Nudist

TC is a bit of a nudist. He's historically not been willing to wear leg wraps, he can't wear boots in turnout, and his bedsore boot things are in pieces (they've survived two months now though so I take that as a win).

One thing he has been okay about wearing is his blanket. Last year he wore it from November until he ripped it off of himself in April and I decided to just let him be naked for the rest of the year. 

This year, I bought him a new blanket and as far as I can tell, he has matured and has been wearing it just fine this year. I mean, the blanket is still all in one piece and still has all its straps. That's better than his bedsore boots at least. 

I don't take nearly enough pictures of this creature
so here is an old one

I noticed that the guys have been using his rope halter to blanket him, which is weird, the horse is really quite good about everything in life, especially when it comes to humans paying attention to him. But they are used to dealing with naughty horses so I figured it was just something they did with every horse, halter to blanket and halter to unblanket. 

Then I was around when blanketing was happening and the guy asked me if I would blanket him and I said sure. He looked very relieved. But maybe it was just cold and one less thing to do was nice for him? That's what I figured at least. 

Then I heard from someone in passing that TC had been "giving the guys a hard time" with his blanket. It was as I was walking out and they were walking in and I just thought TC was bored and was like, lipping the guy's hat or trying to unzip his jacket or something. He's a really interactive horse who demands friendship from everyone. Obnoxious, but naughty? Never. 

Then yesterday, my friend at the barn was like "your horse is being an ass and won't let the guys catch him to do his blanket," and I was shocked. When I went out to get him, he walked right up to me, waited patiently for me to undo all the clips, then bolted out from under it with a stupid grin on his face. What a fun game. Ugh. 

Mine refuses to let people dress and undress him

So I sacked him out with the blanket a bunch and he stood still as I did that. He was fine to be ridden and then as I put him back, I brought out a bunch of cookies and a clicker. I texted my barn manager with instructions for the guys. 

Bribe the asshole with cookies to catch him at the very least. If that works, cool. If not, use the clicker. Click when the asshole approaches, give him a treat, then click when he allows the halter to go on, give him a treat. Then take his blanket off or put it on. Give him a treat. 

I'm kind of thinking that this is TC's way of getting even more cookies in his life... What an obnoxious animal. 

Back to Work

Last week I absolutely failed at blogging, oops. It's just hard to have anything to talk about when your horse isn't in work and when you are having crisis after crisis in your personal life. Fabulous year, 2020 has been. 

But let's focus on TC for this post, because he remains the light of my life even though he had two weeks of just walking to help his lungs out a bit. 

The vet came back out last week to do a recheck of his lungs and they were much improved. No comets on either lung and the one spot in his left lung that had looked a little fuzzy was 95% improved. She okayed us to go back to work slowly, so that's what we've been doing! 

So much walking

So far, we've done four days of mostly walking with four one minute trot sets with three minute breaks in between. It's VERY conservative, but now any time he breathes slightly harder (like, you know, a horse who has been in and out of work since August would), I get a little concerned. So I'm probably taking a way more conservative route than necessary, but it makes me feel better and does no harm to him. 

I've done a lot of rehab schedules for horses (thank you Rico), so it wasn't hard to come up with something that I knew would effectively bring him back into shape without stressing his tendons/joints/etc. But for breathing, it's a little different. I figure that he needs to trot for short periods of time to get his lungs working, then have enough time to recover before we trot again. So while he does need to trot more over the course of the schedule, I need to build not only the total time we are trotting, but the stamina as well. So we need to go from trotting four total minutes to trotting twenty total minutes. But we also need to go from trotting one minute at a time to trotting five minutes at a time. And we also need to go from three minute breaks in between to less than that. It's a lot of math! 

The canter is coming way later, when we are almost all the way in full work for trot. The reason being is that the horse's breaths per minute at the trot are more variable, versus at the canter, horses breathe out in the down beat of the canter and breathe in during the up beat/back swing. To reduce the strain on the lungs, I want to allow him to increase his fitness cardiovascularly at the trot (where he can breathe as fast or slow as he wants to) quite a lot before I force his lungs to breathe at a certain rate at the canter. We'll do the same thing in canter that we do in trot, first increase the total number of minutes of canter work in 30-60 second sets, then slowly combine those to canter for longer periods of time. 

