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Teri’s EditorialsMyEquusBlog – Panimetro – Thoroughbred Racehorses Beat the Odds, Retire to FloridaThis is a reprint from North Florida Horse Rescue/old HorsesintheSouth.com so that my readers can understand where my Metro came from and why he is so special. February 23, 2007 – Keystone Heights, FL. Seven-year old Panimetro, a thoroughbred racehorse, suffered four major fractures in his left front ankle, an injury similar to Barbaro’s-the Kentucky Derby winner that was recently euthanized. “Metro” could have met the same sad fate, but was able to heal himself by lying down for long periods over the last year and a half and allowing caretakers to attend to him.  Metro in the Virgin Islands in 2005 This was the largest shipment of rescued racehorses from the Virgin Islands Community Cooperative Thoroughbred Retirement Effort (VICCTTRE), a nonprofit 501(C)3 organization that had rescued, rehabilitated and adopted 28 horses since its 2004 inception. All four horses raced both stateside and in the islands. All suffered serious injuries, from Metro’s broken leg to bruised soles, damaged hooves and arthritis. With the medical care, love and dedication of the VICCTRE volunteers they now have a new life to look forward to. Kate Grimsley, VICCTRE’s founding director and barn manager was in tears before sending Metro to his new Florida home. “It’s amazing to me, on the heels of Barbaro, who had to be euthanized, to see his will,” Grimsley said. “I’m a different person for knowing this horse.” (Note: Chris Dunn’s neighbor, Teri Rehkopf, CEO/owner of HorsesintheSouth.com adopted Metro on the spot – she told Chris that he had to stay with us to assure that he would get the best of care. He is Teri’s mare’s companion horse. He has a huge stall with open access to his own paddock. He is let into his own pasture during the day.) Contact: See below and the original press release at the Virgin Islands Daily News. VICCTRE celebrates hard-fought recovery of racehorses ST. THOMAS – As a thoroughbred racehorse who suffered a broken leg, Panimetro could have met the same sorrowful end as Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner who was euthanized this week.Instead, the 7-year-old Panimetro fought to heal – by lying down for as many as 12 hours a day, thus giving veterinarians and caretakers a chance to attend to him in his stall. Now he’s headed for a new life and a new home. On Thursday, he was among four retired race horses sent to greener pastures after being cared for by the Virgin Islands Community Cooperative Thoroughbred Retirement Effort. It marked the largest single shipment of rescued horses that the nonprofit organization has produced. Bach One, Brimstone Tough and Smooth Distinction each spent between six and eight months at VICCTRE’s stables behind St. Thomas Dairies. They raced locally and stateside before retiring, and VICCTRE volunteers found each to be special.  Kate and Bo visiting Metro at Teri's place “It’s amazing to me, on the heels of Barbaro, who had to be euthanized, to see his will,” Grimsley said. “I’m a different person for knowing this horse.” Soaping Panimetro up and hosing him down Thursday in preparation for 4 p.m. shipment, VICCTRE volunteer Bohdania Potter agreed. She took special care around a bulb of scar tissue that developed on the horse’s left front ankle, where he had sustained four major fractures. “When I first came here, he was in horrible condition. It was tearjerking to see how bad he really was,” Potter said. “He had his own urge to survive.” To date, 28 horses have been rescued, rehabilitated or adopted through VICCTRE since its inception in 2004, Grimsley said. The four horses shipped Thursday will spend two weeks quarantined at Hacienda Allegra in Puerto Rico. Eventually, they will be sent to Florida and paired with a Marion County Correctional Facility inmate for natural-horsemanship training. (Note: They were adopted by other people in the southeast USA instead via Habitat for Horses with Chris Dunn’s commendable efforts). Other VICCTRE horses have been adopted, either on-island or on the U.S. mainland, or placed in therapeutic riding programs for the physically or mentally disabled, Grimsley said. Contact Lynn Freehill at 774-8772 ext. 311 or e-mail lfreehill@dailynews.vi MyEquusBlog – Treating a Strange Injury of Panimetro My Adopted Ex-Racehorse Metro Aug 2008 I’ve been nursing my adopted injured ex-racehorse, Panimetro (barn name is Metro), for the past 2 weeks in this 95+ degree weather and severe thunderstorms. He pulled a tendon on his bad left leg where he had broken fetlock in 4 places. The vet thinks tenosynovitis of his SFDT or suspensory, possibly from standing in wet sandy-mud that was like a quicksand from all the rain we’ve had, and twisted it trying to get it