trial balloons

The last month or so has been more or less universally consumed by other non-horsey realms of my life, so…. in the grand scheme of things, Doozy picked a pretty good time to have an existential lameness crisis. 

I’m too occupied by other things to spiral about her, and — in fact, maybe the extra time off better aligns with my hopes of keeping her going for the long term.

sometimes we ride in jeans and paddock boots. doozy == not impressed

Not that she didn’t give me reasons to spiral, naturally. She is who she is, after all. Poor mare was completely crippled, lame at the walk, and extra touchy / spooky in the immediate week or two after getting hind shoes. She definitely needed some space and time to make that adjustment. 

Presumably, it’s just the changes in geometry etc that she reacted to — nothing was specifically wrong, like a hot nail or anything like that. So ya know. Maybe that’s a good reminder for myself that even “common” adjustments to the mare’s physical experience can have big impacts on her sensitive self.

an attempt at lunging was made. those nostrils omg

My vet and I also talked about doing a trial month (or three) of Equioxx too. That particular medicine made a HUGE difference for Charlie — tho sadly it was short lived since he got that catastrophic sub-solar abscess just two months later… 

My vet has been careful to set my expectations that not every horse responds as well. But it seems like an easy next step in our incremental progression, with the bonus of being less hard on the mare’s guts than bute.

turns out i’m not great at multi tasking

I’ll probably pick up a bottle this week, so more on that later. In the meantime, Doozy and a subset of her group of ponies recently transitioned to a new paddock that’s freshly rested and full of fresh spring grass. Happiness abounds! 

Except, lol, when Doozy apparently found herself “alone” temporarily the other night (one field mate was in the outdoor arena literally right next door and in full sight; the other was down in the barn) and had a bit of a meltdown. Whoops lol.

so a ridden assessment would have to suffice <3 <3

I still brought her out the next day for a little test ride anyway. I tried popping her on the lunge slightly-long-lead-line first to see how she looked…. But the combination of trying to video, and the mare’s Residual Sadness From The Prior Evening’s Abandonment made for an inconclusive session. Or at least, not conclusively lame. At this point, we’ll take it!

“i was told there would be cookies”

Realistically, I don’t have the best eye for visually assessing lameness anyway - esp for an issue as intermittent and hard to nail down as Doozy’s. The feeling from the saddle, tho? That part I got. So I opted to tack her up (sadness and all) and see what we had. 

“garçon! my cookies!”

This mare is so full of surprises too. Hasn’t been ridden in like, two weeks — and honestly barely at all this whole month. Was whinnying pitifully and needed to be hand walked around the indoor bc (again) #sadness. And I really just didn’t know what to expect. 

But, eh. Maybe the horse is actually getting trained, go figure. Bc under saddle she was steady, let me get my legs on, and honestly quite soft over her back — something that’s notably absent when she’s very sore.  We only did a very little bit of trotting in each direction, and I didn’t really push her out given her tension and the fact that she was being so good despite so much time off. 

smooshy biscuit

We’ll get to that later, after giving her a chance to get back into the swing of things again. No need to push all the buttons all at once. Bc… if the lameness issue is still there, it WILL present itself again. 

For now, she felt a little stiff in this ride — not quite exactly the same feeling as the intermittent issue we’ve been having since January. But not completely perfect either. 

one step at a time

So we’ll see. We’re about 2.5 weeks post-injection now, and 2 weeks since getting hind shoes. Any differences from those interventions should be settling in and taking effect. We’ll add the Equioxx hopefully this week, and then basically go from there.

I’ve continued to try to be realistic and gather at least some early information on the various options if none of this works. Including starting to scan the market to see if there’s anything out there to light my heart on fire. And… Honestly? Not really. 

Doozy is the horse that I want, and silly little rides like this when she’s whinnying and distracted, and I’m just in jeans and paddock boots and we only just toodle around the ring…. It’s still the stuff for me. I can feel how far Doozy has come in her development, and feel the results of all of last year’s work. And I’m honestly still just so energized and excited at the prospects of going forward with her, should she be able. 

We’ll have a better sense of what’s what in the coming weeks, I imagine. So until then, we carry on!