My Horse Did What? Young Arabian Recovering Well After Misadventure In Tree

Altshuler’s best guess is that on that cool morning, Naseem had been playing, perhaps trying to engage a squirrel or a snake on the tree trunk, and reared facing the tree, then misjudged his distance from it coming down. It’s likely that once his left front foot was caught, his back end slipped out from under him, pulling his front leg down firmly and negating his ability to rise. She believes he was only trapped for a short time when Jamal found him, but knew the situation was time-sensitive.

Altshuler called veterinarian Dr. Paul Morris and rushed to the scene, with her husband Marwan Abusoud close behind. According to a Facebook post that quickly went viral, Naseem’s fetlock was caught tightly in the tree trunk, and his body weight was too heavy for them to maneuver the leg.

“I never dreamed in a million years this could happen,” Altshuler said.

Morris quickly arrived with assistant Mark Rushing and sedated Naseem to prevent further injury. The family initially created risers from feed buckets and blankets to support Naseem’s back and neck, and then employed the bucket on their tractor to help raise his body in order to relieve the pull of his weight against the stuck leg. Still, the ankle was trapped. Abusoud carefully used a chainsaw to cut out a sliver of the tree trunk next to Naseem’s fetlock, giving them enough space to free him.

Morris had had to keep sedation running to Naseem to prevent him from moving suddenly during the two-hour rescue effort, so when he stood up afterwards, he was initially unsteady.

“It’s incredible,” she said. “When he stood up, I was just so glad he could even stand.”

Amazingly, Morris quickly assessed that Naseem’s leg was not broken. In the first hours after the event, Altshuler said he walked delicately, with the left leg and shoulder out at an angle and would sometimes roll the fetlock over as though he couldn’t fully feel it. Morris advised patience, believing there may have been some nerve damage around the fetlock that he expects will repair with a few days of careful monitoring. Naseem is getting pain medication and antibiotics to prevent infection in the wounds to his right leg, and now it’s a waiting game. It's too early to say whether any permanent injury was done, but Altshuler reported that Naseem is moving in the right direction. He’s now using the leg much more normally and was even spotted running and hopping comfortably in his paddock three days after the incident. She’s still hopeful he will fulfill her original goal for him, which is to become a racing Arabian. Naseem is by a Bahranian racing stallion out of a granddaughter of influential racing Arabian Burning Sand. Arabian Meadows is a preservation breeding operation, focusing on Al Khamsa Arabians. Al Khamsa Arabians are those with bloodlines traceable to their origin on the Arabian Peninsula which don’t have crossbreeding in their pedigrees and are considered totally purebred. Arabian Meadows horses have raced, become show horses, competed in endurance events, and gone to halter classes.

One of the reasons Altshuler shared Naseem’s misadventure on social media is to inform other horse owners about the potential risks in their pastures.

“If you’ve got trees in your paddocks or pastures that have Ys [trunk splits] -- if they’re low enough, like under three feet, the horse can raise its foot and get it out of there, but anything between six foot and ten foot, you need to address,” she said. “Either cut the Y off, or wrap it. Or, fence it off so they can’t get to the tree.”

She expects their weekend to be consumed cutting back trees with branched trunks on the farm – and giving thanks for Naseem.