out. This happened on Tuesday. Jerry fed the horses their breakfast and Metro walked into his stall OK, but by mid-morning he was standing out in his paddock in the hot sun and wouldn’t move. We tried to move him and he acted like he would fall over. His leg had swollen all the way up to his elbow with a very painful reaction to touch and it even hurt to touch his shoulder. So, we stood out in the full sun in his paddock hosing him off for almost 2 hours until the vet came. She gave him a pain shot (we had just given him a shot of Banamine) and we all dragged/pushed him into his stall. She made up a mixture of Nitrofurazone/DMSO/Dex ointment, slathered his leg with it and wrapped in cling wrap, then put a pillow wrap with standing wrap on and put him on stall rest. She gave me Ditrim antibiotics (10 pills, 2 times a day), bottle of Banamine (10mg orally in morning), Bute (2 at night), and oral Trichlor-Dex medicine (at night) to give him. I melted it all in water, mixed it with white Karo syrup and his Tahitian Noni Flex that he already gets twice a day every day. Luckily he ate it in his feed so I didn’t have to mix and squirt in his mouth. All during the time from when we got him back into his stall and started on the meds, he was in good spirits, eyes were lively and he had a good appetite. He was able to get around his stall and would drag his leg. He did lie down to sleep in his stall Tuesday night, as we saw signs of shavings on his body. Jason also sneaked out at midnight and saw him sleeping with his back foot cocked and his weight on both front legs. We did a re-wrap of leg at noon the next day, Wednesday, but his leg had swollen from his knee up to his elbow three times its size with cellulites at knee and fetlock, plus he had gotten a swollen lymph node under his chest. So the vet came back out again in the evening to look at it. She had me walk him and he was able to walk with minimal limping. We unwrapped it and hosed it with cold water for 20 minutes. She prescribed walking him four times a day for 10 minutes each. At noon, unwrap it and hose for 20 minutes with cool water and re-wrap it and spread with the Nitrofurazone/DMSO/Dex combo on the whole leg. Jerry also made the paddock attached to his stall small so he could go outside to poop and walk, but we had to stand with him so he wouldn’t run or rear and play as he was feeling much better. Thursday morning, he lay down in his stall and rolled to scratch his back. His leg had gone down in size by 2/3rds by then. By Friday, the swelling was almost completely gone above the knee. As soon as I opened the paddock so he could go out while I watched him, he immediately lay down and rolled on both sides. By this time, he wasn’t trying to run or rear and play in the paddock so we could let him outside in his paddock on his own and left it open Friday night. See http://horsesinthesouth.com/blog/index.php/2009/06/21/myequusblog-panimetro-thoroughbred-racehorses-beat-the-odds-retire-to-florida/ for a reprint of the story of Panimetro when he first came to me. Below is a gallery of images going from the 1st day, June 10-16 2009, showing how it was so swollen on the 1st day, then even more swollen on the 2nd day, but as soon as I started hand-walking him 4 times a day and hosing it with cold water and putting the Nitrofurazone/DMSO/Dex ointment on the whole leg, the swelling kept going down until it’s almost normal again, at least for his leg, which isn’t really normal anyway for a horse that broke their fetlock in 4 places… Click on an image for a larger view. Click the back button to return to the Blog.
During the interim: We had another horrible thunderstorm with hail and all last Saturday, so we had to lock Metro back in his stall. Rocki had access to her paddock from her stall and the hail scared her so much, she was standing in her attached paddock in the rain when Jerry got home from a car show the university had. By the way, Jerry had just bought a nice big Yamaha motor scooter (with carry places for small groceries) to ride to work and to the boat to save on gas. Since it hadn’t rained for the last 3 days in the week, he figured he would do a test ride downtown to a car show at the he needed to attend as a professor. There were huge thunderstorms downtown (northeast) and they were also coming in from the west to merge. He stopped and bought a good motorcycle rain jacket with padded safety sleeves (he had already gotten a helmet). He was fine until he got almost to the road to turn on to get to our place when the hail and sideways mini ‘tornadic’ rains hit. He had to pull over as did all of the cars behind him until that passed. He finally made it home by 4:15pm and was going to be here at 2pm. This is when he saw Rocki outside in the rain as he is parking his scooter at the barn, so he locked her inside her stall.
