To save a horse: Canadian OTTB recovers from innovative surgery

Things looked grim for Mousquetaire. The off-track Thoroughbred had reared up in the paddock while he was supposed to be on strict rest, and the prevailing thought was that he had reinjured his foot.

His owner, Julia Ferreira, was devastated as she began the preparations to euthanize “Mousey,” as most knew him.

“She was thinking about she might have to say goodbye to him,” said Dr. Orlaith Cleary, who recently had performed surgery on Mousey.

Ferreira cut off half of the gelding’s tail and had told her friends to come to the barn the next day to pay their final respects to Mousey.

Better days

Mousey was born in April 2014, a son of Musketier out of My Angel Grace, by Compadre. Ferreira met him for the first time the next year at a Queen’s Plate party on the farm of Roger Affield, who had purchased Mousey for $7,514 at the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society September sale.

“I fell in love straight away,” Ferreira said. “... I spent all my time in Roger’s barn with this unraced 2-year-old colt that they already knew was kind of going to be a dud.”

As was expected, Mousey did not have an all-star racing career. During his career, he took one trip to the winners’ circle, in a July 2017 maiden claiming race at Fort Erie.

Overall, from 2016 to 2018, Mousey raced 19 times, accumulating two seconds and a third to go with his lone victory.

Ferriera followed the fortunes of Mousey for his entire career, even when he was claimed off of Affield after a race in March 2017 at Tampa Bay Downs early in his racing days, a moment she said left her “terrified” that she would never get to spend time with him again.

With his new owner (Bruno Schickedanz, and later David Mathes) and trainer (Julie Mathes), Mousey would go on to find his modest racing success. He also would find his way back to Ferreira.

“He came back to Canada,” Ferreira said. “He ran at Fort Erie and I just connected with his new trainer and owner, and then I retired him once his racing career was over.”

All was well for the now-retired gelding, the first horse that Ferreira owned, and she described him as “quirky,” and “one of the laziest off-track Thoroughbreds.”

Then came the call.

'Get creative'

Ferreira was on her way to the barn on Jan. 6 when she answered her phone to hear Mousey’s barn manager say the horse had suffered what was thought to be an abscess. The foot was X-rayed after a week and a half of no improvement and no drainage from the injury site when farrier Brody Marshall tried the usual abscess treatment.

Instead of an abscess, the X-ray showed Mousey’s right rear coffin bone split down the middle.

“It was a freak paddock accident that did it,” Ferreira said.

Two options for recovery were presented to Ferreira. The first, which she dismissed immediately, was for him to spend a long period stuck in stall rest.

The second option was surgery. Mousey needed a screw put through the bone.

Despite knowing Mousey likely would not make it through the long stall rest period, this option was also uncertain, as the needed surgery would be difficult to find in Canada.

Indeed, two Canadian hospitals turned away Ferreira and Mousey, instead recommending she seek options in the United States. But that suggestion was cost prohibitive.

“Out of the question,” Ferreira said. “Both because the travel time alone and just the expense of sending him to Pennsylvania would have been atrocious.”

“Then I had to get creative because it was either putting him down or finding someone that will do it.”

Enter Dr. Cleary.

Hope

Cleary is a surgeon at the Ontario Equine Hospital in Mississauga, Ontario, where Mousey was first seen on Jan. 27. She thought she could help, despite not having the equipment that traditionally was needed to perform the surgery.

“Technically, this surgery should be done with CT,” Cleary said. “We didn’t have that.”

CT refers to computed tomography, essentially a real-time three-dimensional X-ray. Since she had no access to that technology, Cleary would have to be extra judicious with the use of regular X-rays, stopping the surgery often to take the photographs and make sure she was on the right track.

With the cost more reasonable, and aided by barn manager Natalie Moran taking up a collection to help raise the money, Ferreira opted for the surgery.

It was the first time Cleary had performed such an operation. To prepare, she dove deep into the available medical literature, making sure she knew exactly what was going to happen ahead of time.

“I don’t really get nervous,” Cleary said. “I just make sure that I prepare as much as possible.”

Cleary even deviated from the literature's recommendations, opting to put the screw in from the back of the foot instead of the front because of her lower visibility without the CRT.

After putting the screw in perpendicular to the fracture line, the wound was cleaned and wrapped and the recovery process began.

Normal horse life?

Unfortunately for Mousey, recovery was not as smooth as it could have been. Several days after surgery, the gelding rebelled, rearing up in the paddock and going lame again.

“He began getting really bad about taking his meds, so we had to tie him,” Ferreira said. “That was one of the worst things for him. He thrashed up the one day and he was very, very sore and he just seemed super, super depressed.”

After an X-ray, the barn doctor told Ferreira that there had been a second fracture, and she prepared to say goodbye to Mousey.

But in the nick of time, Cleary, who had been sent the X-rays, called to say there was no second fracture.

“I said, ‘you have to just wait, let him get over it,’ ” Cleary said. “...He must have torqued his coffin bone, there was no new fracture, everything looked fine on the radiograph, so I told her to wait. He became much more comfortable within the next couple of days.”

After that, Ferreira switched barns, sending him back to Moran’s, where the staff was more familiar with him.

After the move, Mousey continued to improve, staying on stall rest through May 25, then moving into a round pen until mid-August, where he lost the rest of his tail when it got caught in fencing.

Undeterred, Mousey continued to recover on schedule, moving into a small field, then a large one and was back under saddle in late September. 

Ferreira had a team behind her in the recovery process, including her friend Cameron Scheffler, who helped her when Mousey was troublesome to walk in hand, and Kevin Alcock, the farrier who helped with the difficult process of keeping Mousey in shoes post-surgery.

For Cleary, the procedure was not the last she would do. She said she performed a very similar operation on another horse after Mousey, with the same level of success.

“It’s a great feeling to take a chance, and when you follow them along, it’s thrilling,” Cleary said of watching their recovery processes. “It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful knowing the horse is not suffering and is living a high-quality life and is bringing great joy to his owner.”

Ferreira was indeed feeling joy after the surgery.

“It’s great that he can be ridden again, but that was never the reason why,” Ferreira said. “It was just so he could be a horse again and live a normal horse life.”