Another member of the Lame Horse Club

I may have to go on a work trip next week, but I had PLANS. I was going to ride hard this week and get back on track. My fitness has been slipping and that was going to change, dammit. When I got back from the trip, I was going have plenty of time to really work my butt off and I was going to attend my next HT on Sep 15! It is a facility that we haven't ever gone to, and I was super nervous about going without schooling first so my plan was to go XC schooling there this past Sunday. #Plans #Fail

Not the ideal pics of your horse from the barn, BRUISE!!

So of course Mia then walked up for Friday's dinner on 3 legs. Because of course she did. Due to some large equipment going through her paddock, some new rocks have been churned up and apparently she found a big one. She has a really ugly stone bruise and was very reluctant to put weight on her heel. We gave her bute, I put poultice on her and then let her hang in a pasture on Saturday. On Sunday she got AM bute, not PM because she was walking well enough, but then Monday she was 3 legged again. *sigh*

Scaley bit with scratch/puncture. Bruise on left heel

More bute was dispensed and when I went out last night, her leg had blown up enough that you couldn't even tell where her fetlock started. I found two small punctures and possibly a scrape scab on her heel after cold hosing. She REALLY didn't want me touching her outside heel bulb, it is extremely soft and squishy. It feels about the same as the underside of your forearm, versus the fleshy part of your thumb, so I suspect is now trying to abscess on top of the bruise.

She got some more bute and we went on a "trail walk", as we hand walked around the hay field for some movement. The indoor was stuffy and there was a breeze outside, a better option indeed for some controlled movement. When we got back, her leg had reduced it's well by about 25%! She got more cold hosing, a bunch of treats, and shoved into a dry lot to let her hang out. Today the barn reports she is walking better and while her leg is puffy, it isn't huge. #Win

Two scratches, can't see the bruise on the right heel

With her being lame and not being able to go schooling last weekend, my current "Plan B" is a dressage fix-a-text on Sep 15 and then go into the jumper divisions of a H/J show on Sep 22. I do want to to XC schooling again, there is another HT on Oct 6 and I REALLY want to make it to that one!

The last update I have is that I have set a date, I will be putting App down on Sep 27 at 4p. There was a back and forth on dates between the vet who can't do weekends and the excavator, who will bury him, who can only do weekends, so that is the current compromise. I will definitely be there and will be feeding him apples as he goes. The next month will be hard, but I am making the best of it for him. I made a prescription for him, he is to have as many apple/carrots as necessary per day for a Happy Appy. I am buying 10lb of carrots and 8lb of apples at a time for his prescription :) I am also skipping his farrier appointment this weekend, he is having a hard time holding his legs up for any period of time and I'm not going to force the issue. If his toes get overgrown by 4 weeks, that's not the worst thing in the world. I have my own rasp if he tells me he REALLY needs to have his toes done.

Happy Appy is happy with his new prescription!

Until then, positive thoughts! Mia is going to recover from her bruise ASAP so we can get back to fitness and App is going to remain fairly comfortable until he passes. Hopefully things are going better for your horses!

It's coming :(

The plan for App has been in place since March, when we made the extraordinary effort to get him through until spring. If he couldn't be comfortable when spring arrived, I would put him down. We made it through winter and into spring. And while he is still gimpy, he was moving pretty decently. He then started to lose weight after the spring grass turned into mature summer grass, but changing up his weight supplements AGAIN seemed to do the trick. He is within 100lbs of a good weight and is in excellent spirits.

He is maintained on Buteless pellets, 30k units of MSM, and Equioxx daily with 10g of acetaminophen as needed. He also gets a bi-monthly injection of Pentosan and a monthly injection of Polyglycan. He ends up with a dose every week or two of acetaminophen, overall things are fairly good. He gets a shot of Banamine on top of that for his farrier appointments. The guy is drugged up, for sure. He also gets a massage once a month, bc why not. It does help him loosen up. $$$$

When he got his massage 2 weeks ago, all seemed well. The therapist didn't notice anything odd, and I didn't see anything amiss that night. The next day, I got a text from the barn manager that he was really uncomfortable in his hind end and the barn was giving him his acetaminophen. On Saturday am, I got another that he was really walking weird and was still really uncomfortable. They dosed him again with acetaminophen and I made my way to the barn. When I got there, he was walking really weird in his hind end and being unsteady.

