Changing the Plan

So bad news, the show I was going to do on the little paint horse- he isn't going. The entries were due relatively quickly after we decided, and my student was away on vacation. I hate to pressure her when we have all year just because I want to show, so we've pushed that out to probably late July or August. Not a problem! It actually is fine because he needs his hocks done and more time is only going to make him score better!

All of the talk about showing the horse at rated shows this year has me feeling the itch to get TC ready to show. I'm excited to show on a horse who isn't TC, since with TC there's going to be some stress just because of his behavior at first. But I really do want to show him!

I feel like I WON'T STOP with these pictures
but they're some of the few riding pictures I have!
Soon there will be more :)

A while ago I remember writing up a plan for TC that, thinking back now, makes me slightly sad. So here's a new plan for him now that I have more knowledge:

2016 (5yo)- rehabilitation and general training, get him off the property a few times for clinics (ideally hitting 2-3 barns out of hopefully GG, Greenville, ASH, my parents' place, VR, RG, and maybe going back to HPW if I'm feeling like driving a lot) and teach him to be a normal horse in new situations; maybe show Training 1/2 at the end of the year at Greenville if I'm feeling extremely ambitious and his canter is magically fixed in rehab.

2017 (6yo)- in the spring, lots of off property trips, including some overnight ones to Tracey's barn and Heidi's barn; by summer showing solidly at Training; by fall, move up to First 1 unless I need more Training scores for some reason.

2018 (7yo)- in the spring gather scores for First level (championships, freestyle scores, etc); in the summer, debut First level freestyle if I so choose; in the fall, move up to Second 1 and maybe 2, put on lead changes over winter, maybe first Alfredo lesson.

One day I'll look up and one day this trot is going to be freakishly
amazing instead of just amazing

2019 (8yo)- in the spring gather scores for Second level (championships, freestyle scores, etc); in the summer, debut Second level freestyle and probably move up to Third level for the remainder of the season. Put lead changes on over winter if I didn't over the winter before.

2020 (9yo)- in the spring, finish up gathering Third level scores and start showing Fourth 1 as well as Third freestyle. Finish up three star rating for centerline. If he isn't getting the pirouettes on, sell him this year. If he is, ideally go PSG by the end of the year, or at least Fourth 2.

2021 (10yo)- bravely start the year with one Fourth 3 so that I can do a freestyle, spend the year gathering freestyle scores (4) for my Silver bar and showing PSG.

2022 (11yo)- finish up any PSG stuff I want to do, maybe get scores for championships if he's competitive (not likely), put up for sale if he isn't going to make it to I2, or go I1 by the end of the year. Finish up four star rating for centerline.

2023 (12yo)- use the year to get him ready for GP, do a couple I2s but make the move to GP to gather more scores. Finish up my five star rating on centerline. Put up for sale after the five star rating is achieved. Or win the lottery and keep him forever.

I forgot about this behavior... 

Obviously none of this is going to happen. Something will happen to derail us or he'll go faster or slower or he'll never come back from his injury. But I'm an obsessive planner and like to do things like this.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some goals knocked off though. One being doing a freestyle at each level required for the freestyle bars (there's only a handful of people who have all three bars and all three medals, so that'd be so cool!) and riding at CDS Championships (which switches back and forth between SoCal and NorCal- I'd only do the NorCal one because it's a lot cheaper for me to get to and hey, I've got friends in the area with cute dogs). I'd absolutely love to win an all breeds award for him, I need to look into that further.

I also need to look into the horse performance certificates for the lower levels too. And I want to finish up my centerline stars, since I'm seriously lacking in those because I couldn't afford to show a bunch at Fourth and above because I was in grad school.

All of this will depend on finances since I will be limited there (I much prefer lessons to shows, my trainer charges a LOT for lessons too) and obviously TC's soundness/talent and general luck will factor in as well. I have a tentative rule where if it starts to take more than a year a level, I'll sell him. I'm obviously hoping to get him to Grand Prix, but I don't want to spend 5 years trying to get a clean change on him or trying to get him to sit down to do a pirouette when I could sell him to someone who would enjoy him for what he's capable of and let him live a less stressful life.

How to tell your pony is on the forehand? Look how far
back his front legs go under his body. Basically going to hit
the ground face first soon.

But the horse has the mind for dressage (or at least had, hopefully he hasn't completely switched over to competitive horse swimming) and well, I've done it before?

I'm just about dying not having him back yet. MUST. BE. PATIENT. A week from today I'll be on his back. Or writing a blog post about how he almost launched BRH trainer and that I won't be on him for a while.

The Last Ultrasound

Yesterday was TC's fourth and last ultrasound, at least for now, in this terrible series of events. Yes, LAST ULTRASOUND for at least 90 days depending on his soundness blah blah blah. But LAST ULTRASOUND was all I heard.

Hi mom, I would talk to you but you forgot
carrots and there's a fan moving slowly

If you remember from our third (and second) ultrasound, the main issues we were facing were twofold.

First, the horse had yanked the suspensory out of the origin site enough where he took some bone with him. To fix this, after the second ultrasound, TC was put on a supplement by Platinum Performance called Osteon, as well as given an Osphos injection. Both are used to increase bone density and we hoped that it would help this site. At the third ultrasound, not much had changed. It wasn't getting worse but it wasn't getting better necessarily.

Second, the suspensory had tried to adhere itself to the splint bone. This was our biggest fear initially, since when this happens, IF the adherence is tighter than the suspensory itself, then as the suspensory stretches, it will become irritated. This puts us in chronic suspensory land and effectively ends TC's riding career unless I wanted to do surgery. I felt wishy washy about the surgery, but at the second and third ultrasounds, my vet felt like this wasn't going to be as much of an issue. But we weren't sure how it would react to trotting. This ultrasound is to look at how both of those issues responded to more work.

