Covered in Mud

I ended up not going to see TC on Friday even though I had time. I'm really trying not to drive all over the place just for the sake of being a crazy horse owner. I'm also driving a ton this week and had the horse show not been canceled due to rain yesterday, would have driven 2.5 hours round trip then too.

So cute

The end of last week and this last weekend was great, though not particularly horsey. On Thursday I headed out with L and T for tacos (totally forgetting the date and just thinking that tacos sounded really good) and then L and I basically talked about ponies all evening. Best day ever.

Friday I wanted to ride Rico, making it all the way down to the ranch in traffic before realizing that no, the rain was not going to stop and that yes, my horse was way too muddy to ride anyway. Wet, disgusting mud. So I hung out with Stretch instead, which was really nice.

Stretch got his mane pulled, mane and tail brushed, and whole body curried, all of which he really needed. Then I played around with braiding him, which he loved. He kept looking over at me with this happy little expression like he was remembering his younger years being a junior hunter and a training level event horse. When I let him back out to his pasture, he galloped around wildly. He's definitely doing better these days!

Um, ew, thanks Rico

Saturday I actually DID ride both Rico and Riot. Rico was pretty good for his ride. Not as good as last week, but all week I kept being sent pictures and video of both of them galloping around in the pasture, so he probably tired himself out. My main issue is that he's been lazy, and I know that it's my problem. I really need to get my spurs back on (I lost one, ugh) and put a real bridle on him (he's much more forward in the snaffle) and actually ride him for real. Hopefully I'll find my spur this week, I have no idea where it got to.

Other than that, the ride was good, he had clean changes each way (didn't school any tempis), some great shoulder-in, and a little bit of piaffe that was more like half steps since I was thinking about Heidi's advice a couple years ago to "find the trot in the pi/pa" to make those more accessible. Also along the same lines of what I said on Friday, he really doesn't need to piaffe on the spot anymore.

At the end I pulled out a crossrail for him to jump. He really doesn't feel so comfortable jumping, but he was SO excited about it. I kept it low and quietly cantered back and forth over it. He moves up to nothing when he jumps- like it feels like he might see something and be moving up to it, but he lies and then chips. I wonder who taught him that... So it's all about keeping him on the same step without shutting him down. He's not the most fun thing to jump in the world, but he has a lot of fun jumping occasionally (and only over fences with no filler of course).

Riot has been really good recently, we're actually starting to sort of understand each other a bit better. He's sort of teaching me about TWHs and how to get a good running walk and I'm teaching him about being straight and not falling on his left shoulder all the time. It's going really well! I'm actually hoping to get a lesson this summer with a TWH trainer, but Riot needs to be in better shape first. I can't ride him a ton just yet but hopefully I'll be able to get him on sort of a schedule.

So cute, but so completely gross

It wasn't all good news at the ranch though (is it ever?). Rico is really struggling with turning his head right. I'm not sure how recent this is, since undersaddle he's always been reluctant to bend right, preferring instead to fall right over his shoulder, and I rarely did carrot stretches with him. I always thought it was me, since I tended to pull on the left rein and send him right, but now that my aids are evened out, I'm realizing how resistant he is on the right rein. I'm really not sure what it is.

So the chiropractor is being called for all three of them. Hopefully it's a chiropractic problem and not another horse in the barn with neck arthritis. Rico isn't neurological, which is good, but just seeing how hard it has been on Stretch and how suddenly it became a problem, I'm nervous for him. The plan is to see whether the chiro can help at all, and then to maybe start him on low dose prevocox to see if we can at least keep him more comfortable.

Fingers crossed that the chiro has good news. I really want to make sure that Rico isn't in pain. He's such a stoic horse that I worry about what is going on inside of him. He's never really been lame, despite once having a hole in his DDFT. I don't trust his reactions to things.

Rico basically