Horsebackwriter on Tumblr

A friend of mine from work sent me a link to a Tumblr blog written by Horsebackwriter. Like me, she has a bay Arabian. Her mare, Khyssie, reminds me a lot of Isis in her antics and markings. I saw the pictures of Khyssie and immediately had flashbacks to Isis Bint Sirdar. And then I read a post from August 5th that said this:

The groundwork was coming along as scheduled. Everything was textbook. But I noticed something about Khyssie that I’d never seen in any other horse. She seemed to be stumbling and tripping more than any other horse I’d ever been around and at first I thought it was because she was a baby. No need to be concerned, I thought. She’ll grow out of it.

My heart sank. That was exactly how Isis started out with EPM. She tripped, I thought, because she was a clutz or just wasn’t aware of her feet. It started when she was five or six. She tripped with me on her the first time I asked her to canter. A few years later, she fell on me during that riding lesson.

Except it wasn’t her being a clutz. It wasn’t that at all. It was the EPM (neurological disease) coming up years before it flared into full episodes. If we had diagnosed and treated her earlier, life would have been so much easier on her and on me. Maybe she would still be around. (Not going there.)
Isis turning at the trot

I read horsebackwriter’s posts and had this sinking feeling. I didn’t see an easy way to contact her from the blog page, so I joined, hoping to leave a comment. No such luck. I tried to send “fan mail” except I hadn’t been following her blog long enough to send fan mail.

I’m writing this post hoping to get in touch with her. And hoping that her lovely girl was just having an off day and not the same thing that Isis had. I never want anyone to have to go through what I did with Isis.

If you know Horsebackwriter on Tumblr, please ask her to leave me a comment and let me know how her Khyssie is doing.

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