Still kind of derpy, but much fitter

Now TC is trotting 15 minutes and has been sound as far as the people at the rehab center could tell. He is only trotted on soft ground in the eurociser so it's not like minor lamenesses are obvious. The goal at this last ultrasound was for it to be the last ultrasound, for him to be given the okay to start undersaddle work, and more importantly, to come home. A lot was riding on this ultrasound.

Because of the heat, I got up early and rode a horse, then taught a lesson before the ultrasound. I shouldn't do this. Much like the last three ultrasounds where I worked from home and then went to see him, I basically was worthless at doing my job. Luckily teaching and riding come more naturally, so both horse and rider didn't get shafted. I just couldn't tell you what they worked on. My brain was just like "pleaselethimbeokay INSIDE LEG PUSH HIM OVER pleaselethimbesound OUTSIDE REIN MORE CONNECTION pleaselethimcomehome THAT CIRCLE HAS CANCER FIX IT NOW pleaselethimbeokay."

Around 10:15 I was finally on the road to the vet office. I had put my lesson earlier than necessary since every time I'm on time, they're early. And last time I got to hang out with TC in the stall beforehand, which made me happy.

He was a little sassy on the longe line

Interested in everything but staying quiet

This time I beat them there. It ended up not being too bad because I got to see TC come off the trailer. I expected him to be kind of explosive coming off- he was not. He arrived with another horse. I expected him to be attached to that horse and scream for the horse when it left- he was fine. A horse had been put down so was covered with a tarp right near the stalls. I expected him to be spooky and nervous about that horse- he was not.

He was so quiet and relaxed. I led him to the stall and he just sort of hung out. No screaming, no pacing, no throwing himself around. Just so chill about everything. I was much less chill. I'm normally the chill one!

When they went to longe him, he just quietly trotted around. Sometimes he would shake his head, but nothing like the explosions from last time. Nope, just quiet baby horse with a couple moments of head shaking. What? Craziness.

He was completely sound- both fetlocks dropping really well. I did get a nice lecture from the vet, and I now have a farrier. Rico's farrier. Because TC needs shoes with plastic pads (pads in the summer only). He basically isn't growing any heel and his coffin bones are RIGHT next to the ground. I'd rather lose the one and a half lessons a month in farrier fees than not be able to sell the horse in the future because he has no feet. Yay for expensive shoes, ugh.

Dude 

The ultrasound was really good too! Even though TC has been in a LOT more work than he was, his leg is still improving!

The bone issues are completely resolved. No more Osteon (phew, so expensive) and no additional Osphos injection needed (phew, SO expensive).  The ultrasound did show what my vet called a "hidden splint," which means that his cannon bone has a bump on it under the suspensory. It's smooth and doesn't get in the way, but it just means that there is less room in there for the suspensory to swell if it gets irritated. I don't mind that, because if it does get irritated, I want to know!

The adherence is still there, though it's very small (one square centimeter or so) and doesn't seem to be bothering him at all. My vet says that if the adherence is loose enough where it never yanks at the suspensory, it won't cause problems. If it does yank at the suspensory, we need to catch it soon and do surgery to remove the splint bone and clean the adherence up.  Of the horses who had this same problem, only the jumpers have needed surgery because they land on their feet a lot harder off of the big jumps than the prancy dressage horses. Dressage horses really don't get as much wear and tear on the front legs, although both of my dumb horses having ST injuries in front hardly proves that.

Can I ride it yet?

Starting to get sleepy

So we aren't out of the woods on that adherence yet. We have 90 days to have TC in full work undersaddle and then if he's sound and okay by then, my vet says that it'd be very unlikely that we would need surgery after that. So on October 6th, we're officially back.

The best news out of all of this was that TC does get to come home!!! One week from today I'll have the baby horse back in my life full time, and I am so excited about that! But still very nervous about the 90 days. I'm trying to take an it-is-what-it-is approach and just enjoy him and whatever happens happens.

Obviously hearing that he could come home made me ask lots of questions, here is a bullet point list about what information I got:

• TC can canter! My vet wants him in a very collected canter to keep him off his forehand,. Upon hearing this, I laughed at him. The horse has no collected canter, he has no working canter, we have a frantic run sort of thing? So I am going to push his cantering out a few weeks so I can work on the collected trot first.  
• TC is okay to go into his paddock, my vet said to keep an eye on him and put him in a box stall if he gets silly. I think he'll be quieter to ride if he's out so hopefully he stays quiet in the stall and paddock. 
• No turnout until after the 90 day waiting period.
• No trail riding at all until after the 90 day waiting period.
• No real trail riding (hills) until next year, and always be careful about walking downhill.
• No jumping until next year, but small cavallettis to get him picking up his feet are fine after the 90 days. 
• Keep him fit so he doesn't get tired and drop his fetlock. 
• Put him in Sports Medicine Boots and tack on a piece of plastic over his suspensory. This means I can return the boots I got from Dover (glad I didn't put him in them). I'm not sure how to make a strike guard, but I will figure it out. 

I also asked about the future. My concern is that he will not be okay to do the extended trot or the passage, since both of those are hard on the tendons. It was something that made me so nervous with Rico. But my vet said that by the time he's ready training-wise to do those things, his leg should be totally fine. Like, it's literally just these 90 days and then I can consider him completely healed and okay to do anything. He said maybe not jumping 4' or galloping on the hills, but I knew he wasn't going to be an event horse at the vet check because of his feet anyway.

So yay! Grand Prix is still tentatively in his future, though obviously unlikely for other reasons. At least (hopefully) his physical health won't be what keeps us from that level. It's likely going to be his natural talent, his rider's lack of natural talent, and logistics that keep us from the level :) which I'm totally fine with.