I called the vet out and App was diagnosed with a probable pelvic fracture. A bone scan would confirm, but really there is no point in considering testing since I can't even trailer him. A rectal exam confirmed it at least isn't a clear break, and it is likely a stress fracture from getting up and down so much. He gets up and down  If it was a clear break, I would have put him down because then he would be at even more risk for Really Bad Things.

The solution for a pelvic fracture is 100% stall rest, including the inability to lay down. Basically have the horse live in cross ties for 3-6 months and hope it doesn't drive their mind insane. Which is the absolute opposite solution when including his shoulder injury since he can't stand for 12 hours, let alone 24. That doesn't even consider the fact of the less he walks, the worse he moves.

The plan is to try to keep him comfortable and then put him down. The vet said that even with a stress fracture, putting him down isn't something I have to do right now and that he still looks to be in good condition both mentally and physically. The barn gives me almost daily updates, and I have stressed repeatedly that if he is having a difficult time, I am going to make that call. For now, he has a bag of carrots and apples for people to dispense at their leisure. He is doing well enough. On his bad days, he has balance issues (the vet says their balance comes from their hind end, so when it is awry, he can look neurological and could be a fall risk) and can't walk in a straight line. On his good days, he just has a wonky walk. He is still getting up and laying down regularly and will still trot after something/someone when he wants to.

So far, he has only had 1-2 bad days per week, this being the 2nd week of having the fracture. The plan is to have him buried at the farm next to another old horse that he babysat for about a year who had to be put down last year. I am ready enough to do it at any time, though this is going to kill me. I've had this guy for 25 years now, we've been through everything together. I used to threaten my SO that App was here before him, and App would be here after him, but that isn't going to be true anymore and that guts me. But I REALLY don't want App to go when he is in pain so the plan is to put him down the last weekend of Sept at the latest. I have some business trips in Oct and Nov that will pull me away and I don't want that something to happen while I am gone. The end of Summer seems fitting, so I am showering him with love as much as I can now.

Check this out - video!

It took a while to get everything set up, but I finally got it together with the help of SO. I have some helmet cam! Wonder what it is like to jump over something pretty damn big and it doesn't feel like....anything? Well now you can. Introducing the Mia4000.

This is a super cool video bc it was the only video SO took of the entire schooling ride and it was the most perfect jump. You can see it from both the saddle and from the ground. But look at the helmet video. It doesn't even look like she JUMPS. There is no big effort, no big elevation in my height, it is just be bopping around until I am on the other side. She can jump y'all. She can really jump.

I have even more, I have 1.5 HOURS of helmet cam video to edit down. Let's see if I can do it before this post goes up ;)

Training Level Horse Trail debut - Check!

After getting up at the ungodly early time of 230a, I left the barn with MR at 445a. I had forgotten they made one of those, a 230a to wake up to. I mean, I've seen a 230a to go to sleep to, but to wake up to? Totally not appropriate.

Note all pics are taken during the XC schooling, not during the show

The drive down was uneventful, which was nice. It was already 70 with high humidity, but at least the sun wasn't beating down! It got up to 90 degrees by the time BN was starting.

The dressage test was decent! There were comments like "tightness in the back" and "Needs rounder connection", but I expected them.

All the knees

The pluses? Mia was pretty good! I am really happy with her work except the stretching trot and freewalk, in which she did not stretch down for either. Usually she drops down quickly bc it is her reward, weird that she didn't for either part.

All the trots

The negatives? Uh....her rider was horrible. Again. I don't know what it is about her rider, but she really needs to step it up or give it up. I went off course in the dressage course. *sigh* Yes, again. At least in dressage this time so it was only 2 points and not 4. #progress

Max Splashes

I didn't ask for much in the canter lengthenings. The trot lengthening was nailed for going faster more than lengthened. I could have pushed for more points, but the actual forgetting of my course apparently threw me enough that I didn't push.

XC schooling

I really need to get over this "forgetting my course" phase. This is not cool.