I ran out to the barn jumping all the way so I wouldn’t get hit by lightning and helped wipe her down and find the towels for him. What was scariest was that I couldn’t reach him on the phone since he was on the scooter, so we were incommunicado for over an hour. My neighbors were gone too and didn’t think it was going to rain that day as it had been dry all week, so they left their horses out with no way to get inside. Jason and I went over and brought them in before the storm hit. Just an hour before that I had been in the pool swimming and cooling off from taking care of Metro in the oppressive heat and then going to my neighbors while wet to pick blackberries. Whew! What a day! What a week! I was faced with the possibility that if Metro didn’t walk, he could founder and would have to be put down. His leg is still slightly swollen just below the knee on the inside and there is heat at that spot, so he still has healing to do yet before he gets to go back out in the pasture, plus I will have to hand walk him to keep him from getting bored and let him graze. His paddock is back open for him now as it has dried up enough, but we see more storms coming this week. The weather we’ve been having for going on 8 weeks now has really messed up both mile long dirt roads to our place. We are in a private association so the county won’t help us fix the road – it’s up to us home owners to do. The roads have been impassable without a 4-wheel or all-wheel drive vehicle (of which we have 2). Our neighbor’s truck isn’t 4-wheel drive and neither is their car, so they just bought a 4-wheel drive jeep/truck to get in and out. The road keeps washing out almost every day after the heavy rains, and the guys who manage the road for us keep fixing it so we can get in and out. The first week or 2 was pretty bad, until they got some association dues paid to help with the grading and extra dirt. Much fun, there ;P Read more about Metro at:
EXERPT: The Vid gains first stakes winner
Multiple Grade 2 winner The Vid earned his first stakes winner on Thursday when Panimetro won the $66,600 Copa 4 de Julio at El Comandante in Puerto Rico. Out of the stakes-winning Take the Floor mare Floor Me, Panimetro won the 1 1/8-mile race by one length on a good track in 1:53.50.
Panimetro is one of 15 starters from the second crop of The Vid, who has 67 foals of racing age. His progeny have earned $361,035. Dr. and Mrs. James Gamble bred Panimetro in Florida. He has won four of 16 career starts in two seasons and has earned $72,009 for owner Establo Madoca. Joseph J. Sullivan bred and campaigned The Vid, who won 14 of 40 career starts in five seasons, including the 1995 Dixie Stakes (G2) and back-to-back wins in the Canadian Turf Handicap (G2) in ’95 and ’96. The son of World Appeal earned $952,216. The Vid died at Irish Acres Farm near Ocala in June 2000 at the age of ten. More: Panimetro (g. by The Vid). 14 wins, 2 to 6, $297,800, Copa 4 de Julio, Clasico Dia delos Padres, Clasico Campeon Importado, 2nd Clasico Jose de Diego, Clasico Jose Celso Barbosa, 3rd Clasico Jose de Diego, Clasico Jose Celso Barbosa, Clasico Juan Ponce de Leon, Clasico Verset’s Jet twice, etc.,
PDFs
…and more… after the 4th page in Google, I stopped for now. Wow! I hadn’t checked on him to see how many places he is mentioned! There are 13 pages in Google that have the word Panimetro mentioned. More pictures at: http://www.equestrianlife.com/viewGallery.php?horseid=15217&imgID=16133 and another article on our old website design articles section http://www.northfloridahorserescue.com/Articles/EquineProtection/HfH/thoroughbred-racehorses-retire-to-florida.asp (this has been reposted to my blog at http://horsesinthesouth.com/blog/index.php/2009/06/21/myequusblog-panimetro-thoroughbred-racehorses-beat-the-odds-retire-to-florida/
MyEquusBlog.com – An Overview from 1970 to 2009 – Mecca, Sunny and RockiI married my son Jason’s father, Mark Ellerbee, in early 1970 while I was still a student at FSU. We moved to Nashville in the summer of 1970 and Mark got a job with the Oak Ridge Boys as their drummer and as backup vocalist. (Listen to the Oaks on Youtube – Mark sings while he is playing drums at the end of the song – he’s the one with the long wavy hair Jason was born at the end of 1970. After I had another son in 1973 (who died in 1988), I bought my own ¾ Arab/ ¼ Quarter Horse cross, 2 ½ year old stallion (originally named Major, but I changed it to Mecca) which I trained and showed locally. I showed my horse and other horses in Western Pleasure, Equitation and Hunt Seat, even placing 11th in the hunt seat class at the 1978 Appaloosa Nationals on a gorgeous