I don't care if he bucks me off if I can feel this trot first

I'm cautiously excited. I won't feel capable of relaxing until the beginning of October, if at all, and I'm already diverting money into an account for his surgery and am prepared to send him back to rehab this winter (the fact that I'm doing this should tell you how fucking quiet the horse is being because there was a time where he was nutty enough for me to have not chosen to do the surgery). BUT I'm trying to just focus on being excited about riding him while preparing myself financially for the worst. It can't hurt because I mean if he doesn't need surgery, I can buy a saddle I will have a bigger emergency fund. I'm also going to insure him, but the insurance very likely won't cover the surgery.

One more week to wait and then I get to have that baby horse home and attack the hell out of his mane and pathetic feathers. Oh, and RIDE him. And now, making a shopping list for my tack locker, I called my dad and he has an amazing idea to get it working for me! So excited to have my pony back!!

Wishing and Hoping

Today is what we hope will be TC's LAST ULTRASOUND in this awful suspensory saga. I'll be selling tickets to the musical soon to help pay off all his medical expenses.

By the time this post goes out, I'll already be getting off my first horse of the day and probably on the way to teach before the vet appointment starts at 11. It's been in the 100s so I just couldn't stand doing the vet check and then going to teach/ride. After this all I have to do is go get some delicious tea and find some air conditioning to enjoy.

A collection of my favorite pictures from rehab and ultrasounds

Resting a foot!!!

Yesterday I stopped in at my new barn to talk to BRH trainer at the request of the barn owner. I had emailed her to touch base and she said all was good, but that she wasn't sure why he needed 8 flakes of hay. Apparently the website is not up to date and they feed 4 flakes already, so double feed would be completely excessive. That's awesome! That's almost a lesson a month I'm saving.

BRH trainer was in charge of finding a stall and dealing with my crazy now that he's going to officially be my trainer. I have a trainer and will be *in training* with someone. Cool! I'm excited. I love that the pressure will be off me to deal with issues and make decisions. I know that I'm fully capable of getting through this by myself, but man it's sometimes just really nice to follow a program and turn my trainer brain off and fully enjoy my horse. Definitely less stressful.

I got there and he was working with one of my previous trainers' young horses (a lot of people send their super fancy horses to him, TC will not be the nicest horse he works with by far lol). She's two years old and just amazing. He said that she has these amazing gaits, especially when she's being bad. I only saw her walking but man she's built for dressage.

So cute!

GIMME SNAX

He showed me the stalls (12x36 paddock with 12x12 of it covered/matted) available and there was one available in the row I wanted! We talked about getting a load of blue rock in to even out the paddock a bit so there isn't such a big drop off of the stall into the paddock. That's prime for reinjury so I was glad that he brought it up so I didn't have to be a crazy person. And I went by the hardware store nearby to get no climb wire to prevent the dumb baby horse from injuring himself again. He said that if I provided it, he would have the guys put it up! That's really helpful.

I also have a tack locker! The plan is to put my trunk outside his stall so that it can hold blankets and his grain (I'm going to bag up grain each week so that the guys can feed him) and probably a few brushes/fly spray and things I might want near the stall. The tack locker is next to a set of cross ties near the covered arena, which is going to be super convenient in the winter. It's small, and actually there is a slightly bigger one next to it that might be open and I might request that one. But either way it will be fine, I have a place at the ranch to store stuff that I don't need and I can always get another trunk or something for in front of his stall.

The only downside in my mind is that I'm going to have to be creative about hanging things on the wall- I'd love a set of shelves, a bridle rack, and a saddle rack all on the walls to leave room on the ground for a few things, but the entire locker is plastic so nailing into it probably won't be an option. I'll be searching online for how to make it work for me. At the very least I want to be able to hang his bridle and longeing stuff so that will be the first thing I look into.

IS THIS SMILING?

The best at selfies

We also chatted about what to do with TC. I said I wanted him in full training for July (so basically 3 weeks) and then we'd reevaluate. Honestly we'll probably back off to half training or even just working together once or twice a week to address the minor issues he's had. It's all going to depend on how TC is. I can see it going a lot of different directions- he might find the riding work so much more interesting than swimming/endlessly circling that he calms down and focuses better. Or he might think FINALLY I AM FREE and be crazy. It's likely to be a little of both.

Our main goal is to get TC comfortable being ridden all over the ranch and in all the arenas. I'm not actually worried about riding him around the ranch. At our previous barn I would regularly hop on him bareback in the rope halter and ride him up to turnout, even after a day or two off, and then he'd explode only when he was let loose. The horse is good in the open at the walk. It's when you open the door for trotting/cantering, he thinks he can get sassy.

Then I talked to him briefly about him helping me with trail riding- me on Rico and him on TC for the first ride- but that it probably wouldn't happen until next year.

Our first lesson is scheduled for next Thursday (THAT IS SO SOON), as he's leaving on vacation and returning the same day that TC comes in, so I'll be handling TC on the first day. If he's quiet we'll walk around but if he's nutty, we'll just hang out in the paddock.

Love his little hippo face

Loves getting his lips brushed

Overall I was just SO happy to be at my barn. The familiar drive, meeting new people and seeing old friends, and just imagining going through the trail course and riding in the covered arena with mirrors and playing in the dressage court. I just love the place! It is definitely going to make a HUGE difference to be able to have the facility I need, the trainers I need with both BRH trainer and Tracey coming into the place, and the location I need. Even if I had to force the situation a little bit with my job. Worth it.

I'm also SO happy that the ultrasound is TODAY, I feel like I can't wait any longer. I have a lot of hopes and expectations for this visit. And I am a bit worried, obviously. But the worst case scenarios aren't so bad anymore.

