Mouse, the horse injured before inauguration parade, on the road to recovery

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Even though the horse is healing, feelings among some two-legged folks appear to be bruised.

As we learned last week, a 10-year-old appaloosa gelding named Mouse was injured shortly before he was to participate in Barack Obama’s inauguration parade. The Humane Society of the United States wrote about Mouse’s accident on its website and also posted a video of the effort to free him from the grille of a truck in which his leg had become entangled.

Mouse’s owner, Amy Manning, says he was not hit by the truck, as the Humane Society website indicated -- one of a couple of details in its post that came under criticism.

Manning says that rather than being hit by the truck, Mouse became startled and backed into it himself -- an account confirmed by Brooke Vrany of Days End Farm Horse Rescue. ‘He absolutely was not hit by the truck. The truck was stationary,’ said Vrany, director of programs and emergency services for Days End. The organization was at the inauguration at the request of the Washington, D.C., Department of Health, Vrany said. She was among the first notified when Mouse was injured and estimates that it took her about five minutes to get to the scene. (The Humane Society video shows Vrany, in a red sweatshirt, helping Mouse.)

Mouse is normally a very calm horse, Manning says -- but he has a pet peeve: horse-drawn carriages. One was near him when he ‘spooked,’ causing him to back into the truck. His leg became wedged between the winch and grille of the truck, making extricating him a tricky business. Mouse was tranquillized to calm him during the process, and Vrany located tools that enabled rescuers to remove the winch and free Mouse’s leg.

‘There were quite a few people ... there was a crowd of people around the horse,’ Vrany said. Among those who gathered to help Mouse were Lt. Col. John Stott of the U.S. Army Veterinary Services, mounted police officers, and other bystanders, including the Humane Society, according to Vrany. ‘[Scotlund Haisley, senior director of Emergency Services] was the emergency responder for HSUS and he helped me, but [the HSUS was] not the lead agency on this,’ she said.

Once Mouse’s leg was freed, a special strap was used to help him stand up so he could be led to an ambulance. Vrany then took him to the Prince George’s County Equestrian Center, the staging area for the parade horses. ‘We got him off the trailer and ... he went right into his stall and was eating hay like nothing had happened,’ she says. ‘Horses are so resilient.’ She estimated that the effort to disentangle Mouse from the truck took, all in all, about 20 minutes.

Manning, Mouse’s owner, was not with him at the parade; she’d loaned him to another rider, who was unhurt in the accident. ‘The initial assessment of his injuries from the U.S. Army vet was that he might have cut a tendon sheath ... that would have been really bad,’ Manning recalled. Fortunately, when his bandages were removed it was clear that he’d dodged a bullet; while he required some stitches and Manning was told to keep him on ‘stall rest,’ he was able to walk the same day. ‘He’s a tough little cookie,’ she says.

Mouse is a parade veteran; he’s participated in at least 10 so far with more to come.

‘Does he like doing them? No, not really,’ Manning says. But she’s certain that she’ll ride him in future parades, if only to ‘get his head back together’ following his frightening experience.

She was initially upset by the HSUS’ video documenting Mouse’s rescue, Manning said, because ‘it was just really upsetting.... This is my child; this horse has traveled with me from New Mexico to New Jersey.’ But mostly, she’d just like to see the credit go where she feels it is due: to the Days End Farm Horse Rescue. And she wishes the HSUS would ‘quit patting themselves on the back so hard.’

While several readers (and Manning herself) took issue with the HSUS’ coverage of Mouse’s rescue, it’s interesting to note that the HSUS’ statement about Mouse’s rescue includes the following tip of the hat to all involved: ‘When the emergency report of an injured horse was sounded, The HSUS and Health Department staff alerted Lt. Colonel John Stott of the U.S. Army Veterinary Services and the Days End Farm Horse Rescue equine ambulance, which was on call with The HSUS. The group rushed to the aid of Mouse, a 10-year-old appaloosa horse who had suffered a visibly mangled leg and multiple lacerations....’

Manning has taken her appreciation for the folks at Days End one step further: she’s auctioning off Mouse’s horseshoes on eBay and plans to donate the proceeds to the group. (Going rate? One of the shoes has received a $150 bid as of this posting.) She expects that Mouse will be back in riding shape soon, and a MyFoxDC video shows the horse’s hooves planted firmly on the road to recovery. We wish him well.

--Lindsay Barnett