Wanderer arrived at the rescue on January 8, 2009 after being abandoned at a farm south of here. No one knows his history or who dropped him off except for his former owner. In late November we received a phone call from the farm where he was dropped off and told us his story. They also told us they couldn't afford another horse and had an appointment set up for someone to take him to auction. We bought him another month by providing for his feed needs for the month. After the month was up, they again called and said he was going to auction so we paid $150 to have a hauler bring him down to us.
After having our vet examine him, he was found to have a very lame left front leg so we made an appoint with a vet in Batavia that had x-ray capabilities and that recommended putting him down as there was no cartilege in the knee joint. Wanderer is too nice a horse and well trained from what we can tell to put him down without trying.
In September, Chris made contact with the Cornell Equine Hospital, Dr. Lisa Fortier. She asked for x-rays and we sent the one we had from Batavia. After examining the x-ray, Dr. Fortier told us he would be a good candidate for surgery and she wanted to inject a silicon based product into his knee untill we could raise the $4,000 necessary for his surgery. On October 27, he was hauled to Cornell for the injection and returned the same day. Right now he is still lame but has developed an abscess in the right front foot so we can't tell which situation he is lame from. We have a medocone boot on the foot with the abscess to keep it clean. It appears to be healing well and he is walking better so we should know in a couple of months if the injection had much effect on him. Total cost was $603 for the shot and transportation.
Right now, he is still under evaluation to see if he progresses. Hopefully, someday he will be ridable again.