The absolute worst case scenario (other than suddenly needing surgery, which seems unlikely but is still entirely possible) is that he needs another month or two of rehab and another ultrasound. That puts us into the fall for him coming back and that makes me nervous. The second worst case scenario is that he comes home and needs another ultrasound before he canters. I really really want this to be the last ultrasound. But another ultrasound is only money, money I will have to scrimp and save up, but it's only money.

Luckily he has been pretty sound and the leg has stayed tight. An obsessively detail oriented person who stares at horse legs all day could see that there's a difference between the two legs, but just glancing at it, you can't tell that there's anything wrong. Like I've said in the past, I don't give two shits whether his legs look terrible, I just want him sound and able to work.

Traumatized

I want that hock flexion undersaddle omg

The best case scenario is that his leg looks great and that he could come home and be ready to canter or increase trotting to 20-30 minutes right away. That's unlikely to happen. I'm guessing that we're going to be trotting undersaddle a bit less than he was doing on the walker just because there's more weight on him with a rider. Then we'll work back up to 15 minutes and then to 20 and eventually 30 maybe. I considered Rico in full work when we were doing 30 minutes of trot and 20 minutes of canter, though that seems excessive for the baby horse. Like, I don't want him capable of cantering that long.

As much as I'd love to get the okay to canter right away, I'm not banking on it. In all honesty, he will need a lot of work in trot training-wise to get him ready to canter even without taking into account the injury. With no dressage under his belt in eight months, we're going to be hanging out in walk and trot a lot to reestablish the connection/throughness and get him moving off my leg well. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't canter until this fall just from a training standpoint. Although with his tendency to bolt, it'd be nice to start cantering in September at the latest just because of the winter.

His face kills me

Omg eight days before I get to sit on that amazing trot

So please cross everything you can and even some of the bits you really shouldn't. Today I'm really hoping to hear that my pony can come home next week.

I'm also just excited to see him, it's been a couple of weeks now!

Norcal Blogger Meetup

A while ago, like a long while ago, L and I were talking about a Norcal blogger meetup. I've only met her, Peony, and Nicole so far, while L has met I think everyone who has blogged about anything ever. We are fairly efficient people, so we decided that a big meetup would be fun.

We're creepy stalkers observant and knew of quite a few bloggers in the area so we decided to be even creepier email them and see who was available to meet up on Sunday (yesterday!) and it was great!

There were so many of us!

We ended up having quite a big group including some people who had to make the trek from quite far away!

The list:
Me (you're at my blog now)
L (Viva Carlos)
Karley (All In)
Kate (Incidents of Guidance)
Nicole (Zen Baby Horse)
Kat (A Horse is a Horse)
Emily (Wilbur, Ellie, and Emily)
Olivia (DIY Horse Ownership)
Figure/M (Topaz Dreams)
Lindsay (who doesn't have a blog but should!)

And while a few people couldn't make it either because they were busy or out of town making me jealous, it was great to get to know everyone else!

We met up around noon in the east bay for tacos. Obviously. I feel like I've taken a personal interest in L's taco count for this year. Also tacos are delicious.

After ordering our food, we grabbed a big long table and started in on the pony talk. It was so fun to compare who we all knew, as the horse world is so small. It turns out that Lindsay and I ride really close to one another now that TC is coming home. And Kate and I know a TON of the same people and are frequently at the same shows- she was actually at the show that I showed Dillon at but in the jumping arenas. If my kids go to the Woodside show, Olivia, who boards 5 minutes away from one of my training barns (and makes AMAZING horse cookies, I sort of want to eat them myself), said she may be going. So we're basically all around each other without even knowing it!

We also talked about our own horses. I got to say the words "TC comes home in a week and a half" out loud, which made me really excited. And I feel like I got to know everyone's horses a bit better just through hearing more stories. Sometimes through the blog you can't really get a feel of a horse's personality until you hear someone talk about them in person, or maybe that's just me. Unfortunately the table was long enough where I didn't feel like I got to talk to everyone enough, but that's what more meetups are for!

It honestly felt like it went by so fast, soon the numbers dwindled and five of us made it to froyo after almost four hours of chatting. L and I were still eager for more when we got home so we ended up sitting on the phone for over an hour.

Olivia, me, Figure

It was so so so much fun to meet everyone, I feel like I walked away with a bunch of new friends! We're already planning more meetings for all of us to get together, can't wait to spend more time with all these awesome people!

And completely off topic but equally as amazing: TOMORROW is TC's last ultrasound and I couldn't be more excited about it. 

Worry Wart

Monday morning I was scheduled to meet the vet at the ranch to look at all the horses. It was mostly a check up visit for their teeth, but I had other things on my mind.

The original vet bill machine, at least he's cute

Now that I'm riding Rico more and trying not to worry about TC, I've turned my worry to him. He's twenty years old now and obviously no spring chicken. I think he's doing well for his age, considering the multitude of problems he's had and how much work he has previously been in. One of my goals was to make sure that Rico had a long and happy retirement, which drove my decision to not lease him out at the end of his dressage career. He's sound enough to be on pasture happily for as long as the rest of him will keep going.

So as I brought him back into a little bit of work this spring, I've been obsessively looking for reasons why Rico shouldn't work anymore. For the most part, Rico has been happy to work. Like I said yesterday, there are days where he's not into it, and I don't force the issue. It could be that he's just being lazy and that I'm teaching him he can decide not to work when he doesn't want to, or it could be that he's in pain on those days.

Looking pretty good for being 20 years old

I had noticed when my friend was riding him last week that Rico's left hind leg was twisting as he walked. It's not something I notice on hard ground. I began to worry about neck arthritis. I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but Rico has been struggling to turn his neck to the right. Stretch's neck arthritis really got bad when his hind legs started to twist- that's when we noticed it was neurological.

