Progress... And More Disappointment

Well, Friday (10/8/2010) I spent four/five/six hours with Lisa and the ponies. Actually, we ate dinner (Papa John's pizza) first and then headed out to see our ponies.

As most (if not all) of you know, both Grinder (Lisa's horse) and Lucy (my horse) are lame. Lucy is seemingly permanently lame, but Grinder... we're not exactly sure what's going on with him. Today, when we went to get Missy from the field (Missy the original, not Missy 2; soon to be explained), Lisa decided to bring Grinder inside, too, since we were both very, very worried about him.

See, for Grinder, he's been lame for a week. Last Thursday, he came up lame when Troy and the farrier were going to bring him in for a trim. Grinder could barely even walk, but the farrier checked him out and trimmed him anyways. They put him back and every day since then, he's gotten a little bit better each day, which is great! But then today, we went out there and Lisa said he looked like day two again. Very, very gimpy, would only walk for food, and didn't move unless he absolutely had to (like for food/drink/poop). It took us 10 minutes to get him and Missy back into the barn.

When we got into the barn, Lisa took Grinder into the round pen / arena and I put Missy in cross ties. Jenni and Jenna Ivy arrived then and played around, but left soon after. I saddled Missy but left her in the cross ties, peeking out of the grooming stall / cross ties just in time to see Cookie and Grinder going at each other through the fence. Cookie looked like he bit Grinder, Grinder squealed, and then hopped swiftly away. Now, this says something to me: when a horse is scared, he usually genuinely runs through the pain to get away (the "fight or flight" instinct in this case Grinder couldn't "fight" so he chose "flight"); but Grinder hopped. Fast. No, not run. No, not a limping walk. No, not a gimpy trot. A really fast hop. Like he had to get away but it hurt so much he didn't know what to do.

Lisa and I talked and eventually she broke down in tears. That made me want to cry. We talked it out a bit and felt around on his front hooves and legs for any warm spots - our suspicion was the front left (funny, that's Lucy's bad leg, too). I was feeling around the bottom of his pasterns / balls of his feet and found swelling and warmth on the back of his front left. Lisa hugged me so hard I was gonna have my brains squeeze out! We called Mandy (a vet's apprentice / teeth floater / farrier) and she said to turn him out to pasture if the limping isn't too bad, and to not give him any bute. Our plan had been to give him a dose of bute tonight and then another dose before we leave on Saturday - but we decided not to per Mandy's instructions.

After that, I threw a bridle on Missy and got right into the round pen. This is where the 'progress' part comes in. =)

I started out with lots of exercises at the walk. We did rollbacks on the rail, big circles, little itty bitty circles, and tons of switching direction and bending different ways on and off of the rail. Missy responded to all of this nicely; she was very willing and ready to comply with any of my wishes. After walking, we worked on trotting both at a slow and fast pace, and controlling these paces when needed. I worked on our brakes - stopping randomly at any time in any place at either a walk or a trot - and she improved with each try. I suspect she could eventually re-learn how to do a sliding stop.

After the trot, we did canter work - lots of canter work. We cantered five or six times around one way, then I would do a few circles and a rollback or two before asking for a trot and then asking her to pick up her canter on the diagonal to switch directions. She got quicker and quicker at this as we went. We also practiced bending towards both the inside and outside both ways at the canter. I got her to do a few steps of almost-side pass at a trot, and then got her to move nicely along the diagonal both ways at the canter.

Then we worked on little bitty circles at the canter. I would go up the middle of the arena as if starting a barrel pattern, and then I would reach and pull, doing a small circle as if going around the barrel. I did the entire barrel pattern three times, and Missy got it the first time. The last time, she sat down on her butt and really moved around her back, then as we came out of the turn, she really drove with her hind. She's such a good girl! ;)

After that, Lisa and I got out and worked with... **drum roll please!!** The new horse!




(Isn't she beautiful?)

And I guess since it's Saturday, I can tell you whose horse it is. It's Liz and Mary K's new horse. She's 5 yrs old and her name is Missy (currently I call her 'Missy 2' or "The New Girl"), she's a chestnut with the prettiest blaze and star combo you'll ever see. It looks like someone punched little holes out of the white part of her blaze. It's so pretty - and then she has a really nice, big, long right front sock and white on all four other feet near the pasterns. She's stunning, and we lunged her a little bit. She moved great, walking/trotting/cantering for us (with a little encouragement). I really love her canter. The thing is, she doesn't want to move; she's a big couch potato! That kind of bugs me. Though, if Uncle Stephen or the girls have questions, they can just ask Missy 2's previous owner - Garth's wife. You remember Garth? I went with Uncle David one time to bale hay for Garth, and in return for our labor we got 200 bales.

We then put Missy 2 in the cross ties and spent the next half hour combing out her mane and tail, picking out her hooves, and brushing her. She stood pretty quietly, and really she is a nice horse. I'm just not sure how she's going to act under saddle (all I've heard about her riding from Garth's wife is that she was used as a trail horse, used to being a follower, not a leader, and just doing whatever the other horse is doing, so I don't know if she's even had any arena work at all under her belt), but I don't think she's going to be a bad girl. We did discover a bit of thrush in all four feet - not enough to get too worried about - but we agreed that if Stephen has a vet out today (Saturday), then we'd have the vet or farrier look at the hooves.

Last Wednesday (10/6/2010), I went out with Lisa and barrel raced my heart out. We started with lots of warm up trotting and cantering with walking in between. Then, I got to do barrels. I just raced my heart out. It was perfect perfect perfect, except that the second time we did them, Missy was rubber necking herself around the barrels. She wasn't tucking her head of really bending. So we worked on bending a bit by doing poles at a walk and a trot. Missy loves barrels more than poles, but she put up with poles for my sake. ;) After that, we tried to speed up our barrel pattern and it worked for the most part.

It was a FAB-U-LOUS day for the most part. Pictures of barrel racing coming soon - Mom got some really good action shots.

Ta ta for now! I'm off to meet Liz and Mary K when they get their new horse, then ride, and then I'm headed to a horse and tack auction with Lisa! We're going to hopefully hunt down a horse for me. =D Go hug a horse!