mary macgregor

In the fall of 1986, I received a call from Alan Metzler, director of our local zoo. He was looking for a new veterinarian to help with the medical well-being of the zoo’s animals. Bringing him from the San Diego Zoo, the City of Atascadero hired Alan to upgrade their small zoo. The ultimate goal was to have it accredited with the AZA, The Association of Zoos and Aquariums. He needed to improve much of the physical plant and to have a more comprehensive medical oversight in place. Once accredited, we could qualify for new areas of funding, and be allowed to trade animals with other zoos.

Nancy and I stayed a strong couple for almost half a year. She accompanied me when I left my apartment and moved to the country. I’d gone on a horse call to Oak Country Ranch, and after exclaiming to Donna, the owner of the place I thought it was beautiful, asked if I’d like to live there. She had a vacancy in a trailer on her property and was looking for a tenant. I jumped at the opportunity and Nancy helped me move into our new digs. However, something dimmed my image of the woman sleeping next to me when I was swayed by Laurie, a horsewoman I met during my final days at Dr. Brant’s. Similar to Nancy Laurie possessed the criteria I required to seek out a meaningful relationship: she was pretty, and she was attracted to me. But… Laurie held out a big carrot. She wanted to develop a horse center with an arena where she and her friends practiced roping. And she offered to build a vet clinic on the property. My enamoration with Nancy evaporated as I focused on the next important step in my career. Laurie became my next Jenny Lynn. True to her promise, Laurie built a two-story place next to the arena. I’d rent the downstairs as a vet clinic while Linda, Laurie’s trainer rented the upstairs. Laurie became my office manager. I asked Nancy to move out while Laurie and I had a brief and torrid affair despite the fact she was married with two kids. When this new relationship dissolved I rekindled my relationship with Nancy but remained unsettled as to future marriage prospects. Then a famous singer, Mary Macgregor came into my gun sites.

Today I’m sharing my experiences as a horse vet monitoring magnificently conditioned horses as they compete across breath-taking landscapes on long distance races of 25, 50 and 100 miles. Called Endurance Rides, these contests require a combination of physical stamina and mental alertness between the horse and rider over a long period of time. The horse and rider are a team, and the challenge is to complete the course with a horse that is fit to continue. One rider sums up the experience: “A good rider does not ask of the horse more than is necessary for victory. He knows what his horse is capable of. He knows the horse’s strengths, he can see and assess his opponents during races, and change his riding tactic in an instant during a critical moment.” Although the altruistic nature of a loving and experienced rider brings honesty to the ride the fact remains these riders do overstress their horses, sometimes with deadly consequences. That’s where vets come in. Horses are checked by qualified veterinarians and judges before, during, and after the ride. During each ride are set hold times, which vary in duration from a simple gate-and-go to one-hour rest holds. During these holds, the equine's physical and metabolic parameters are checked. The horse must pass the exam in order to continue on the course. Each horse must also pass a post-ride exam in order to receive credit for completing the course.

My next chapter describes our backtracking trip in the California high sierras. The trip was in the middle of summer, yet we were glad we packed an ice axe otherwise we'd never make it over Lamarck Glacier into Evolution Valley, a prehistoric place one expected to see dinosaurs. I'd never hiked to a higher attitude than I did when Martha and I took our brothers and sisters on an eight-day backpacking trip over Lamarck Col into Darwin Canyon and Evolution Valley. Gigantic boulders were strewn haphazardly along the desolate side of the glaciered col. The canyon we hiked into was called Darwin Canyon. Darwin Canyon flowed into Evolution Valley. The canyon and valley were aptly named. I fully expected to see dinosaurs grazing on the meager grasses of this treeless place.

With the increased income from my x-ray technician job Martha and I moved from her apartment into our own rental, a cottage on the Newport Beach bluffs where I found time to scuba dive. I’d meet up with a buddy, and we’d drive to our diving spot. Usually parking on the bluffs 50 feet above the water, we'd change into our wetsuits, strap our weight belts around our waist and jiggle heavy oxygen cylinders onto our back. Holding our masks, snorkels, fins, and other diving gear in our hands we’d carefully descend the cliffs to the beach. On the packed sand at the water’s edge we’d ready our equipment. After strapping our fins to our feet, we adjusted our masks, turned on the oxygen delivery system and walked backwards into the waves, step-by-step until we were neck deep. Then we’d turn around ready for the dive. Placing the regulators in our mouths we gave each other the a-ok signal with our hands and flippered our way into the watery depths.

I found a studio apartment available after September first, so I put in a deposit. After my disastrous bike trip, I had just a few days to move things from Martha’s house to my little place in town, ready to begin a new school year. My final year of vet school began with Equine Reproduction and Equine Surgery specialties. I was scheduled for overnight duty in the barns as part of my rotation where I met a pretty brunette junior student named Debbie, assigned to assist me on medication rounds.

Putting the Suzanne debacle behind me, I developed a relationship with Martha, another pre-veterinary student attending UC Irvine, and moved into her apartment during my senior year at UCI. Following graduation, I took a full-time position as the x-ray technician at Grand Avenue Pet Hospital. It was a great opportunity. Being an x-ray tech at an animal hospital would look great on my vet school application. And I was lucky to land the position despite the fact I had no qualifications for the job nor any previous experience with an x-ray machine. My learning experience was a hands-on approach where learning to take x-rays was a hit or miss affair.