So seeing Rico start to do that and knowing that he's not comfortable bending his neck right made me freak out.

After Stretch and Riot got their dentals, the vet (not my magic vet but the local vet) came to look at Rico. We walked him on hard ground and then walked and trotted on soft ground. I don't think that the vet thought it was as big of a deal as I did, but I explained that he's very stoic so I tend to be more sensitive when he exhibits any sort of pain. By the time he's showing that he's in pain, he's been in pain for a long time.

Right has always been hard for him

Luckily the vet does chiropractic and acupuncture, so we started there. I wanted to do radiographs, but the vet said "I'm 100% sure he has neck arthritis, most older dressage horses do" and I backed off. I'm the sort of person who wants to X-RAY AND INJECT ALL THE THINGS, but I mean he's mostly just hanging out in pasture and trail riding (especially when TC comes back in two weeks). And a chiro appointment is significantly less than doing radiographs and then hauling into the veterinary clinic to do what might have to be an ultrasound guided injection.

Rico wasn't significantly out anywhere except his neck. His C4 was the problem, which makes sense. He's happy to flex to the right, but he gets to a certain point and stops. She did three adjustments over the course of the entire adjustment on that side of his neck. Then she did the acupuncture.

Watching acupuncture makes me want to get it done to myself, mostly because it looks so weird and I'm really curious what it feels like.

Poking the pony. Damn, you can see how big his
shoulders are in this picture. Saddle fitting nightmare

The vet suggested adequan, legend, and putting him on low dose prevocox if the adjustment didn't make a significant difference. He's for sure not getting adequan and legend (too expensive and come on, he's not doing anything difficult right now), but prevocox is a possibility. On the one hand, I want him to be comfortable, but on the other hand, I don't want to pump him full of NSAIDs if it's not really necessary. And it's not, he doesn't present as being in pain.

So we'll see. I already give him bute when trail riding or when people come to ride him. He doesn't get it on days off or when I ride him, since if he's a little funny, I'll just turn our ride into a walk down the road. If we do go with prevocox, we can do a quarter tablet every other day, which is really not that hard on his system.

He isn't ready to be retired just yet

The best news was hearing that Stretch looked really good. Not 100%, but certainly not as bad as he was. Considering we were close to losing him this spring, this is great news!

Does What He Wants

Saturday after my long day I still managed to ride Rico. I sort of had to convince myself to do it though. Nothing like the Fitbit hanging over my head, reminding me that I spent the majority of the day sitting to motivate me to move.

I rode him after dinner and it was an awesome ride. Rides have been hit or miss in the last couple weeks with Rico. Whether it's his joints/neck pain, the fact that I've had more not-Megan-riders on him lately, or just me being a crazy person, I don't know. But he's been a little extra lazy and he occasionally throws in unclean changes, which is very odd.

But Saturday he came out to play and I was happy to have my horse back.

Rico's new best friend came cantering up to us

One thing I did do is use the BOT quickwraps for tacking up. I'm planning on using them with TC- basically putting them on the moment I get to the barn and leaving them on until after I put the saddle on. So I figured Rico could use them too, he's getting the star treatment until the dumb baby horse comes home and takes all his stuff.

I got on and let him zip past the arena and out to the road like he always tries to do. We came back to the arena after walking around the corner, but he got to have a moment of victory.

In the arena I mostly wanted to work on my position. We're only a little more than two weeks away from my first rides on TC (YAY) so I'm hoping to really work on myself leading up to that. I actually have now put my stirrups down a full two holes since I started riding TC, one hole since this fall. I raised them in the first place because on young big moving horses who buck, I need shorter stirrups. As he was better about being round and not darting randomly around the arena, I was able to lower them, but I never got them down to where they once were.

And when I got back on Rico, I was so used to the shorter stirrups that I was riding with short stirrups on all horses. So they're back down to where they belong! I'll still probably put them up a hole when I ride TC for a few weeks, but I'm hoping to be down on hole 13 permanently fairly soon.

So cute!

As always, we started in canter. He felt super good in the bridle and right on my seat, although not super forward. We did a few single flying changes and they felt good. The left-right change tends to get real crooked/kicking and so we worked a little on that in warm up.

Then we played a little in a forward-moving piaffe. I don't want him to have to do it on the spot too much anymore since it puts unnecessary pressure on his hocks. Piaffe is fun but it's not my favorite, I mostly do it to get him engaged and thinking more collected, and an on the spot piaffe isn't necessary for that.

Passage though, that is my favorite so we did a little bit of that. He lost the walk to passage a little bit, he takes a trot step before really getting the height. And with a couple of non-Megan rides, the tempo got a bit too fast so I brought it slower, which he seemed to appreciate actually. I think people who haven't done the pi/pa a lot struggle with how SLLLOOOWWWW the passage is. It really doesn't cover a ton of ground, and the tempo is quite slow.


And as much as the piaffe and passage are two of Rico's best movements, the reality is that he learned to passage in November of 2013 and then we stopped really training it in October of 2014. So he only has a year of training on them. This means that riding it poorly results in him changing the way he does it, vs say a shoulder-in that he's had on him for most of his dressage career so you can fuck that up all you want and I'll still be able to get a good one out of him without working on it.

But I don't mind, I'm not trying to compete this horse anymore and honestly the look on peoples' faces when they first sit his passage and hearing my friend tell the rest of our friends at dinner the other night how wonderful and trained my horse is makes rides like this where I sort of have to pick up the pieces totally worth it!

They were all cuddly, so cute!

