DOMS

Poor little TC worked his butt off this last weekend and when I went to get him out on Monday, he had DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness. Well, it could have happened on Sunday, but I didn't go down to the barn, I had the guys walk and feed him instead.

Monday, I had him do a nice stretching ride and then palpated his back, it was a bit tight so on Tuesday, I gave him a nice long massage and then we did a mostly stretchy ride aside from some fancy trot that he offered.

Then Wednesday, he had another day off and by Thursday he felt back to normal undersaddle and actually gave me some one tempis while flat out ignoring me when I unreasonably asked him to stay on the same lead throughout our work. Today we go on a trail ride and then this weekend he's getting hand walked while I spend a rare weekend off with the SO (still in winter horse trainer mode when I'm not so busy I want to cry). So, kind of a light week after our fabulous rides, but it was needed after how sore he was Monday I think. I like to take things slow with him when he's cranky because of how hard he tries the rest of the time.

So chonky

I'm not too worried about the DOMS. It's unfortunately par for the course with this horse. He hasn't been diagnosed with any kind of muscle disorder or anything, but he's a very low tone horse who is half of a heavy breed. He worked his ASS off for me on Saturday and gave me everything I asked for and way more. It's definitely tempting to keep going and going with that before I lose the feeling, but TC of course comes first so he needed a light week.

To combat his semi-frequently sore muscles, he gets a muscle builder and some alfalfa pellets every day, plus a flake of alfalfa too. It helps make sure that he has enough nutrients coming in for him to build muscle, because we need all the muscle we can get on this flabby horse!

Not svelte 

This year is going to be a huge year for his development, we began the year just schooling a bit of Third level with the changes and a month and a half in, he's nearly confirmed ready to show Third level. I'm hoping to put a piaffe and passage on him this year AND get him ready for the 4-1 by the end of the year and that's a lot to ask of his body. So I'm going to revamp his conditioning schedule and focus on strength. More trail rides when we can for hill work and shifting the baseline for collection over so that there is not such a discrepancy in what I ask for on a regular basis and what he does in lessons.

I'm so excited to see how he does this year, it'll take some management (not to mention that at some point, I need to get another set of x-rays of his hocks and see when he wants those injected, don't know very many horses schooling pirouettes who don't want hock injections), but he's made sure that I know how worth it he is.