This is so unbelievably overboard. The person at my barn whose horse had *legitimate* respiratory distress (TC was basically fine lol) put her horse back into hard work almost immediately and I guess he's fine. But I just figure there's no harm in being careful. TC is only 9 and I know how much he loves being in work. It's not fair to push him and risk a career-ending or career-limiting problem just to go back to work sooner for what? For no reason, it's winter, we have no plans to move up to Fourth any time soon, he's confirmed at Third. 

He hates it for some reason

The vet didn't think she'd need to come out again unless he started coughing again. So far he hasn't done anything other than blow his nose once during two of the four rides this last week. He honestly feels fine and is probably a little annoyed to have such a stupid schedule to be riding on. He's gotten a bit bad about being blanketed because I think he wants the guys to play with him. I bought him a lickit and he hates it, so sorry buddy, I tried. 

We do a lot of walking around the ranch and playing games with the clicker in his paddock, but this horse thrives on working so I don't blame him for being a little frustrated. 

Today we go to six total minutes of trot. So hopefully that will help him feel a little better! At least it isn't a tendon rehab, please keep this in mind, TC! Keep those tendons healthy and this could be your last stupid rehab-like schedule. 

Still Passaging

I had Wednesday off from my office job and I decided to spend the entire day with ponies. I had morning and evening lessons to teach, but a whole midday open for my own horses. I'm taking Sunny in the bombproofing clinic this weekend because TC is just plain boring at these clinics, but Sunny isn't ridden all that regularly so I figured I'd like to get him out at least once before I have to spook him. 

Sunny was really good, we walked down the road and then trotted along the access road, then ended with a quick walk/trot/canter in the arena. He did spook a little bit, so it was nice to see what his go-to maneuver was before I proceeded to spook him for four hours this weekend. He mostly just wanted to spin, so that's good to know. 

When I got back to the barn, Rico nickered at me. 

That might seem normal, but let me tell you it's not. Rico is the quietest horse unless he's screaming for other horses. He's NEVER nickered at me. Ever. TC screams his head off at me and anyone else who acknowledges his presence. But Rico just stares at you when you come over to him, that's the best you get, a stare. Most of the time he honestly looks away from you. To have him nicker at me was wild. 

I love him

Looking pretty good for almost 25 after not being
ridden much for four years

The last time he was ridden regularly was when TC was at the rehab facility in early to mid 2016. Then in late 2016, Rico came down with internal pigeon fever and we almost lost him. From then on, he always felt really weak to ride, like "I hope he doesn't fall down" weak. He was also never really sound again. Fine for a ride occasionally but always left me feeling worse that before I went to ride him. It's no fun to watch your once spectacular Grand Prix horse seem so weak. So I stopped riding him and just hung out with him on the ground when I went down to the ranch. 

But the nicker, I took that to mean that he wanted to come out. I put my mom's very uncomfortable bareback pad with stirrups on him. 

My plan was just to see what he wanted to do. Walk around and stare at cows? Fine. Spook at stuff? Fine. Whatever he wanted. 

Passaging around like that's the only two beat
gait he has in him lol

Why, Rico?

He wanted to passage, apparently. I tried to trot him, I really did. He just passaged! I tried to push him out of the passage and he kept giving me more and more lift in the passage. So we just passaged quietly around the arena for a while. Then he started trotting and I finally could post and then he stopped abruptly to stare down the road at cows. So we stopped and stared at cows. 

I asked him to canter and the first stride was him yanking me out of the tack to shake his head and threaten to buck, so we went back to our endless passaging. At one point I asked him to walk and he transitioned into piaffe. Um, okay. 

So we passaged and piaffed a bit until he decided that he'd rather trot, so off we went in trot. 

I didn't ask him to stay on the spot obviously

Unfortunately better than TC's lol

The whole time he felt strong and SOUND. Like, sound. Actually sound. It was probably the soundest he'd felt to me since mid 2016, maybe even sounder than that. He wasn't bending very well, nor was he on the bit obviously, but he was pretty comfortable. Not stepping short behind or ouchy in front. 

Earlier this year, my mom gave him a larger section of the pasture and put him in between Sunny and Riot. He really likes hanging out with them, so he's moving around way more going back and forth to see them. And then a couple times a day he canters into the barn for food and with more room, that's more cantering. I'm not sure if it's that or some other reason? Maybe his hocks finally fused or my farrier made some changes or it was just luck that he felt good that day. Whatever it is, I'm so glad he's feeling good. 