Back in canter I mostly worked on my position, getting my leg to be a little longer, which is hard for me since it wants to creep up to the block. Rico is super about letting me drop my leg down, as it makes him collect more since that's how I would always work on collection. So we played in a few different canters while I made myself stop tipping forward with my left shoulder (a new-ish issue I noticed while riding a horse at my new barn that has mirrors) and worked to not sink into any sort of rotation with my hips. Sometimes I get a little hula-dancer-y at the canter. Inside seatbone forward, emphasize the forward and back, don't fucking wiggle.

We also did the tempi changes and for the first time in a while, Rico was kind of a shit about them. Not in the old-horse-losing-strength way, but in the way that used to drive Tracey and I nuts. Here's how it would go:

Tracey: show me the threes
Me: rides a line of threes
Rico: throws in a two for funzies
Tracey: Megan, there was a two in there, do the threes
Me: I'm trying
Rico: bahahaha
Me: goes back across the diagonal
Rico: starts the twos before I even ask for any changes
Tracey: MEGAN NO, THE THREES DO THE THREES
Me: I AM TRYING I AM NOT ASKING FOR TWOS
Rico: lol

So I headed across the diagonal and rode the threes and he ended with a two. I thought that my aid was probably off so I came around again and he STARTED in twos. I don't want to get after him, I mean no one cares now whether he's doing twos or threes. I kept laughing, but was also mildly frustrated with him. Damnit Rico, I talk about how trained and perfect you are and then you pull shit like this.

So cute

In the end we walked down the road and visited Rico's new best friend. It was such a fun ride. We don't get rides like that all the time, mostly because I don't think I've quite determined how many rides a week and in what order I can do to maximize rides like this. Too many rides a week and he gets lazy, too little rides a week and he gets unfit. Trail rides make his coffins hurt so I limit those. It's a balance that I haven't put much effort into figuring out. But when things come together like on Saturday, he's super fun.

A Date and a List

Yesterday I touched base with the people at the rehab center and we made a date for TC's last ultrasound and a date for when TC comes home (pending ultrasound). So on June 28th, TC will get his last ultrasound and on July 6th, TC will (hopefully) come home!

I can't wait to ride this fucking horse I just can't STAND IT

This works out really well, even if it was a week later than I had hoped. I figure the later the better, even if I'm eager to get him home. He's safe where he is, and having him come after the Fourth makes my weekend a lot less stressful (my brother having a big house party = enough stress already, no need to add the pony to that) and lets me use the first few days of the month to move stuff into the barn and get settled before there's an obnoxious pony in the way.

I have a LOT to do before he moves in though, so I have a list:

Boarding
I need to email the barn owner about his boarding situation. The barn is sort of an a la carte barn, so I think I'm going to sign up for one load of shavings a week (one big wheelbarrowful, it's not a ton but it's enough for him) and double feed to start (so four flakes vs the two that they feed) with half grass and half alfalfa, to be moved to 3 grass and 1 alfalfa if he's too buzzy or to 2 grass and 1 alfalfa if he gets fat. He won't get turnout because he's not been given permission for that yet, but BRH trainer will be getting him out every day so that's good. He also won't get the hot walker since I don't think I'm going to trust him on it with the baby TBs.

I know what stall I want, or at least what wing of the barn I want. I want him in a 12x36 stall/paddock combo in this one area where he won't be tempted to jump out. I also need to buy no climb and some wire to make him what will hopefully prevent him from doing the same fucking thing again. If he does manage to climb, I'm going to give them permission to put him in a box stall without my direct permission. Just move him. No climbing.


Tack Room
I don't know where my tack will go. It's kind of a random little place, there are some random tack lockers throughout the property or you can bring your own little locker/shed/trunk/whatever. If there's an open tack room/locker near his stall that I like (unlikely), then I want it, but it's most likely that I'll have to buy my own. It needs to be weatherproof-ish and big enough to hold a saddle rack (hopefully two so one can have pads on it), two big garbage cans for feed, and have some shelving/hooks in it. At first I'll just be bringing my trunk over, which will stay permanently as extra storage, and maybe stealing this one random shed thing from the ranch that is kind of falling apart just to keep my saddle and a freestanding saddle rack in.

Even his shitty canter, I can't wait

Training
I need to talk to BRH trainer, although we sort of already made plans. The idea is to hand him over to the trainer for 30 days, although I'm feeling really bold and strong recently so I'm hoping to be doing mostly lessons and less rides. No offense to BRH trainer, but I want to quickly reestablish the connection and get him thinking about dressage from the get go. BRH trainer is a great dressage rider but um, you know. Regardless of how bold I'm feeling, I want full training, five days a week of lessons or rides. I'd rather be frustrated because I'd rather be riding on my own than be frustrated because my horse bucked me off again. BRH trainer will for sure be the first one on him in the round pen when he comes home, although I really want to ride him on the first day he gets ridden, even if it's just me being led around at the walk.


Feed
I need to buy him his grain (LMF Gentle Balance and Rice Bran, although I'm going to pull him off the Rice Bran and find something else to put him on) and make sure that I have enough of all of his supplements. I really really hope my local feed store has the LMF food, since it's right on the way to the barn. If not then I'll have to get creative about where to pick up grain, maybe on the way home from work. He'll stay on his MSM, the Osteon, and the SmartCalm until it runs out. If the SmartCalm is working, he'll stay on it, but he's for sure coming off the Osteon whenever we get permission from my vet, it's too expensive. After he gets settled, I'll put him on a hoof supplement, but I'm letting myself ignore that for now.

