princess level 5000

Guys. Hi. My name is Emma and I am legitimately neurotic. Would you like me to count the ways? No?? Well ha, joke’s on you — it’s my blog + my rules!

pretty mare <3

Ahem. Anyway. This mare. I swear to god. Obviously her first ~30 days with me was a bit rocky, but since then she’s basically been Ms Reliability (physically - that’s saying NOTHING about the chaos engine between her ears!).

apparently i arrived at nap o’clock

But this winter has not been good — we’ve been running into this same weird on-again / off-again NQR-ness since she bruised her hoof on a nasty ice ball back in January.

And here’s where my neurotic paranoia comes in: Doozy has ALWAYS been sound (except, again, for the first 30 days). But now that Charlie is gone…. are all my weird vibes settling onto a new target, manifesting in yet another presentation of iffy feet?????

Realistically… No lol. But still… What the heck is going on here?

sleepy biscuit didn’t want me giving her cookies away!

Obviously I’m a big believer in marshaling the troops, assembling the tribe, bringing in the big guns etc. So we did a lameness eval, for which naturally Doozy declined to show the vet what I’m feeling (even tho I rode her daily leading up to the appt to explicitly avoid that scenario ugh). 

But my vet was confident anyway: Give her time. Be Patient. Bruises can take awhile esp when the feet are in winter dormancy. 

saddle fitter called this post-ride squishy bump a “capillary occlusion”

MEANWHILE on a parallel track. I’d already started sensing Doozy needed a saddle reflock, and in fact had checked in with the local County rep about pricing out some sort of high frequency maintenance schedule, bc apparently every 6 months isn’t sufficient for this mare. 

And I’d noticed Doozy would get this squishy lump in the same spot under her saddle after a ride. Looking at the panels, it seems like the wool has shifted a bit leaving a gap right around that point. The saddle was barely used when I bought it, tho it’s a few years old — so maybe it’s normal for new-ish saddles to have the wool shift so much? Idk. 

she suggested using a half pad until our upcoming appointment

The fitter said the areas of the panel closest to the spine are the first to need flocking maintenance, and told me to add a half pad to protect the area until our appointment. NBD. 

proof that doozy did eventually achieve mounting block manners

But! So. My neuroses. It really bugged me that the mare would feel good one day, and less good the next. To me, that’s kinda a red flag type dealio. Again, have fully discussed with my vet (including a lamenesss exam — please don’t flame me, guys). 

So I set up my wall camera yesterday to finally get some footage to send to the vet so she could see what I meant.

strut strut!!

Except…. Uh…. Doozy was sound again. Better than sound, her back was soft and she was strutting. Even tho we’ve been stuck back in the indoor this week bc of wet outdoor conditions. 

She had been sound two days prior after a week off. Then lame the next day, but then sound again this day — with the newly added half pad.

that’s it for media lol, i chose a bad wall location and ya know… it’s still just blurry and brown LOL

Is it really truly possible that the lameness was actually from the sore spot on her back? That would get progressively more sore after consecutive days of riding?? 

#MustLoveDogs

Like I know she’s a sensitive red head and all that, but damn, that seems sliiiiiiightly excessive. 

ariat ascents from bogotack (Fair Hill Saddlery’s overstock online store). cool? or too weird?

We’ll see, I guess lol. I kept the ride short anyway - just a little bit of trot in each direction and no canter… Per vet’s orders etc… But it’s always an exciting feeling these days when the mare trots so well. Bc damn I am so tired of not being able do all the things right now.

so fond of this critter, and so ready to get this season started!!!

Patience is a virtue, they say. C’est la vie!, they say. They might be assholes, imho haha. But, ya know, if the issue ends up being the saddle needing flocking, that would be pretty cool lol. That’s a very fixable thing! And if our original hypothesis about it just being a bruise that’s slow to grow out on winter feet… Eh, that’s fine too. 

Hope springs eternal (but please, universe, don’t take that too literally!)…