Mocha's Road to Recovery: Your Help Needed

This is Mocha, a 21yo OTTB gelding, and he has been battling a horrible injury and the consequences of it for over 14 months, in addition to multiple other health issues. Before everything that happened to him, he was competing 1st level dressage, and schooling 2nd level, as well as jumping, trail riding, doing tackless riding often, and even teaching beginner lessons. He’s all around an incredible boy who’s been met with some of the worst luck.

In February of 2024, Mocha got cast against a metal hay feeder, which his back left leg got caught in, ripping a 18”+ gash which was down to the cannon bone. He was on stall rest for several months and seemed to heal up, but occasionally the scab would fall off, requiring more bandaging.

In March of this year (13 months after the initial injury) Mocha’s leg became uncomfortable, swollen, and began draining. After a course of antibiotics did not help, radiographs showed that he has a piece of dead cannon bone, along with multiple areas of his splint bones being very irritated and possible fractured, which was not on the original sets of x-rays taken in the few months after the initial injury. He was referred to Cornell for a procedure to clean up the bone, which was quoted at $5000-7000. He is scheduled to go to Cornell on 5/1.

In addition to the ongoing issues with his leg, he’s also been diagnosed with PPID and possibly EOTRH as well. My poor boy has not been able to catch a break in almost a year and a half, despite us following all vet instructions carefully and above and beyond care.

I am a young trainer, so his health problems exhausted my savings long ago. Asking for help is not something I wanted to do, but I’m drowning and need help. My horses mean everything to me, and I would do anything to help them.

Thank you for reading, and donating if you can. Please share this and help me help my sweet boy.