I can just TASTE the connection... wait that's weird

Saddle Fit
At a recent horse show, I found out that my old decrepit Custom saddle can have its tree changed out and be fit to TC! So one of the things that I need to do now that I have a date is to call them and schedule that fitting. I want to schedule it as soon as possible so that I don't have to ride in an illfitting saddle for too long, but I also don't want to be terrified as I try to ride the horse during the fitting. Obviously BRH trainer will be there, so I'll have to schedule it on a day that he's around so I'll have to confirm with him when that will be.


Farrier
I totally don't have someone to trim him yet. Woops. Hopefully he'll get a trim close enough to when he moves where I'll have a bit of time to find one. I can use Rico's shoer, but she isn't a barefoot person. Also I'm kind of a psycho client and don't want to ruin my mom's relationship with her (she shoes all their horses) if it doesn't work out, I like what she does to Rico's feet but I was spoiled by a barefoot trimmer at TC's old barn and want to find someone similar to that person. So I'm looking to find someone else who does barefoot feet. I'm going to ask the BO and BRH trainer who they recommend, as well as a couple friends there who are just as obsessive as I am.

Probably my favorite picture of us, hence it being my facebook
profile picture since September, I'm lazy

I'm so excited guys. SO EXCITED. It's been over six months since I sat on the horse, and it will be about seven when he finally comes back. Seven months is a long time and a lot of things have changed in that time, but what hasn't changed is that I'm SO FUCKING EXCITED to ride my horse. I'm so glad this rehab is almost over. Can't wait to feel that gorgeous trot and that amazing connection. And hopefully I don't come off too many times this summer as he gets back into the swing of things.

Doesn't Have To

Sunday I rode Rico! He had been given both Friday and Saturday off because of Expo, but I was eager to get him out and get more steps enjoy riding him.

Pictures from a recent trail ride because I'm boring

I dressed him up in his blue sparkly pad and my pretty blue polo wraps, but forgot the sparkle whip in my car. Boo. Poor Rico, so embarrassed that the whip didn't match.

He was actually kind of lazy. I had begun to think that I must have been so silly when I was riding him to think that he was a lazy horse- he's so responsive and forward and... hah, nope. The more dressage Rico does, the less he wants to do dressage, and I think he's hit that point.

I think I need to take him somewhere new this week to entertain him, so I'm working on that- we did do a trail ride on Monday, which he appreciated.

Because Rico isn't the king of his own castle, despite his own beliefs, we still did dressage through the laziness. He was fine. He wasn't as easy to get going, but he didn't try to stop all the time like he used to. We actually did get some good work, he just didn't seem as into it. I don't blame him, most of the ride was working on the basics.

This pad is my life, I thought I had lost it (or Tracey would have
been tortured with it) but I finally found it!

We started in canter working on getting him more energetic so that I could practice my canter work. I think I've pretty much fixed my issue with that, which is good news. I even worked on it in a client's lesson recently, which helped me get a really good visual to work with.

I then went to work in sitting trot and noped out of that after the first boob slam reminded me that I hadn't put on a sports bra that day. Woops. So we went back to canter and did some tempi changes.

Rico has clean changes usually, but he's been getting lazy about them as I let more people on him. It's no one's fault, just that as the aid becomes less precise (due to leg length and just differences in timing), he thinks he can be less precise. He cannot. He learned that again on Sunday and then was awesome. We did some fours, threes, and ended with five twos.

Love this place

Treeeee

Then I played with a bunch of canter-walk and walk-canter transitions. Those also tend to get sloppy when they aren't worked on. He's exceptionally easy to ride them well on, but not easy to ride them exceptionally well on. Like anyone can get a solid 7 on them, but he's capable of a 9. All you have to do to get a balanced transition is to let him know you want to walk by not actively asking him to continue cantering, and then for the love of god do not touch his face. But he lands in a walk that isn't perfectly well prepared for cantering off again. So I had him land in a collected walk instead, which is slightly harder.

We also worked on doing this out of the counter canter, which is harder for him. His counter canter isn't as strong as his true canter, so walking out of it usually entices me to do the one thing you should not do in a downward transition- do literally anything. So I worked on using my seat and leg a bit better to help him balance in the counter canter and get the downward better.

Such a pretty place

The dog loves attention from anyone

In canter I thought to myself these words: he's so straight right now, I could get him to jump the skinniest of skinny jumps. I let myself get all superior feeling about it and then cantered him over a mounting block. Wait, that's what I hoped would happen. Turns out that you can be as straight as you want to be, but sometimes your horse reminds you that he's only being straight because he's listening to you and that he doesn't have to listen to you if you ask him to do something stupid like jump a mounting block.

Oh well, he isn't a huge fan of jumping anyway and neither am I. We ended with some posting trot work (I kind of forgot that posting doesn't hurt boobs earlier) and worked on getting a little more power coming from the right hind. He felt only slightly uneven, pretty good for a horse who is a year and a half out from his last injections. We did a little shoulder-in, but mostly just trotted around working on connection and keeping me slightly in the back seat. Boring, but necessary.

Rico's girlfriend right as she struck the fence
and I got whipped around in a spin

Down the road, we saw Rico's ugly girlfriend, who was flirting with him a lot. At one point she squealed and hit the fence with both front feet, causing it to shake. There was a bush along the fence, and the shaking fence caused the bush to shake and Rico was sure it was full of snakes and rabid mountain lions. He spun as fast as he's done in years and all I had to say was "whoa" (no reins because why be safe and hold reins on a trail ride?) and he stopped.

I love riding him again! It will soon be over when I get TC back because I'll refit the saddle and not  have as much time/energy to ride him, but I'm so enjoying this last month or so of riding him more.

Waiting patiently to go in his stall after getting yelled at for
thinking about trotting out of the barn

Horse Expo

Friday night after round one of Horse Expo and a lot of driving already, I headed out to Peony and Andy's house to meet them and L for another Epic Pony Sleepover. L had missed the first one, which was SO FUN, so we had to do another one.

