What's Up Wednesday

 

Heh... I forgot it was Wednesday. Sorry for the late post! We're settling into winter life at the boarding barn, and it's been going pretty well. It's nice to have people to talk to seasonally. Anyway, let's chat ponies!

Sometimes the kiddos wind up in the same turnout group. 
Al on the left Shiny on the right.

Al is feeling great soundness wise, so that's exciting! He had a training ride last Wednesday, just on the flat. He's going to start jumping next week. It was a good ride for him. Trainer did a lot of kicking him forward and honestly, he really needed that. I prefer to stay the good cop. Let trainer people be the bad cop, ya know? He has been sulky off my leg which I 100% allowed to happen while he was sore, because I felt guilty kicking him on when he was hurting. SOMEONE took advantage of my kindness. Ahem... Al. Anyway, he's moving nice and forward now! He's still a real a-hole about the far end of the indoor though. If you recall, this was also an issue last year. I was hoping he'd forget about it having not been there for six months. Alas. He did not. On the warm days, when the doors are open, he's more or less fine. But the rest of the time, he's ridiculously spooky. I came VERY close to eating dirt on Sunday, but managed to stick on somehow. I'm confident this will level out at least a little once he's back to jumping and doing fun things. I think he's really bored and he finds spinning to be very entertaining. Damn kids. I'm calling this the Seven Year Spooks and am hoping very hard it's just a phase. He's getting another butt kicking training ride tomorrow for good measure though. I have back to back lessons in the morning again, so I figured that was a good day to give up one of my rides. I still love him immensely, and I KNOW he's the horse for me. But this road is a lil' bumpy right now. 

Eros has been great too! We have had two lessons so far. A jumping lesson last Thursday and he did a flat lesson Tuesday. Torpedo Eros made an appearance for our jumping lesson, but it was Torpedo-light, fortunately. Like he got kind of excited after the fences, but he was willing to come back fairly quickly. I had contemplated letting him have a free lunge before the lesson, but at the last minute thought it wasn't necessary. Lesson learned. He'll have one tomorrow morning. Friday he got to see the vet, which I was really happy about. I had him on the list, but as a late addition I wasn't sure if we'd fit into this appointment. But we did! Doc agreed with me that the hind end is doing well, and really the front end wasn't terrible either. But we did agree that there was a stiffness up there that we could maybe improve. We decided to inject the shoulders, and then we'll reevaluate if he needs neck too. I like this approach. My vet doesn't get overly injection happy and try to do everything at once. He likes to see if one thing helps before jumping to the next. 

In addition to injecting the shoulders, doc also pumped them. Have you heard of this? Because I had not. And guys. It's WEIRD. He literally pumps air in the shoulder.

Ignore that blue light on Eros' chest, it's just a reflection. 

So yeah, he pumps all this air into the shoulder, then he literally pushes it all around the shoulder area, up toward his neck and back toward the withers, and down toward his leg. It's supposed to help release the fascia. Super weird, and kinda icky. But between doing this and and the injections, Eros is feeling amazing! He had Saturday off and a tack walk Sunday. Monday was off because the barn is closed, and then back to full regular work Tuesday. As I mentioned earlier we had a flat lesson Tuesday and he felt incredible. The trot just has this fluidity to it that I'm not sure I've ever felt on him. He's still a little locked up in his neck and a bit crooked, but probably that's something the body worker can help with. But back to his feeling amazing. You guys. The canter! It was so uphill! And BIG! I'm not sure how this will bode for jumping... But for flatting it feels incredible. Very exciting. I've never had vet work change a horse this much. We'll see if it lasts. But for now, I'm fully enjoying it! We jump again tomorrow, so wish me luck that I can keep this canter at 12 feet.

Her new hobby of coating herself in mud is not so great.

Shiny has been wonderful too. I mean, yeah, we still have that inconsistent contact that has plagued us forever. But she's actually moving forward pretty nicely and hasn't been terribly mare-ish. We had a great lesson last week. We didn't do a ton since I really wanted her to see the vet before we push too much. She warmed up really nicely, and it was great having some eyes on the ground to help me some with the contact issues. My trainer agreed with me that we're probably looking at a vet issue, so we didn't press it too much. Then we moved on to some trot poles and she was really great through them. She's very smart with those I have to admit. Then we popped over some single fences and finally strung together a little course. The jumps were small, mostly little crossrails and one or two small verticals. She was great. She walked right down the line, didn't spook at the flowers, nor overjump the square poles. She even landed most of her leads, and the ones she didn't, she was speedy with her simple changes. I couldn't have asked for more from her. 

She was also able to see the vet Friday. She was actually somewhat positive on some of her flexions which was interesting, because normally those tell us nothing with her. We discussed her lyme counts and decided before doing anything else we would start her on doxy and reassess after she's been on it for a few weeks. Doc and I both think she likely does need some injections, but we want to wait and see how much improvement there is with the doxy treatment first. Lyme does some crazy stuff and joint stiffness is a major symptom. So starting there. 

That's the majority of what I've been up to over here! ALL PONIES ALL THE TIME! Living my best life over here. The tack sale on Facebook is going great, thanks to so many of you for buying my stuff! I have some friends stopping over for in person shopping later this week and I'm hoping they like lots of things! 

I did take some time for a non horsey fun thing this week too! My dad is back in Florida so he isn't using his season tickets at the theatre. Aladdin is showing now, so I took myself to see it on Wednesday. My dad told me about the tickets kind of last minute, so everyone I asked was busy. I'm not one to shy away from doing things alone, so I went to the show by myself. It was totally worth going. The guy playing the genie was incredible and totally stole the show. Of course Aladdin and Jasmine are the stars... but it was all Genie this show. If it comes to your area, definitely check it out!

Did you guys have a good week/weekend? Do anything fun and exciting?