black, blanket-spotted stallion I rode for a client. I also rode another gorgeous Palomino stallion in Western Pleasure and a young 16.2hh Appaloosa gelding in Western Pleasure and Hunt Seat. In 1980, Mark and I divorced amicably and I moved back to my home in Jacksonville, FL (without Mecca – I sold him the year before I moved from Nashville since I had gone back to college to finish my degree). In 1983, I finally completed my college degree in Computer Information Systems (CIS). I didn’t ride during this time as I was always in class, studying, in the computer lab doing assignments, working part-time at the college as the Psychology department’s system analyst, and taking care of my small children when I was home. (I was lucky to have my mother take care of them when I wasn’t around.) After I graduated and started working in my career, I occasionally rode friends’ horses off and on. I married my husband Jerry Rehkopf in 1991 and he made the ‘mistake’ one night of telling me that I should get a horse when I was ardently explaining to him how a horse canters on their leads. So, the search began and I finally got another horse – an ex-racehorse Quarter Horse named ‘Sunny’. I began riding him in Dressage and later in hunters and jumpers.  Teri & Rocki, First Level Dressage I sold him in 1995 just a couple of months after I got my mare which I named Glenord’s Rocket Dancer – Clan Butter Glenrod’s Glened x Rocket To Antares – ‘Rocki’, as a 2 ½ year old. Rocki’s sire (now deceased) was a champion Budweiser Clydesdale and her dam was a racing TB/Appaloosa, with her bloodline going back to Native Dancer, hence her name, Glenord’s Rocket Dancer, barn name of Rocki (spelled with an ‘i’ at the end so it’s female sounding, lol). Claire Lee, of what is now Haddenloch Farm (used to be Dexter Farm), first backed Rocki while I was healing from having 6 cracked ribs from a fall off of Sunny when I missed a tight turn to a jump (a perpendicular jump that was higher than I was used to and looked too late to next jump, so I turned Sunny into the jump standard and fell onto the hard sand – ouch!). I had experienced a couple of other falls on the fast Sunny with associated injuries, so I had to promise my employer that I wouldn’t jump anymore, at least not competitively or in a clinic. I got my American Warmblood mare to ride Dressage and English Pleasure (I did jump her in low Hunter classes after she was backed and after I had trained her to ground drive with me running behind her, but again, after the previous falls and injuries from Sunny, it was better that I ride Dressage instead); she has been the best horse I have ever had. She will do anything and she was bomb-proof even when she was a baby. Rocki is still with me at 16 years old and is still wonderful and in her prime (Clydesdales mature late – Rocki was actually lazy until she turned 10!). Just a few years ago,I learned how to ride correctly, i.e. how to really ride Dressage and give with the arms/elbows, meld with the horse, inside leg to outside rein, half-halt, etc. Boy was I excited when I finally felt this for longer than just a few minutes! I called my trainer, Kathy Daly of KDEquine Training, and excitedly told her that I now knew what she had been trying to get across to me for the past 5 years! So, instead of taking 45 minutes to warm myself up while confusing my horse by hanging on the reins and not let him/her go forward INTO the reins, I can get on and have a great ride in 20 minutes, both my horse and I warmed up almost immediately. Rocki really thanks me now… all I have to do is to ‘think’ a movement and Rocki will comply… ahhhh… as was said, a true horse fanatic! MyEquusBlog.com – My Early Years and HorsesWhen in elementary school, I would walk over 3 miles every Tuesday after school to ride at a rental barn and I rode some of my friend’s horses, too. Finally, when I was 12, I got a horse of my own, a 14.3 1/2 hand part quarter horse, buckskin, to learn to care for and retrain from being ‘wild’ and always wanting to run and jig, to a horse that would walk and canter just from a lift on the reins. My first saddle was a hard McClellan Army saddle that I hated, so I rode bareback most of the time until I finally got Western saddle, then an English saddle in my later teens. I would do everything on my horse ‘Scottie’ (short for Great Scott – I renamed him from Apache) – riding for miles all around my family’s 30 acres in the woods of Jacksonville/Mandarin/Greenland/Bayard Florida area, going swimming bareback in the clear water of the barrow pits that were dug to build I-95 next to our land; I would jump over 2 long pieces of skinny baseboard moulding