Highlights included hanging out with Rio (and
L, Peony, and Andy I guess)

And getting a ton of free stuff! Also some not free stuff

After sitting and talking about ponies, we headed out to visit Spot, see Andy's new lease horse and watch him ride, and then head off to dinner. We also creeped on Murray (Nicole missed out by ONE DAY being in Australia so obviously we have to do this again) and I squealed and tried to pick up all the animals we saw at the barn. Like a snaggletooth cat, a super cute dog, bunnies that ran away from me, and even Murray (who was not all too enthused to see us) before he went out for turnout.

For dinner that night we got thai food and froyo and talked ponies. Whenever we get together we basically just use the entire time to talk about ponies. Every time I think we might run out of pony related things to talk about, we find another pony crevice and jump right in. Best night ever! Though very late and it wasn't until 1:15 that L and I finally stopped talking in the guest room.

Making Spot hang out with me

Making Spot's pasture friend love me as well

My new kitty, I carried him around for quite a while

The next morning after some coffee and pancakes (I give chateau Peony and Andy a 5 star rating for cute dogs, comfortable beds, delicious food, and amazing pony conversations), we headed out to Horse Expo. I hadn't spent too much time there on Friday, and mostly having been dragged along by my parents to all the saddle places, so I was excited to be there with friends who wanted to be a bit more methodical about seeing EVERYTHING.

We wandered through the horse trailers first, and there were some awesome ones. For people not at all interested in living quarter trailers, we had a lot of opinions on them. There were some super fancy ones and even a bumper pull LQ trailer that was super cute, the table turned into a single bed. If I ever wanted to run away from responsibility with my horses and cat, that's what I'd need. Not sure if the animals would be so thrilled though.

The layouts of the other (non LQ) trailers were mostly the same, but there were a few trailers with REALLY cool tack rooms. Including one where it basically opened up like a gallery for your like six saddles and then on the other side, had a great dressing room. Tons of storage and we kept making plans at how you could basically live in this one too.

Peony's new trailer (well...)

For shame, Murray is missing an R on his nameplate

This baby was so cute

The shopping at Expo is basically the best part. I'm not a huge fan of watching the clinicians and I'm glad Peony and L were in agreement. First, it's really hot up there, so sitting outside in the sun was not going to be fun. Second, they didn't have anyone I was absolutely dying to see (my dad did watch Parelli and got bitten by the bug slightly lol).

We wandered around and I did an okay job resisting a lot of the booths. I wanted to buy these great ice boots for TC, but decided against it because I wasn't going to have access to a freezer at the barn (or maybe before the barn, depends on where I get a job) and I knew that I'd probably forget them even if I did. I also resisted the awesome heat packs for people even though I toyed with the idea a lot. I mean my back hurts sometimes, but I rarely do very much about it anyway and it's fine.

As we wandered around, we loaded up on candy, pens, and various other things being given away by the booths. I actually didn't realize how much candy I had grabbed and am still working on it today even. The LMF booth was one of my favorites, giving out coupons, hats, key chains, pens, and they even had bins of their feed so I could see what my horse was eating. He's been on Gentle Balance for six months and I have no idea what it even is- LMF sponsors the rehab facility.

Signing up for every raffle forever

Mini pony!

We got some moderately disappointing tacos for lunch and then headed back to actually buy everything. We had done a big sweep of all four enormous rooms and took note of everything we wanted. Our bags would have been MUCH heavier and more awkward to carry around all day (and our bank accounts much lighter I think) if we had bought everything when we first saw it.

I did give in to a sparkly dressage whip that I think is 120cm so illegal for shows, oh well, it will be a fun schooling whip. And I gave in to a tail brush that the guy told me wouldn't break when I used it on TC's tail. I go through a ridiculous number of brushes with him, he just breaks them. So I splurged and bought the $20 brush, hoping it'd last longer than five of the $4 ones I was buying. I used it on Rico the next day and it worked okay, I'm concerned about the bristles getting bent, but none of them fell out, so that's good.

I also let a guy talk me into buying what was basically Sore-No-More. He put some on my wrist and told us some stories and I was sold. I fully acknowledged that I had been swindled a bit, but I want something to put on TC's leg after work to make me feel better, regardless of whether it *actually* does anything for him. But hey, my wrist did feel better.

L found pictures of her and Carlos!

Taking a nap on Spot

After collecting our stuff, we were wandering back to the car. We weren't done shopping though! L mentioned that Brookside was going on right down the road and had excellent booths too. We headed out to the show and I got to experience the Beach Party that I've only heard about. I wish dressage people were more fun!

The whole place was decorated with various beach themed stuff. The stables were covered in flamingos, pool toys, floaties, and a lot of it was quite elaborate! Even the riders were wearing beach gear like grass skirts and hawaiian shirts. It was amazing. But we were there to shop.

I spent most of the time debating at whether to get a C4 belt (I can't wear belts to ride and I already have enough regular belts) and a cute show shirt (I need a sound horse first) and then deciding not to. There were some cute bonnets (TC doesn't need a bonnet) and boots (not protective enough) and a lot of saddle pads that I had to remind myself were not dressage pads. Right. I escaped the show without buying anything, but really enjoyed seeing a lot of the stuff that I'd seen online and been interested in.

Moderately disappointing tacos

Much better tacos for dinner (L's plate, I sort of ate mine way
too fast to take a picture)

Before heading all the way home, we stopped to get some REALLY good tacos near Peony and Andy's house. New favorite taco place for sure (until L drags me to the one that she likes in SD). I really didn't want to leave such amazing saddle club adventures, but I'll be back in the area this weekend because my clients aren't letting up with the far away horse shows.

After dinner!