Future Primitive Glory succumbs to Joint ill

It is with deep sadness that we have to report the loss of Prime Thyme’s 2008 foal, F. Primitive Glory. She was well and lively on Wednesday 14th May at 2pm when the vet was in the stable treating her mother, and looked far from a foal with a serious problem. At 7.30pm that evening, I went into the stable to play with her, but when she got up she was on 3 legs and severely lame. The vet was called immediately but there was no visible injury, swelling or heat. In the time it took for the vet to arrive her off fore knee blew up. The vet tapped the knee joint which showed it was infected. We loaded them straight on the lorry and took them to Rossdales Veterinary Hospital in Newmarket and arrived at 11.30pm. They x-rayed the knee immediately which unbelievably showed an abcess in the carpel bone. We decided to give her a chance and agreed to her being operated on straight away. Andy Bathe operated on her and the knee was flushed 7 times to clear the infection, but he couldn’t locate the bone lesion to treat it directly with antibiotics. He continued treating her for several days, but after 2 more knee taps and further x-rays the prognosis for her became significantly worse as the joint was becoming constantly re-infected. It was with a very heavy heart that we all agreed that it was time to let her go and not put her through further treatment as the odds for her being even paddock sound were very low. We have now bred 26 foals and this is the first time we have ever had a case of joint ill.

Less than half an hour later we had a phone call from Rossdales to say they had a foal born that morning which had been orphaned and would we consider letting Megan foster the foal. Although we just wanted to bring Megan home and look after her, we felt that if the boot was on the other foot we would very much hope someone would help us out. Having spoken to Sarah, the owner of the foal, we felt that there was no way we could not help out and agreed to the fostering. The process went very smoothly and Megan instantly took to her ‘new’ foal and she is successfully nursing and by all accounts is a fighter. Megan will now go home with her new foal to Sarah and we all hope that something positive can come out of this double tragedy.