When he finally trotted lol 

We are so dorky, I might get him his own bareback
pad with stirrups to ride him in because this one is
just awful lol

I don't think he's got more dressage left in him. The neck arthritis, especially, is going to forever limit him. But I think I still want to ride him a little bit, as long as he's okay with that. If he's not, I'll obviously lay off him, he doesn't owe me anything else. But if he wants to go out and get ridden a couple times a week, I'd love to play with him this winter. There's video on my ig by the way (@alchemy.dressage), I can't be bothered to make gifs. 

Relief and Reorganizing

TC's breathing was basically back to normal once I'd given the vet the check and agreed to give him two weeks off. Maybe he just wanted a vacation! But that's okay, he can have a vacation. The vet comes out next Thursday and he will hopefully be cleared for work after two weeks of nebulizing and being back on his breathing supplement. 

This last weekend was probably a good one for a vacation anyway because it honestly felt like a vacation. Waking up on Saturday to the news of the election took a weight off my shoulders that I didn't even notice I was carrying around anymore. Then heading down to the barn and it being our first actual cool day since last winter, it just felt like being on winter vacation. The feeling of joy, being able to wear all my warm clothes, TC coming out of his paddock all sassy and rude, it was fabulous. 

The results of the election just made me feel so cosy and safe. I know that we have so much work to do. We still have the senate race in Georgia, we still are in a global pandemic, we still have half the country thinking that the last four years were good enough to repeat and now spewing that the election was rigged (if it were, we'd have taken out McConnell, trust me). But it's also important to celebrate, so I did. By donating to Fair Fight, ordering sushi and a cake with the SO Saturday night, and laughing ENDLESSLY at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping debacle. Please read this and then watch this video.

Love it, he wasn't my first
choice by far but I'm happy

Exactly

And hanging out at the barn of course! 

Without being able to ride for real, we've just been walking a lot. Hand walking with the nebulizer, walking around bareback, sometimes tacking up and walking with the bands. Just walking. 

I've also been reorganizing my life at the barn and in my trailer. The SO came down on Sunday to help me hang up some organizers in my tack room so that I could get some stuff off the ground. I threw out a bunch of mostly empty bottles of things I was certain I'd use several years ago and have been carrying around with me from barn to barn. I moved some things to my trailer as well, in preparation for staying overnight at more places. 

I tend to not have a whole grooming/care setup in my trailer because I usually groom before leaving the property, but we will hopefully be going on some longer field trips to trainers this fall/winter, so I wanted to get the trailer properly outfitted. I added some more brushes/sprays/shampoo/conditioner, put some cookies in there, made my first aid kit more robust, added lights to the tack room so it was easier to deal with in the dark, and reorganized the whole tack room. I also made a list of things to buy, as I'd like an extra set of standing wraps (I'm imagining if he gets hurt/cut somewhere), some 

Let's do it

I also took the weekend to wash all my saddle pads and my show clothes. My show clothes live in my trailer tack room, although when we actually move into a house that's big enough for both of our things, I think I'll move them to a dedicated closet (low key planning on our guest room being my horse room). 

The final thing I did this weekend was brainstorm. A lot. I love my life but sometimes I feel so overwhelmed working two jobs and commuting so far to my horse. My brainstorming was very abstract, but I basically made a list of things that I wanted to work on over the next five to ten years. The number one thing I realized was that I wanted more free time like I had this weekend. More time to putz around the barn and play with TC (and my future horse). More time to spend with family (we stopped by the ranch to chat with my parents and pick up some things, it was nice to not have to run off immediately). More time to decide at the last minute to sleep in a bit and relax. My life is very much solidly set into this really weird schedule where I slip in the things that I enjoy around a rigid schedule that could change at any moment. 

I'm just at the beginning of trying to figure this out, but I'm hoping I can build a better schedule for myself in the short term and set myself up for more free time in the future! 

Playing it Safe

 Well as the election was stressing me out, TC was too! 

On Monday, TC came out and coughed through his entire (very short) ride. I was immediately scared for him, he had tapered off his Smart Breathe Ultra supplement the weekend before and we hadn't nebulized since he went back to work. He seemed totally fine coming back into work (we were 2-3 weeks in) until that day. 

I nebulized him Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning and then on Tuesday, he didn't cough once and seemed back to normal. Phew! Random bout of coughing on Monday I guess, oh well, he was probably fine. But, then Wednesday I noticed that his resting respiratory rate was elevated (22-27 bpm). I texted my vet to ask about it and she offered to come out on Thursday, so that's what we did. 

First, before I go on, I do want to say that I was so happy when she said "wow, I mean I know he's out of shape but his topline looks way better than when I saw him last" which we both decided meant that he DID have ulcers this summer and that they are gone! I told her I had him on a preventative supplement and she was happy to hear that. 

