Diana and Cealy from Rio

Today Was About Laura Chapot and Little Big Man

While the first round of the show jumping was unfolding in the main arena the unknown story (at least to us) had taken place back in the barns. I had chatted with Laura Chapot earlier in the week and could see that she was upset. At the end of our conversation she admitted that she was “really stressed.” She explained that her horse was under the weather from the trip and from an impaction. Here she had finally qualified for a Pan American Games team and she wasn’t sure if her horse was going to make it into the competition. “I hope he is going to be okay and I hope we get to compete,” she said.

You could see how concerned she was for the 13-year-old KWPN Dutch Warmblood gelding that has been part of their family since he was 4 years old. The next day in the Training Little Big Man seemed to have improved a bit and Laura commented, “He’s better after 24 hours and we have another 24 hours more for him to improve even more.”

Yet that next 24 hours proved to be more critical than she had hoped. That day after training the problem still existed and got worse. It was getting to a critical point and they needed to somehow get his intestines to straighten out. It was life or death – no joke!

Laura explained that they were doing everything including running the horse up and down hills and thankfully by 8:00 p.m. when Tim Ober, the Team vet checked Little Big Man’s intestines all was okay, save for the fact that he was a little bit tired. After spending three days almost around the clock with her horse, that was good news to Laura who for two of the previous three nights slept outside the horse’s stall with her groom, Tiffany Matthews, and vet nearby.

Both Laura and John Madden, trainer of Cara Raether, wanted to ensure we understood that the horse’s health came first and they allowed the vet to determine if he would be okay to compete.

John explained that this was the type of thing that once it got straightened out there were no side effects other than him being tired. Laura added, “I made it very clear that in no way am I going to take my horse if there are any repercussions. That horse is too valuable to me. It was just the kind of thing that once you got the intestines to go back where they belong everything returns to normal.”