Seeing the Chiro

TC saw the chiro vet on Tuesday last week!

I forgot how brilliant she was. She asked how he was doing and I basically just said good and gushed over how much he'd calmed down and how fun he was to ride. Looking back, it'd probably would have helped her to have me tell her that his left hind was the problem child. But you know, priorities.

She had some really good feedback about how he was looking that gave me a lot to think about.

More trail pictures because I have nothing else, I need to take
more pictures in general

First of all, she hadn't seen him in a couple of years (we were in another area and then she got hurt) and says that he's filled out a TON. She liked his weight and put him at a 5.5 on the body scale. I tend to have him more like a 6.5, but I do like that he's a little less heavy, he's a big horse and the less weight down his legs, the better. She didn't want him to lose more weight though, so I'm going to put him on some alfalfa pellets I think. Just some more calories because his work is getting significantly harder.

Muscle wise, she says he looks great, he's really well muscled and the only spot she thought he looked a little scrawny was the base of his neck. I told her 1) he's really only been back to full work since July and 2) that's a known problem area and we're on a really good program to get him stronger. She said given he's only been back to work for two months, he looks amazing!

She asked what he was on supplement/medication-wise and I told her. She said she wanted to check on the vitamin E I'm feeding him because she wants him on more of it. She says the horses that struggle wtih coordination often get better with a lot of vitamin E, so I'll up it with her help soon. She also thought giving him adequan this fall is a good idea. I also think that, but I also got wind that Part 2 of the L program is going to cost me $2100, sooooo we'll see.

Wasn't too sore from this trail ride, which was quite long

Onto the chiro itself. He was out in his poll, which he typically is. And he was also out in his neck. She said that turning his head right must have been tricky and I admitted that he honestly feels pretty supple to me sooo yeah. He definitely does like to throw his head left though. She thought his neck in the walk looked less swingy side-to-side than it should have been.

In his back, he had a couple of ribs, but the main issue was his pelvis. The left side was tipped forward and downward while the right was tipped up and back a bit. She put it back where it belonged and it immediately looked better.

From there, he was pretty done and so she did some acupuncture and he visibly relaxed while she did it. I don't know much about acupuncture but it's not like it's extra money and he seems to like it quite a lot. And whatever TC wants, he gets (within reason).

It was beautiful but I am glad I work in air conditioning lol

When she was finished, she showed me a cool psoas stretch but unfortunately it requires two people to do it. I'm sure no one wants to come to the barn with me at 6:30am to do it with me every morning. But she did say that his psoas is probably VERY tight all the time, it's common in dressage horses to get it tight and then to feel restricted behind. So, given his conformation and career, he's likely to have a fucked up psoas muscle. But when someone is around, I'll be asking them to help me with it for sure.

Overall, it was so good! She said he wasn't bad enough to need a chiro appointment regularly, so I figured once a quarter was probably good enough, maybe taking winters off because #horsetrainerlyfe (my budget is going to shrink significantly due to rain cramping my style).

Happy ears

I rode him the next day and just did a stretchy day. Then it was back to full work on Thursday, Friday, and a lesson on Sunday! More about that tomorrow.