Trixie was born on a snowy Sunday morning in January 2001, to a maiden mare who had shown us no signs of foaling the previous evening. After a leisurely breakfast, we headed out about noon to do chores. I noticed the mare standing by a small ditch and saw a patch of pinkish red snow behind her. As I walked over expecting to find the mare had cut her leg, I instead saw a little sorrel filly lying in the snow in that ditch!! Thus began Trixie’s life of mishaps.

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Ten days later, Trixie’s mother began to show signs of colic. She began to roll violently and it was a struggle to keep Trixie out of the way of flying hooves. While waiting for the vet to arrive to tranquilize the mare so she could be trailered to the hospital, I got kicked in the hand by the flailing hooves. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it broke my thumb!

The mare was taken into surgery, and the intestinal damage so extensive that the recommendation was to put her down. After the vet came out of surgery, I was noticing how swollen my thumb was, how purple it was turning, and how I had been unable to use it all day long. I asked the surgeon if he though it might be broken (I had never had a broken bone so didn’t know the signs). He looked at it, looked at me like I was pretty dumb, and said absolutely. He x-rayed it on the horse machine, then told me I needed to go to the emergency room as it might need surgery due to the fracture running to the joint. I told him I didn’t have time….my husband was in Japan flying for FedEx, I had a neighbor at the ranch watching another mare who was due to foal, and I needed to go home!!! He insisted, so off I went to the hospital emergency room for x-rays and a splint…finally arriving at the ranch with Trixie at 3 a.m.!!

So what had started at 3 p.m. was ending twelve hours later with TWO dead mares, an orphan filly, and a broken thumb (my best “cow mare” was euthanized on the same day due to laminitis.) It is a day I refer to as BLACK WEDNESDAY. 

Raising Trixie was a chore and a joy. She was the “child” I never had. I fixed a stall with a heat lamp for her on the back porch. Every two hours I had to get up and feed that baby. It was 15 degrees and she needed food for warmth. I was dying from lack of sleep….had 70 head of cattle to feed and look after during the day, as well as the rest of the horses. I had to stop whatever I was doing to feed Trixie every two hours, 24 hours a day, and my husband was half way around the world!

I set about trying to find a way to leave milk on the porch for her…self-serve style. I tried a crock pot….made it way too hot. I called restaurant supply businesses trying to find something that would just keep the milk warm…nothing. Finally I found a deep fat fryer which I could select to “warm” and it kept the milk just the right temperature. I put the milk on the step right at the back door. Trixie would get up every two hours like clock work, walk over to the step, look at the milk and walk away. I would set my alarm to get up and watch her through the door window to see if she was going to drink as I tried to train her to eat without me…no deal. As soon as I opened the door and scolded her and told her to “get over here and drink your milk”, she would nicker at me and come right over and drink the milk. Who was training whom here??? I never did get that horse to drink her milk without “momma” being there for moral support.Talk about sleep deprivation.

But, she was my good girl and went with me to feed the cattle, do the chores…wherever I went, Trixie was trotting right alongside the 4 wheeler following “mom”. And as she got bigger, she spent time in the barnyard with the other horses, but always nickered and came running when she heard me call “Trixie” and saw me coming with the pail of milk. She stole our hearts.

When Trixie was eight months old, I received a phone call while gone flying for Fed Ex. Trixie had apparently been kicked in the eye and the cornea  was cut. The vet said it looked as though they were going to have to remove her eye. I was in shock and in tears. NOT TRIXIE!

The vet told me there was one possibility…that there was a horse ophthalmologist that came to Boise from Denver once every two months. He just happened to be in town and had a cancellation in his surgical schedule. Dr. Scott asked if I wanted to see if he could help her. My response was, “why are you even asking me this? Of course, this is Trixie!!”

The ophthalmologist did surgery on Trixie and within three hours I got the phone call that her eye had been saved!!! She would be able to see and be normal. The relief was enormous, but I don’t think I ever did get back to sleep…just had to be tired when I went flying that night.

Four months later, when Trixe was almost a year old, I noticed all four legs beginning to swell. That would have been too coincidental to have injured all four legs at the same time. I was baffled. She was examined and the term “purpura” was mentioned as being an allergic reaction to the Strangles vaccination. Trixie had been vaccinated for Strangles in October, November, and again in December. She should not have received the December dose, but there was confusion and I was not home…out flying for FedEx, so she got the vaccination again.  Within a month her immune system reacted. The proper treatment was not administered as she was misdiagnosed initially, so by the time she was properly diagnosed, we had a mess on our hands.

All four legs were swollen until she almost looked like she had elephant legs. The skin and hide then began to slough off as the edema/fluid seeped out from the cracks caused by the skin expansion. Her poor legs got so infected that by the time she was properly diagnosed and taken to the hospital, her tendon sheath was infected in one leg and I was told it might not be possible to save her.In shock and in tears again, I asked them to do whatever could be done.

This began a THREE YEAR evolution of hospital stays and surgeries for Trixie. She spent time at Idaho Equine Hospital in Boise and Washington State University Veterinary Hospital while trying to control the infections and the recurring abscesses and while trying to encourage the hide the regrow. After being in and out of hospitals for two years and hours and hours of home care and bandage changes multiple times a week, we were still unable to get Trixie’s hind legs to completely heal at the pastern due to the constant flex of movement. Having open areas were prime sites for bacteria to enter, and in the winter of 2003/2004, her legs blew out huge abscesses again.

This was a terrible blow and very disheartening because we felt we had exhausted all our options for treatment and were faced with the possible decision of putting her down. It was like considering euthanizing a member of the family. We were just sick.