Jump 1

The stadium was the 2nd ride and it went double clear. She was sticky to the first couple of fences, which as weird. I thought I had her set up properly, but she wasn't crisp and actually hit a pole on the first jump.

Jump 2

We were super lucky in that the pole stayed up, and she made sure to not touch any poles after that. The rest of the course rode so cleanly and fast, I looked and counted when I passed the start/finish because I wondered if I missed a jump.

Jump 5

I was even tempted to ask the judge if I was clean, but figured they would have blown their whistle if there was a problem. Much better than the show for the Combined Test a few months ago!

Jump 6

Last was cross country. I was beyond happy that we had been schooling the weekend prior, the first 12 jumps on course were ones we had practiced over! We walked straight from stadium to the other side of the property for cross country. I was disappointed that there were no warmup fences for XC. Not a single XC fence to get the juices flowing, nor a stadium fence.

Jump 7

Next time I will def ask if I could school jump 1 of the BN fence. We jumped stadium, gave them a 15-20 min hack and immediately go jump T fences? Give me something to get things going again people!

Jump 8

Mia was actually sticky to the fences again?! Normally she locks onto XC fences and drags me to them, and while she wasn't really TRYING to run out, she was adding strides or drifting for about half of the fences. Fences 1/2 she was sticky at. Fence 4 she couldn't figure out how to canter in a straight line, but locked on about 4 strides away. Fence 5 she drifted enough I was actually afraid we would have a run out, but she jumped the bench very honestly, as well as the 2 stride bench of 6 after it.

Jump 9

We trotted down a very rocky path, since she didn't have shoes, before going over 7 and up the bank of 8 and the table of 9. Looking back, we should have galloped to 10, but I thought we had plenty of time. 10 was great, as was 11 into the water.

Jump 10

A sharp 180 degree turn and we went down the steps of 12 and over the trakehner of 13. 14 was a rolltop at the bottom of a hill and Mia dropped to a trot, she wasn't super happy to go down the hill but jumped beautifully once we she got to the rolltop. We galloped back up the hill before coming back to a canter and over the Training level half coffin. Which Mia did BEAUTIFULLY!!!!

I will forever be grateful that my barn has this unfinished ditch that we practiced over for every ride until she stopped caring about ditches. #Win At this point, I realized we were going to have time faults and let her fly. Mia flat out galloped that last 2 fences and took them beautifully. We still ended up with 5 points of time faults. Womp womp.

Put it in the bank! Mia loves banks!

I bet myself up pretty good on the walk back, but got Mia iced and cooled down in no time. If I could figure out how to properly keep my head in the game at a show, I knew we could do better. And time faults? Since when do we have time faults!?

When they posted the preliminary results, my jaw dropped. We went from last place of 5th to 2nd place. OMG. We made up HUGE points during the jumping and XC phase, and not a single horse had gone double clear in XC! Someone did challenge their XC score so I ended up 3rd of 5, but still. OMG! We did it. We actually did it. We successfully finished our debut in Training Level, and did so in a manner I was proud of.

Could things be better? Sure. I don't know why Mia wasn't locking onto all of the jumps, but she sure did at the end of XC. She literally drug me to the last 3 fences and I was just a passenger.

She got a good solid 3 days off to relax and hang out before having a quick hack. We were then part of the "OMG We are dying" heat and humidity over the weekend, so she got 2 more days off. And then last night was the farrier. The farrier was there late enough that I didn't ride, but let Mia run around and she looked fabulous. I won't be able to go out tonight #lifeproblems but I will be riding tomorrow.

Snacks are a requirement. At all times. Snacks.

Time to get going again. I am toying with the idea of another HT next month, and if not in Sept. I want to get this figured out so we can stop having these stupid mistakes!

3rd place baby! 

And stay tuned, I have even more goodies for you.

We did a thing, and we did it.

My word how time flies. I had big plans to do massive blogging and they all fell flat. So a recap, yet again. Even numbered this time!

