Ivan - Description

Still working on telling a story about each horse at Borderlands. Here's Ivan's tail....er I mean tale.


We saw an ad in the local classifieds for a very cheap Thoroughbred gelding in July of 2010. We were worried that the $100 price tag on the Thoroughbred might attract a killbuyer or someone looking to make an easy buck. So we contacted the owners to find out a little bit more about this Thoroughbred.

He was actually located at a friend’s, which also happened to be on the way to Borderland’s “temporary home” for some of the horses. We made arrangements to see the horse on an evening and that’s where we fell in love with Ivan.

Not much is known about Ivan other than he’s an unregistered eight or nine year old Thoroughbred gelding. We have never met a more laid back, calm, and slow Thoroughbred (although we’ve not worked with Thoroughbreds personally). Ivan has such a laid back personality that nothing seems to bother him.

Ivan’s only flaw is that he has cellulites in his “man part”. The owners had seen Ivan in February 2010 and saw that his “man part” were hanging out in the dead of winter. The winter of 2010 was one of the coldest with -28 degrees below. They had seen Ivan in Iowa and thought the owner at the time wasn’t doing anything for Ivan. So they bought him and brought him to South Dakota. They took Ivan to the vet who stated that it was cellulites and gave them a game plan for fixing the issue.

The owners had advertised and actually had someone else interested but that person it appeared was concerned with Ivan’s cellulites issue. We, on the other hand, weren’t worried and decided that Ivan would be a perfect match and away he came to Borderlands. He is now best friends with Brego and Zeke. The “three amigos” hang out away from the rest of the herd. Ivan makes a perfect match because he’s so laid back, which is a good thing because he’s rather a tall horse.

We were worried that he was wormy since he was ribby yet had a huge belly when he arrived at Borderlands. We wormed him right away but with no results. We’ve since wormed Ivan two more times and discussed what additional options we can take to get rid of the worms before winter hits.

We also discussed Ivan’s cellulites issue. Unfortunately our vet did not believe that the “game plan” the other vet had for Ivan was actually working. It appears that the cellulites has actually caused permanent damage to Ivan’s “man part”. There are a few options but nothing that will really fix the issue. Because nothing was done originally, the color pigment has actually left and now Ivan is left with a white tip on his black “man part”. We have some additional options to try but for the most part, Ivan is going to the stay the way he is. Who knows how many owners Ivan has had and who knows how long he’s had the cellulites. If the owner would have taken care of the issue right away, Ivan wouldn’t have to deal with this issue for the rest of his life.

Because of his cellulites issue, we will have to make arrangements during the winter months when the weather gets cold. We’re looking at the different options of stalling, blanketing, etc. and hope to come up with a multitude of options to work with. So, if you have any ideas on how to keep Ivan comfortable during the winter, we’d love to hear!