Real life | 17 May 2018

Laminitis is a lot like alcoholism. Once you cross the line you can’t go back.

‘My name’s Gracie and I’m a grassoholic,’ is what the skewbald pony should be saying at least three times a week to other grassoholics like herself. She hit rock bottom a few months ago at the start of the spring and has been in recovery ever since.

But I’m not hopeful this latest period of abstemiousness will last unless she makes a sincere decision to change.

In truth, she has been bumping along the bottom for years, bingeing and then swearing off. Every spring I think it will be different. I put a tape across the field and make sure the amount of sugary grass she has access to is limited. But every spring she somehow manages to confound all attempts to save her from herself.

I think addicts are like this. They are hard-wired to self-destruct no matter how much their loved ones beg them to desist.

Gracie doesn’t eat grass, she inhales it. She hoovers it. She strims it like a Black & Decker. She puts her head down, opens her mouth and doesn’t come up for air for hours. I don’t know how she breathes. I have heard her several times defy all biological understanding of equines by letting out a huge belch.

Horses aren’t meant to be able to burp. They have no reflux. But Gracie can burp like a drunken man in a pub at closing time.

This spring, I thought she stood a chance as the grass came through slowly. She and Tara worked around the newly growing shoots picking here and there. But after a few weeks, she started to lift her back feet in the air. That’s the first sign, when the soles of her little goaty hooves start itching her.