1. I went to England! It was for work, so half of the time was not mine, but I had tacked a few days onto the end of the trip and I am really glad I did. Going to see the Tamworth castle built in the 1200's, having a proper afternoon tea (which includes food!), taking a canal tour in the city that has more canals than Venice, visiting a "50 years of Black Sabbath" exhibit, and taking the train were the highlights. Going through Customs/Immigration to go into the UK was a weird experience. I legit didn't realize we were doing it until they stamped my passport. It took less than 30 seconds. I can honestly say the experience to get back into the US was NOT the same. #BarneyFifesEverywhere

2. I had two days to get back in shape after I landed because I had a lesson on the 6th. That was fun, trying to fight the jet lag. #Tiredfordays The lesson went pretty well. I was told I was 100% wrong, twice. (turns out, she was right too) That apparently *I* am the reason Mia falls in and drops her shoulders at times, not her. I am also not currently allowed to use my inside rein if my right hand is holding it. Yeah, big rider fail, I am pulling it WAY to much. She also said I am riding better, but I am still riding to a pattern and it is obvious when I am riding my test. And I also have legs of iron.  When I take my legs "off", apparently I am still using my legs which is the opposite problem of most people. *sigh* The homework until she comes back is to work on a better, consistent connection which will come if I stop pulling with my right hand and stop driving so much with my legs. Hmm.

3. The very next day we hauled out and went XC schooling. I had high goals of doing the Training level HT, but to do that I needed to go over some actual Training level fences and questions. There are only 2 Training level size logs in the "course" my barn has, and that won't do when I need more variety, so a good 2+ hour drive to go schooling it is!
Schooling went excellent despite the temperature. We had the opportunity to go over a lot of jumps that were not set up the last time we were there. Each time I got a little intimidated by something, I stopped looking at it and that seemed to be the solution. I can't worry about their size when I don't see them! And it works because Mia hops over them like they are literally a little BN fence.

4. After the great schooling, I pulled the trigger. We entered our first ever Training level Horse Trial! There was a period of time in which I wouldn't have anyone with me, as SO was out of town and no one else was available, however MR from the barn stepped up when she heard I was going alone and got up at god-awful in the AM to go with us. The week leading up to the show was an intense, ride every day, whirlwind as we struggled to get back to the place we were before our 1.5 week sabbatical while I was in England.



So here is your obligatory cliff hanger! How was the show? Did we finish on a number or a letter? Did the rider go off course again? Stay tuned to find out!

Motoring along

There hasn't been an awful lot going on, but I still feel like I should keep up on blogging as to not let it lapse like last time. I'm trying to be a good blogger anyway! We took almost 2 weeks off from riding due to the car race over Memorial Day weekend and then it absolutely poured rain for a full week when we got back. Some days we were getting a full inch of rain a day. That's....not helpful for anyone. The road to the barn was blocked by a down tree at one point, the state route washed out, without a horse trial to look forward to, I simply just didn't care.

It didn't help that when we got home from the race, we found one of our 3 yr old cats had died. Very sudden, he was still curled up in his cat bed in our bedroom but had hemorrhaged. And had been that way for a few days. It was a mess to clean up and hell to get rid of the smell. I was very much in grieve mode for almost a week. Poor guy, at least I take comfort that it was quick because he hadn't tried to hide and was sleeping exactly like he normally does when it happened.

Mia has been fairly good! She actually held her fitness while I was gone, I think part of it is the new pasture they are in. There is a huge 6+ acre pasture "over the hill" that was rarely used because no one wanted to walk up and down the big hill to feed and get horses. I had tried for 2 summers to move my horses down there, but was told no because there wasn't adequate shelter. This year, the barn owner I get along with put up temporary fencing and ran a lane from a dry lot down to that pasture. She put her 2 pasture board horses and my 2 in there and it has been the perfect scenario. App is out with 3 mares, they are on/have access to grass 24x7, they have shelter, and App is doing well with going up and down the hill (which isn't as steep as the path we would walk up and down).

Despite better judgement, my first ride after the 2 week hiatus was a XC jump school over the half dozen jumps on the farm. Why? Bc I had capacity and the ground was decent. Mia held it together pretty well, considering, however I think it was maybe a good thing I didn't try that Training level HT? She was...ahem...a little strong LOL! I have zero media since I was alone (well, there was someone AT the barn, but not with me), but I was happy.