spread out over the long side of 2 sawhorses that I set up as a jump; I would gallop over a 24+ natural jump course I made of piled up tree limbs and logs, spanning a couple of miles, weaving in and out of trees, ducking under low-hanging branches, sliding down a steep embankment, and generally being a adventurous, horse-loving teenager. I would run barrels and do pole bending and competed at a saddle club where I would ride to on Friday nights with a group of others. The saddle club was about 8-10 miles from my house. I would meet up with the other riders about 3 miles from my house & we would all ride together. Then, I would ride back home in the dark by myself – something you would never let a young girl do in today’s world… MyEquusBlog.com – Current Horse Ownership and History Rocki - Dressage Equitation I have ridden all of my life and I am an absolute horse fanatic! I have ridden most disciplines. I am a member of USDF, USAE, USEF, USET, NFDA and own a Lifetime USDF/USEF member horse, an American Warmblood out of a champion Budweiser Clydesdale sire – Clan Butter Glenord’s Glened, crossed with a racing TB-Appaloosa mare, Rocket to Antares (going back to Native Dancer), who I named Glenord’s Rocket Dancer or “Rocki” for her barn name. Rocki is the most amazing horse – she will do anything and she has always been bomb-proof, even when she was a baby. I ride her mostly Dressage (hopefully again in First Level by this Fall of 2009 if my shoulder has healed enough) and in English Pleasure and Equitation, and recently I have been working on Western Riding patterns, too, which I find is very similar to Dressage. She is my absolute love as I have had her now for almost 14 years, since she was a youngster.  Panimetro in a Race I also own a companion horse for my mare, an ex-racehorse, Panimetro, who was a Thoroughbred rescue from the Virgin Islands, cared for by VICCTRE – Virgin Islands Community Cooperative Thoroughbred Retirement Effort. During a race, he suffered four major fractures in his left front ankle, an injury similar to Barbaro’s — the Kentucky Derby winner that was euthanized due to complications in the healing of his leg. “Metro” could have met the same sad fate, but was able to heal himself by lying down for long periods over a year and a half and allowing caretakers to attend to him. It does have some calcification in the fetlock, but it has healed enough for him to be a ‘horse’. Metro is on the cover, inside and as the December horse on the 2009 VICCTRE calendar. You’ll see him running around still like a racehorse, even with his injured left front leg! I adopted Metro from Habitat for Horses in March of 2007 when he was brought here from the Virgin Islands. He is such a character and loves people! He can still run around, buck and play and jumps over a water puddle in front of his paddock that can fill up when it rains a lot. Both horses have wonderful stalls with fans and open access to paddocks. Each has their own pasture that the paddock gate opens into, they get fed 3 times a day plus a lot of loving and TLC, so they are in “horse heaven”.  Teri & 18hh JR Khan I also used to own an 18hh J.R. Khan, who was trained to Third level Dressage by my trainer Kathy Daly who raised him from a foal from her stallion, Hurrikhan. Khan taught me how to ride correctly by him knowing what to do from Kathy’s training. Sadly, I had to sell him a few years ago as my left shoulder was getting so bad (another post will come about that…) that I couldn’t lift his legs to clean his feet, lift the saddle on his back & in general couldn’t take care of such a huge horse (too bad, too… my long legs fit perfectly on his sides). Work History Preparing Me for My Current Web Development Career Teri Rehkopf 1999 Teri Rehkopf, President, CEO of Synergy, Et Cetera Web Design, Inc. dba Horsesinthesouth.com. My background is as an AVP, Sr. Business Analyst, Systems Engineer II, Project Manager, and Computer Security Analyst for Barnett Bank Technologies Division – Asset Management (later this area became Bank of America Asset Management Systems). Before that, I was the Financial/Systems Analyst for the Investment Division for Barnett Trust Company. My degree is in Computer Information Systems in 1983. (Before I had my children, I was working on a degree in Photography and Design.) While working for the bank Technologies Division and the Trust Company, I wrote business plans/specifications for the bank’s business partners, provided design specs for applications, technical support, database conversion and project manager and Sr. business analyst for the division. |
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