for the cast signing party.

Ironically, just as I'm so cautiously optimistic about Snoopy's progress, I read about the tragedy at the Derby on Saturday. Eight Belles broke both ankles and had to be euthanized. I'm not a vet by any means, but I think what she broke were her pasterns; in one article, the vet also mentioned her sesamoid bone, which is what Snoopy broke.

According to the research that Niki  and I did about Snoopy's type of injury, broken pasterns and sesamoids were most common among thoroughbreds, and on their front legs. A lot of people have commented to Niki and Tina that they have had horses with these injuries, but the bone has been crushed, resulting in euthanasia.

In other words, we were lucky.

I have mixed feelings about horse racing. On the one hand, it's thrilling to watch. Having read all of the Black Stallion books as a child, I spent plenty of hours imagining myself on a speeding horse, flying around the track to victory.

On the other hand, it's just cruel. These horses are babies, for Pete's sake, they're only 3 years old. Yes, they're as big as tanks at 3, but their joints, their muscles, are all still growing. The pounding of slender hooves on the hard track takes its toll on all of them. Not to mention what some trainers will do to "get more speed" out of them. From diuretics to "make them lighter", to cattle prods to "urge them forward", don't ever think for a moment that trainers love their horses too much to hurt them.

"But they love to run," is the common response. Yes, race horses love to run. But we have bred them to love to run, the same way that we have bred certain dog breeds, like bulldogs, to love to bite things. Does that make it right?

I confess, when I was looking for a suitable stud for breeding Frostie, my mare, I studied bloodlines and temperment, so in a way, I meddled with Snoopy's birth as much as any race horse breeder. But, at the end of the day, have we really been fair to any of these animals by tampering with their family trees?

He's ba-a-a-ck!

When I visited Snoopy yesterday, he was much perkier, altho not in a bad, stall-spinning way. He began trying to chew on me again, just like his old self. He's also getting used to the cast on his leg, half-swinging and half-dragging it to get around in his stall. There's a lovely view of the stable next door outside his window, and he seems to enjoy watching the jumping lessons.

I decided to bring a curry with me when I see him today to give me something to do, besides smack his nose and tell him to quit trying to eat me!

Day Three of Snoopy's accident, Day One of his recovery.

His surgery was very successful. I still haven't talked to the surgeon, but one of the vets who witnessed it said "everything came together" well.

I visited Snoop last night. He was alert, if wobbly from the anesthesia, and eating. He's got a big cast on his left hind leg - I'm hoping that, once he's feeling better, he doesn't try to eat the cast. He's such a land shark!

When he was in surgery yesterday, I tried to think about how the vet reassured me. It's an easy fix, a simple surgery, they do them all the time. But in the back of my head was the worry: anesthesia. Anesthesia is what screws things up.

Once I heard Snoop was in recovery, I suddenly discovered that my appetite had returned.

Yesterday was a bad, bad day.

I arrived at the ranch for my lesson, cranky as hell. My trainer, Tina, had called my cell phone to tell me that my lesson needed to be finished by 3 p.m. because she had a dog client coming in. This wouldn't have been a problem, except that I turned my cell phone on as I got into my car to go to the ranch - at 1:45. I didn't want to hurry, and I wanted to get a good lesson, since I was planning to show Snoopy for the first time ever this Saturday.

So I raced to the ranch, then ran around trying to get Snoopy ready and ridden before 3. I lunged him in the roundpen for 10 minutes, which wasn't enough, but I got on him anyway. It took less than once around the arena for him to throw a tantrum, so I got off and we went back to the roundpen for more running.

Niki (the other trainer) joined me, and together, we kept him racing around.

And then it happened. His back end started moving "funny." Niki thought he had just tweaked a muscle, so we slowed him to a trot, then a walk. But he didn't trot or walk it off. He just kept limping.

Dr. Bridget Murphy, a friend of Tina's, came out and looked him over. She thought he needed x-rays, but optimistically told me that it might be a weird abcess.

Yeah, right.

Chino Valley Equine Hospital is just down the street from the ranch, so Tina loaded Snoop in the trailer and took him for x-rays. I joined them a few minutes later, just in time to go into the examination room and look at the x-rays.

"See this line?" the good doctor asked, pointing to a white line across a bone. "He broke his pastern."

"What do you do for that?" I asked, hoping the answer wasn't, shoot him.

The doctor took out a model of a horse's foot and explained how they would open the leg up and fuse the joints with metal plates. He probably said a lot more, but my mind got stuck on "fuse the joints."

The upshot is that Snoopy is currently in surgery, he'll be on layup for 6 months, and I don't have to worry about whether I ride in the show on Saturday.