From there, we started working on fitness and this week I did our first canter fitness in the fields. She listened well at first, though after the second move up to a gallop, she refused to come back to a canter and I ended up running her into bushes because I refused to yank on her face until she stopped. Bad mare! We ended up doing 2 5-min canter sets, a 10 min trot set and random other canter/trot transitions until would drop into a lower gear when asked via my seat and position. Needless to say, she was a very tired mare when we were done!

We did have a good dressage ride last week, Mia needed reminded that she did have to listen if I wasn't wearing spurs but did try for most of the ride. I'm so happy that even if she has some time off, she is remembering her dressage and isn't falling backwards like she did even last year. Progress indeed!

I am going to England on a short vacation until July 3 so I am missing 3 shows that I had penciled in. The next Horse Trial is tentatively July 14, and I am pretty sure we will enter as a Training HT. Sure, we haven't done any real training level jumps, and sure I probably won't be able to school before that, but if I don't actually go, I may not end up doing it all this year and that is going to be a whole other level of disappointing.

The show that wasn't

I was super excited to go cross country schooling to put Mia over some larger fences and to make the final decision on whether I could put her in her first ever Training level horse trial, or if I should bump down to Novice for the first HT of the season. Decisions, decisions. On one hand, I KNOW we could do it. Mia's dressage is really good (when her rider does the crap that needs done) right now. Our jumping is very good too, I have successfully fixed my brain (I think anyway) and I don't have anxiety when looking at a 3'3" jump. Our fitness is just about where it needs to be, and we were ready to go. The concern? Why did I want this litmus test? Because we haven't done a horse trial in a long while. Last year's show season was basically non-existent due to the weather and schedule, I never went XC schooling at all last year. Would it really be FAIR to put Mia out so...unprepared?

On Saturday we started with the farrier. App was not helpful, as discussed in the last post. Thanks to him, I was about 25 mins later getting out than I wanted but it worked out well enough. I was SO lucky to have the daughter of one of the boarders be willing to come and be a ground person. SO was out of town and I could find no one else who wanted to haul down. The fact she was willing to just come and walk around? I was so extremely grateful.

We made it in about 2 hours and the ground was oh so wet. Not as wet as when I was there a few weeks ago for the CT show, but pretty damn close. In addition to being extremely wet, there were no large jumps set up at all. The cross country fences were still stacked in storage and the only jumps set out were some starter/BN jumps. I was annoyed because I had emailed the facility before I came to ensure they were open, advising I wanted to school Training fences to prep for the show. When they responded, they didn't say a word about there not being any Training fences up for me to practice over. Grrr.

We jumped everything set out. We also found the 3 biggest, permanent fences in the entire park and jumped them too. She is such a good mare. The biggest, which I suspect may be a Prelim fence, she was hesitant going up to it, but after jumping, she was every eager and forward. She just needed that confidence builder, apparently, and I threw it at her towards the beginning of our ride lol. She was such a good mare, she only biffed a fence once because she wasn't listening. She tapped the log and it rolled off of its stand. It was also water logged and had NO chance of going back up, even with the 2 of us trying to lift it. Oops...

I came away from the schooling confident we could probably do Training level, but now I had a bigger concern. The footing was horrible, really horrible. I wasn't able to gallop a single time because the entire grounds were swampy/in standing water. I really don't want to chance going at speed towards Training level fences if I don't have to. And then it rained for 2 days straight, plus off an on again during the week up to the show. The last time I rode in super crappy weather at a show, spring 2014, while it rained the ENTIRE DAY, the footing was actually fairly solid. And we won first place! There was no solid footing here, everything was squishy and waterlogged.

In the end, I couldn't do it. I really, REALLY wanted last weekend to be our first ever Training Horse Trial. There was only one other horse entered in Training and while they went double clear, they had a 38 in dressage. I think I could have beaten the score. I could have won our first ever Training Hose Trail. But the more I debated it, I realized if I am struggling this much, it is obvious I KNOW the footing is dangerous and it isn't worth it. So I didn't enter.

I need to try to find another show, I am traveling in June which eliminates the next Horse Trial. There is a jumper show in mid-June I may try because it is close. I am super disappointed that I didn't go, but I know it was the right choice. And that's all that really matters, right?