To the Drawing Board

I sat down to write a post about my ride after I got home last night and then had to stop. I was in a terrible place mentally and I wasn't about to come out of my hole to write anything that I wanted to post on this blog. This post isn't particularly happy either, but at least it's not as bad as it would have been.

If you recall, here is what is going on:
Weekend rides- TC is totally normal, albeit a bit of a jerk
Monday 12/7- TC seems slightly off during my ride, head bobbing every few steps, I stop and take him down to the barn
Tuesday 12/8- TC walks out of his stall grade 3 lame, won't put weight on his RF heel
Wednesday 12/9- TC still lame at the walk, but better
Thursday 12/10- TC lame only at the trot, kind of like Monday
Friday 12/11- TC totally sound at walk and trot, trimmer comes out and says it was an abscess but it was either released in the hoof or absorbed, put him back to work and we'll see its remains eventually
Saturday 12/12- Work in hand and on the longe, TC sound
Sunday 12/13- Turnout and work at walk, trot, canter on the longe, TC sound, plans to ride Monday

So Monday the 14th, yesterday, I went out to the barn excited to ride my horse again. Things at work had been cleared up and I was pretty happy. Until I heard that my BO may have shut the arena down because someone didn't pick up manure after their ride... apparently that's a thing at my barn. She gets frustrated and then shuts down the arenas. I think that fining people is a better idea personally.

Hopefully there will be no more to say on that possibility because no one stopped me when I went into the arena to ride.

We longed in the round pen first. At first we went left. He was totally sound! Excellent. Walk, trot, canter without any side reins/chambon, he looked super balanced and quiet. Then we went the other way and started in walk. He kept falling in on one side, so I worked on being able to say "out" and step toward him, and have him move outward on the circle. Then we trotted.

And he was lame again.

I decided no more longeing, the footing isn't great and maybe he'd be better in the arena with slightly better footing. I got on and we walked a lot, he was actually being REALLY good. He wanted to work and was super in the bridle. But then we trotted, and yah he's lame. Head bobbing every step. Probably as lame as he was on Thursday, maybe a bit worse.

Immediately I freaked out. Because the on-and-off lameness is very similar to Rico's DDFT lesion and I'm terrified of the prospect of anything soft tissue. Not because I don't know how to rehabilitate a ST injury, but that a ST injury destroys the possibility of TC as any sort of an investment horse, and I would have a couple of decisions to make that I don't want to even think about. I'm trying to stay in the moment with this, but I'm notoriously bad at doing that.

I don't know enough about abscesses to know whether they do things like this, but I feel the need to treat it like ST if it's acting at ALL like ST. He's not sensitive to hoof testers, NOTHING is showing up even after nearly 10 days of waiting and soaking his foot. If he hadn't been super super lame that one day, I'd have already called the vet.

The frustrating part to me is being so far from the vet I would want to use. I'm considering holding off a vet visit until I go home for Christmas (next week) so I can use my vet. But sitting around with a lame horse for a week seems kind of mean. Especially because I'm reluctant to bute him because it still might be an abscess. So I have a call into another local vet hospital to see about getting someone out to do some preliminary work. Then I might pull those records and give them to my vet when we're back home for Christmas.

And then there's what do we do with TC down there, since the barn I normally board at is kind of expensive/far to keep a horse who can't really do anything. So guess who might be coming temporarily out of retirement for a week so that TC can have a dry paddock where I can easily treat him 2x per day? Yep. Poor, innocent Rico. I'm the worst.


Morning update: vet appointment at 1:30pm tomorrow, fingers crossed we find an abscess and absolutely nothing else.