Festival News & Results

Clovis Award Essay-Gianna Calabro
My name is Gianna Calabro and I will be competing on my horse Carlchen. Carl is an 15 year old Oldenburg gelding. My mom and I got Carl in 2021 and he quickly won us over with his goofy personality and exceptional work ethic. Being a grey horse we were not surprised to find a few melanomas, but we did not expect to find a rather large one in his inguinal areas. Carl has undergone several surgeries to remove the larger masses for him to move comfortably including a complicated stay at Tuft Vet hospital. He is currently on the Oncept melanoma vaccine that helps keep the masses from growing too fast.
Carl made his D4K debut in 2023 with one of my older “barn sisters”. They had a great show and even won a few of the perpetual awards but two days after coming home from Saugerties, we think he injured himself in turn out. Our local vets couldn’t figure out where it was coming from so we took him back to Tufts Veterinary hospital for a lameness work up. They found he had injured his right distal seasmoidial ligament and the treatment was 2-4 months of stall rest.
On stall rest he was very agitated and needed daily meds to keep calm, but the stress was too much and he coliced the second week of stall rest and needed to go back to Tufts and was hospitalized for 3-days. Thankfully no surgery was needed to fix the displaced colon and he was released with a higher dose of calming medications.
Throughout the winter he stayed on stall rest with twice daily hand walks, we discovered that the longer he was on stall rest the worse he walked (like stringhalt). Every six weeks we would bring him back to Tufts to check on the injured leg, it became clearer that he was becoming worse overall with his hind end movement. Neurology did an exam and determined that he could have wobblers syndrome. They did neck x-rays and discovered he has severe osteoarthritis in his neck that could be causing some of the neurological issues. We did steroid injections in his neck and started his rehab.
During stall rest we were constantly looking for new enrichment ideas and keep him mentally happy. We made hanging treat balls made of apples and carrots, ground feeders that he kicked around, hand walking to see friends, we make licky mats with his favorite mashed up treats, we had boxes of dog toys that he could nose through to find hay pellets. We looked for anything and everything to make life just a little bit more interesting for Carl.
The rehab of his leg and his neck was very slow and strictly scheduled. Each week we were able to walk him 5 more minutes on the lunge or in hand. He has specific neck stretches for the arthritis and in hand pole exercises to help with his proprioception and his funny walk. Eventually we could tack walk him and lunge at the trot. That turned into walk and trot under saddle. By the fall of 2024 he was finally cleared to resume normal work (but no jumping). We needed to build back all the muscle he lost, so his diet was monitored very closely. We added a higher protein supplement to help build muscle, he got 8,ooo units of Vitamin E daily for neurological support, a supplement to support ligaments/tendons and another supplement for his gastro health.
Almost two years later, Carl is sound and happy. He still has his 6 months visits to Tufts for his Oncept (melanoma vaccine) and his neck injections, he still gets Vitamin E and Adequan injections for arthritis. His neurological symptoms are gone, and the gait abnormality only shows up when walking in hand or when he is nervous or excited under saddle. We are very lucky that we didn’t need to retire him completely and I feel grateful to have the opportunity to finally participate in D4k with Carlchen.

Hi, my name is Selina Kozlowski and my horse's name is Georgia. She is a 11yo Friesian cross mare. I got Georgia about a year and a half ago as a project. She was very green walk/trot unsaddle, did not have a canter undersaddle, and had a bucking issue. The vet floated her teeth and did not think she had ever had her teeth done and she was 10 years old. She had mutliple ulcers throughout her month. Her training was progressing well after we sorted out her teeth, until last July, when she got Potamic Horse Fever and had an impaction colic due to the virus. Unfortunately, surgery was not an option for us. Luckily, our amazing vet agreed to put an IV Catheter in so we could give her fluids day and night at home and pray for a recovery. Along with the fluids, she was getting several medications multiple times a day. A couple days went by and no luck. It was looking like euthanisa was the only option left. Later that day, she miraculously passed some fecal matter and later that night, passed the impaction. But, we weren't out of the woods yet. All of the medications negatively affected her gut health and caused ulcers so severely that she was showing colic symotoms from the pain. So now, she was getting other medications and supplements to help restore gut health. It took several months, but she eventually fully recovered and has been back in full work for about 7 months now. I am still very careful with her stress level, as she gets stressed very easily. Georgia still gets her special medications any time we are traveling or showing to prevent ulcers. She gets a daily gut health supplement daily. To prepare for the Festival, we went to several local shows over the summer. Sometimes we would show, sometime I would just take her and hand graze her. The goal was to get her comfortable traveling and going off property. It was a very long road to get where we are now, but I am happy to say she has been doing very well and progressing in her training. I am excited to see how she does at the Festival.

The Clovis Memorial Award YDF 2025
Bella Perkins & Royal Rhapsody

My horse Rhapsody suffers from Inflammatory Airway Disease, or Equine Asthma, which is a chronic respiratory condition characterized by inflammation and narrowing of the small airways in the lungs. It's primarily triggered by inhaled allergens, such as dust, mold, and pollen found in hay, straw, and bedding. When I first got him in 2021, we were aware that he had mild asthma, but the only management he needed at the time was plenty of airflow in his stall and lots of turnout. Over that first winter, he started having upper respiratory infections and he would cough and wheeze when trotting and cantering. After being diagnosed with IAD, we began soaking all of his hay to remove the allergens that were triggering him. This worked like magic for him and cut down on his problems by 90%. He also does best when he’s able to be out on grass, but in Upstate NY, that’s only possible for ½ of the year. He still has rare days where he struggles to breathe during exercise, mostly in extreme heat or cold, or when the pollen count is high. On those days, I either don’t work him, or just stick to walk work. If it lasts multiple days, we give him dexamethasone to reduce the inflammation, but we have not had to do that in quite a long time.

Rhapsody also had an osteochondroma, which is a benign bone tumor, typically found near growth plates. They are cartilage-capped bony growths that can cause lameness and swelling, particularly in young, rapidly growing horses. Rhapsody’s was quite unique, because it was on the right side of his jaw. It started growing when he was around 2 years old. His previous owner never had it surgically removed because it didn’t seem to bother him. That was also my way of thinking for the first few years I had him. One vet that looked at it also thought that it could grow back bigger if we removed it. Last summer, we noticed it seemed to be growing. It got to the point that when he would roll, he hit it on the ground and had an open wound on the end of it. It wouldn’t heal quickly enough before the next time he would roll, so it kept getting worse. Aside from the risk of infection, I couldn’t ride him at this time because the rein would rub on it. We decided it was finally time to surgically remove it. Dr. Mike Ross at Pine Bush Equine did a fantastic job with the surgery and it was the largest osteochondroma he had seen. He believed that it would not grow back because the growth was from the cap on the end of it, not the base. Now, you can barely tell anything was there unless you’re very close up. Rhapsody seems much happier and more comfortable in many aspects of his life! It’s been over 8 months since the surgery, and it shows no indications of growing back.