Rico's Accident

My poor pony and I had an accident today during our lesson. It was really scary, especially for him, but he seems to be okay. I need to reduce his swelling enough so that my vet can come take an ultrasound, but all the signs point to him recovering very quickly. Fingers crossed that he's okay!

Let me start from the beginning.

Today we went over to a beautiful little ranch in Morgan Hill for our lesson with Tracey (which happened to be five minutes away from my house). Rico came out of the trailer ready to go and wouldn't stand still for me to sign the release.

I think we need to work on our first impressions. Whenever people meet him they usually give him a lot of space and ask "how old is he?" in a very slightly condescending tone as if I should keep my young horse under control. Upon hearing he is 17, they almost always say "Oh.... well he looks good for 17!" which to me implies that they think he's acting like an asshole. Then people typically try to be nice and say things like "oh well, why don't you follow us up to the arena" or "we'll keep this calm old horse near him so that he stays relaxed," when in actuality, Rico is a very quiet horse, he's just really enthusiastic and happens to be a big bodied 16.2h warmblood. I guess he's lucky that I'm not afraid of him.

Morgan Hill!

This place is so amazing

Anyway, I warmed up for a bit and then walked around waiting for the lesson to start. Tracey said he looked good! He felt really good today, very supple and he was energetic but not tanking off with me. Upon the start of my lesson, Tracey asked what we should work on and I was prepared: canter pirouettes, I said. Canter pirouettes! I want to do 4-2 soon, like really soon! I ran through it the other day and it was GOOD! I got this sort of skeptical look from her, like she doesn't trust my opinion of what is good and what is not. Not that she's wrong to think this way, her definition of good is my definition of MOST FANTASTIC EVER, and my definition of good is her definition of not even acceptable to do at home, let alone in a show, please don't embarrass me.

So we started with the walk pirouettes which I have always thought were fine, we've always scored a solid 6 and more recently 7 on them. She told me that Rico tends to get a bit wide behind which is why they get large. I thought they were large because he was stepping out, so I was overcompensating by pushing his haunches in. This actually turned them into leg yields rather than pirouettes and made them seem labored. What Tracey had me do was put him in shoulder-fore (which I had heard before but kind of ignored) and then make his steps extremely small and on the spot (which I thought I was doing, but I was really just slowing him down), and THEN turning him much faster than I had been. Wow, what used to be a solid 6, sometimes 7, is going to be an 8 or even a 9 at the next show! Or to Tracey: acceptable.

I LOVE this picture

Maggie May staring at the cows

Tracey then had us address the school canter. We went left first (and last... we never made it right) and started on a large circle. After being told that my geometry was atrocious, we worked on the school canter to medium canter transitions which are always a bit difficult for us because Rico thinks medium canter is time for playing. Rico had way too much fun kicking out and bouncing around during this exercise. I would have been embarrassed but I kept hearing Tracey chuckle. I'm not sure if the laughter is "oh how cute, he likes his work," or "haha, you deserve such antics for thinking that unacceptable things are good." Have I mentioned how much I love my new trainer?

Anyway Rico tends to get crooked, suck back, and boing in his school canter. Once again, something that I thought was good (activity, increased suspension? apparently not) that was actually unacceptable.  After fixing the school canter, I was ready for some pirouettes. Evidently not, as I apparently cannot ride a corner correctly. I tend to throw myself violently to the outside while twisting in the tack and managing to poke his haunches in. This was left over from my walk pirouette problems where when I think pirouette, I encourage Rico to fling his haunches in and praise myself for such great riding.

Finally we started pirouettes! Tracey put us on the same square as our corner exercise (E-B-M-H) and had us doing quarter pirouettes in every other corner. We struggled with keeping the straightness and the responsiveness to my outside aids. Most of this was due to my brilliant idea that Rico needs to be overbent to the inside which Tracey shot down immediately. Evidently he needs to be fairly straight and merely flexed to the inside which makes sense, I'm not sure where my idea of carrying an intense amount of bend through his body came from. The first few quarter pirouettes were pretty awful, but we got a good one and gave him a break.

Almost to the top of the hill

Love

I picked him up again and the plan was to get a couple good quarter pirouettes, then go to the right which was the harder direction. The first pirouette was awful, he sucked back immediately so I galloped him out of it and tried again. The second pirouette was amazing! Tracey said GOOD. She said good! I came out of it with a smile on my face and set him up for the corner. And then he fell.

He just ate it coming around the corner. Rico does tend to trip, so at first I didn't think anything of it but he kept falling. He started to scramble and I tried to help him- I pulled up on the reins and gave him some leg, but there was just nothing there to help up. I started to jump off as he hit the ground, but he immediately popped up. I thought we were in the clear but there was something very wrong.

I jumped off of him and when he saw me, he whinnied at me. His left front leg was shaking and he was holding it up off the ground. I held it up and saw a little cut on his heel and a couple more on his tendons, but nothing serious. I tried to lead him forward but he wouldn't budge. He wasn't willing to put weight on it and it shook harder when he tried.

Such a cool tree

Tracey ran down to meet me and we tried to figure out what happened. He was going along just fine, he was so balanced out of the pirouette, he was so balanced in the corner. We did some detective work, looking at the footing and at his small injuries, but there was no reason for him to go down.

It took about ten or fifteen minutes for him to be sound enough for me to be willing to lead him down to the trailer. When I got him home, my wonderful mother and I went to work treating him. I cold hosed his leg, gave him some bute, and bandaged him. Even after two grams of bute this afternoon and another gram at dinner, his leg was enormously swollen when I checked on it late tonight. Now he has tighten up on his leg, with antibiotic cream on his heal grab. I'm just hoping that it isn't a tendon. It can't be a tendon, not again.

I need to get the swelling down in order to get the vet out. Tomorrow he gets some walking if he's sound enough. We have new cows next door, so I'm sure he will want to visit them. Once as the swelling is down, I get to hand over more of my money to my vet to make sure that Rico and I aren't in for another long rehab. In the mean time, I'm researching heavy duty cross country boots and bell boots so that if he ever goes down again, he's protected.

Love this one too

In more fun news, my best friend came down to my house today and we went on a 4 mile hike! My legs hurt. It was fun though!

Update 3/31: Rico's leg is looking good today! He's sound and I've been cold hosing him all day with a few walks to see our new neighbor cows. Tomorrow if his leg looks good with no bute, I'll do a light walk-trot ride just to keep him moving. Hopefully we'll be back to full work on Wednesday.

Update 4/1: Leg is totally normal today! Went for a ride this morning (with all four legs booted up) and he was sound. Still obsessing over it but I may avoid a vet bill :)