I remembered reading an article about a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for horses, such as is used in the treatment of human diabetics. The article talked about how the chamber increased blood flow to the affected areas, thus carrying more healing oxygen to the wounds. In desperation, I made some calls to Colorado and arranged to have Trixie sent to Colorado State University Veterinary Hospital. There she would undergo surgery to try to graft better tissue and skin in the pastern areas that would not heal. She would also be transported between Colorado State University and the nearby Fossil Creek Vet Clinic which housed the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. She would receive oxygen chamber treatments after each skin graft surgery in an effort to get the skin grafts to “take”.

So, the process began in March of 2004. Trixie’s leg tissue was so scarred and unhealthy, that the entire area on both legs had to be “debrided”.  his meant removing all the tissue than had grown in the previous two years, so as to start all over again with a healthy bed of tissue in which to implant the skin grafts. This was not going to be a quick process.

Trixie spent exactly ONE YEAR standing in a stall at Colorado State…never going outside, undergoing multiple surgeries and skin grafts. I made several trips to Colorado to visit her, always arriving with a grocery sack FULL of boxes of sugar cubes for my girl. As I would walk down the corridor toward her stall and call out her name, her head would swing around and she would nicker at me, just as she had done as my orphan baby. She remembered!! (This is the only horse I have ever owned who absolutely knows her name and responds to it every single time!)

I was told by Dr. Dean Hendrickson that he would brief his staff and interns that for about a week after one of my visits, Trixie would be a pain in the butt and would act extra spoiled. THAT’S MY GIRL!!!!

In March of 2005 after much progress had been made on her legs, I received a call from Dr. Hendrickson telling me that they were at a dead end. They could not get Trixie’s legs to a completely normal state, and her worst leg had rejected the last set of graft attempts. He said he had exhausted all his ideas, had called every expert he knew around the country for consultation, and there was just nothing further they could do for her. He did not feel she deserved to be put through anymore surgeries. It was time to bring her home and see how she did…”sink or swim”.

So, Trixie arrived back at the ranch exactly one year after she had left. Her worst leg still had some “wounds” that needed to heal from the last rejected skin grafts. We were at a loss as to what to do, but had to try.

The tissue and skin was still not normal and healthy, so healing any sort of tear or wound was a slow, tedious process. We tried many things under her bandages, but finally found that vitamin E oil squeezed out of the vitamin gel capsules had a very healing effect. It took months of bandaging several time a week, but we finally managed to get all the raw, open areas to heal. 

The skin that we were left with on her worst leg in the area that rejected the grafts, was like a baby’s bottom…just tissue paper delicate. Any nick by her other hoof or a scratch by a bush or piece of brush, would open that skin up. Then, of course, we were in a panic that we might once again be dealing with infections and abscesses. So, it became obvious that her legs were going to have to remain bandaged forever in order to protect them.

As you will note on some of the photos, some areas on the legs want to develop a thickened skin much like psoriasis in humans. If that skin is allowed to over-produce and remain dry, it will then tend to crack open….again causing some bleeding and an open avenue for bacteria to enter.

We needed to keep her legs moist and supple, while protecting them from abrasion. By chance, my husband discovered that using Desitin diaper rash ointment is a wonderful protectant. It seals out dirt and provides a moisturizing barrier and coincidentally prevents the formation of the thick, crusty skin. So the solution to Trixie’s bandaging has become twice weekly bandage changes to apply a thick layer of Desitin covered by a telfa pad, then wrapped with a polo wrap to hold everything in place.

This protocol has allowed Trixie to live like a “normal” horse for the first time in FOUR LONG YEARS!! She does not have to be restricted to a stall; she can roam the pastures with the other horses in all but the muddiest weather. She has a normal life, chases her subordinates around and literally kicks butt as a horse wants to do, and it just makes our hearts swell with joy to look out the window and see her “getting after” one of the annoying young stallions. She is a normal horse!!!!

Her only disability after spending so many years standing in stalls, is that both hocks began to fuse for some reason. She sort of “bunny hops” on the hind legs when she gallops, but she can throw it into “high-gear” when one of those stud colts get too close and needs to have his butt chewed. She definitely lets them know where they rank on the priority list. She does not appear to be in any pain and is not on any medication. 

Not long after Trixie’s return from Colorado and while we were still trying to decide if Trixie was going to be able to ultimately survive this ordeal, Dr. Hendrickson from Colorado State emailed me and suggested that I breed her and just give her a chance to see what she could do. It was a scary thought, as we had planned on watching a year or two to see if she was going to be a survivor. We were horribly apprehensive about infections in her legs but were determined not to keep her pinned up in a stall for the rest of her life. She needed to have a real horse life and be able to enjoy the outdoors like nature intended.

The suggestion to breed Trixie came after she had been home a bit over two months, and after we had gone through an initial scare thinking her legs were becoming infected because of the areas of black skin that were appearing. There was quite a panic and many calls and emails to Colorado, until it was suggested that the black areas might just be areas of “hyper-pigmentation” as the skin healed. That turned out to be exactly what was happening to her legs…no infection, just over-pigmentation of the areas that had received so much work. So with a sigh of relief, it suddenly just “felt right” to breed her and give her the chance to be a mom. So, we did! Trixie conceived on the first insemination and will deliver her first foal in April of 2006!!!!  

There is no other like Trixie. She has the heart and soul of a survivor and has taught us new things about loving animals. We have spoiled her rotten and don’t care one bit. She harasses us for sugar cubes every time we walk by her. She knows that if she gives us “kisses”…that means slobbering and licking all over our faces, she will get cubes. As soon as you are within ten feet of her, here she comes for your face!!! And guess what, it works every time! We carry our pockets full of sugar cubes for our best girl.

Trixie is undoubtedly the most expensive “breeding stock” mare in the country if the vet bills were to be totaled.  But how can you put a price tag on love?  She is absolutely, positively the most loved mare in this country!!!

She IS our MIRACLE MARE