What's Up Wednesday

 

We had some major weather swings last week which interfered some with any training plans I may have had. The week started out with temps in the upper 90's and very high humidity. While I still rode the horses, I didn't work them especially hard, and we made sure to take walk breaks. They both do well in hot weather and sweat well, but the humidity is hard on them. Especially Eros, I'm a little more careful with him. As a result, I pushed our usual Wednesday jump school to Thursday when it was supposed to be cooler. Eros was a bit of a freight train when we finally got to jump, and the majority of his session was spent trotting raised cavalletti on a figure 8. Once he softened, we repeated the exercise at the canter. One he was soft doing that, we called it a day. Photos from the freight train portion of our ride. At least he jumped relatively well while dragging me around like a small child.

Shiny was great to jump, albeit on the lazy side of the spectrum. I had to really work to get her moving forward, but once she got there, she was pretty great. 

We're still working on holding her shape, I think that's going to take some time. But she's gotten a lot straighter, and I also think she's better about bending in through the turns. I'm not sure what it is with ponies, but they all come out of the womb wanting to fall in and look out... Ponies! 

Friday I got Eros worked, but the rain came and I wound up letting Shiny have a day off. I will ride in the rain, but it was absolutely pouring and I wasn't into it. She wouldn't have been either. Since she was off Friday, I didn't want to jump her again on Saturday, but we had a nice flat that day, and then Sunday she enjoyed Sunday Funday. I did make her walk, trot, and canter lightly (bareback in a sidepull) before we went for a wander though. She doesn't need a walk only day in addition to her bonus day off in the same week. Eros didn't really get a second jump school either, but we did do the cavalletti on the figure 8 again on Sunday just to see if it took. He was pretty good, definitely softer than he'd been earlier in the week. 

Yesterday, after Monday off, Eros was a spooky mess. I'm blaming it on the fireworks at night. I think he was just a little edgy from that, and the neighbor was making all kinds of weird noises while we were trying to ride. We wound up staying on half the ring and got some work done. But it wasn't much of a good ride. I was proud of him for keeping his poo together for the most part though. I'll let him have a little free lunge before we ride today. Maybe that will help.  Shiny was actually really good yesterday though. She did test early on by not cantering when I asked her. But Mr. Tappy had a chat with her, and she didn't put a hoof wrong after that. We'll see what we have today!

Pammon switched fields last week, which I think I already mentioned here. He now has the ladies in the field next to him, and a couple of other buddies on the other side at night too. He's loving having more friends around!

Sunday I finally had a lesson with Bellino. It went pretty well. He was REALLY unmotivated on the flat and took a ton of leg. A TON. (And I own Shiny remember...) He was more forward once we started jumping and was a very good boy for that. The jumps were little bitty ones so we could ease back into things which was nice. He's a little bit of a weird ride so it was less stressful figuring him out knowing he could walk over what we were jumping. He's off to a horse show next week, so I'm not sure if I'll ride him again this weekend or not. We'll see. 

As for Artie... I don't have all the results back from his tests yet, but we believe he has lymphoma. Without treatment the prognosis is only a couple months. With treatment, maybe up to a year, but that's very much dependent on what the tests say. With his heart failure and age, I'm not sure putting him through chemo will be the right thing to do for him. Once his results are back I'll meet with an oncologist and ask all the questions. Decisions will be made at that point about the best course for Artie's quality of life. For now, he doesn't seem to know anything is wrong and is going about his life the same as always. I may or may not have ordered a dog stroller to take him on walks though.... He hasn't been able to go for real walks since his heart failure diagnosis because he gets too winded. But he loves to go out and see the sights. So hopefully he'll like the stroller. 

Needless to say, I have put on hold any thoughts of going away to any horse shows. I need to spend time here with Artie this summer. Maybe we'll get to a one day or two but showing really ins't a priority for me right now anymore. 

So that's where we are. Plugging along! How was your week and weekend?