He's looking so damn good right now

Thursday his respiratory rate was 20 breaths per minute, which she said was on the high side of normal. It was hot (90 degrees), he's out of shape, he's growing back his coat like his life depends on it, it could all be explained. She watched him work in the dusty round pen where he didn't cough at all and she basically told me that he was probably fine. No signs of respiratory distress, nothing to suggest there's anything wrong with him, really. 

I'm not a "probably" kind of person and so I asked her what we could do to make sure. There are a ton of tests, she said, but that many of them were fairly drastic, like pumping fluid into his lungs, then sucking it back out and testing it for bacteria. Yikes, no thanks. I'd rather just back off and bring him back slower.  

Then she mentioned a lung ultrasound and I asked how much that was. It was less than I charge for lessons, so I said yes. He didn't even need to be sedated, he just stood there with this stupid look on his face while she ultrasounded his lungs. 

Y U DO??

The right lung was completely normal. There was one "comet" which is a sign of inflammation, but she said that most horses have a couple of them in each lung just from being horses. Dust (he lives right by an arena), smoke (obviously), allergies (not that I know of but they can develop them later in life), etc can cause them and it's not a big deal to see one or two of them in each lung. 

We moved to the left lung and that one was also pretty normal, another "comet" was found but nothing exciting until we moved down toward his elbow. And that's when we found very mild inflammation. The lungs were just a tiny bit fluffy looking there. No comets or anything, just... fluffy. 

Apparently this can be totally normal in horses. Again, dust in his paddock, dust from the arena, dust in his hay, mild allergies that don't affect him directly yet. If you ultrasounded all the lungs of all the horses in the world, there are plenty performing at a high level with lungs that looked worse than his do now. 

The way he's been coming back has been so nice,
I just want to continue!

BUT we don't know if this is normal for him (hello future horse's vet check, I'll be ultrasounding lungs because it's so cheap and gives us a baseline because the smoke is probably only going to get worse every year), so we have to assume it isn't given that he coughed that one day and seems to have a slightly elevated respiratory rate. 

Playing it safe, I'm going to nebulize and then walk undersaddle for two weeks. I've also ordered him another round of his breathing supplement and that'll come this coming Tuesday. We tentatively have a recheck in two weeks. If he's still breathing weird in a week and a half, I'll push the vet check out by a week and we'll give him more time. If he's breathing normally, I'll keep the appointment and we'll see what the lungs look like again. 

When we ultrasound, if his lungs look better but not perfect, I might do another two weeks of walking. If his lungs look pretty perfect (just one or two comets but no fluffiness), I will slowly put him back to work. If his lungs look the same, we'll just assume that this is normal for him and I'll probably go slower than I normally would putting him back to work. 

He was looking soooo good, I'm bummed

I texted my trainer friend to tell her I wasn't coming this weekend and she said her horse had this same thing happen coming back from the smoke! She said she just walked him undersaddle and did light trotting every day and he returned to normal. He was coughing more than TC is (because TC literally isn't coughing except for the one day) and he's back to full work now and doing great. 

I wonder if the breathing supplement was really helping and that I took him off too early? Or if it was just a coincidence? Or if he had just snorted some hay on Monday and he's actually totally fine? I don't know. I just know that I want to play it safe. There's too much bullshit going on in this world right now for me to put my horse at risk at all, even if it's likely that he's fine. 

At this point, it's apparent that I love this horse more than life itself and I will pour everything I have into him to keep him the happiest, healthiest creature that ever existed. I think I have a problem here...  But I'm happy to report that I'm not the only one, I think the SO is pretty obsessed with him too. When he found out that we were doing an ultrasound he asked for a picture of TC because he thought TC probably had a really "derpy look" on his face. 

Confusing Myself with Two Philosophies

I discovered that as of October 1st, I'd only had fifteen lessons in 2020. Sure, the global pandemic has made things *challenging* but I told myself at the beginning of this year that I'd take way more lessons. And I haven't. Ugh. But it's okay, it means I can go a little nuts this fall without feeling guilty at least! 

So, on Wednesday of last week, I had another lesson with Tracey. 

Once again, it was very different from my lesson with Tanya, but still useful, although this ride-with-two-very-different-trainers thing is starting to bug me. So, like a crazy person, I have scheduled two lessons with yet another trainer to talk to her about these things (and because she's been my friend/mentor/someone I look up to for the last 10+ years) this weekend. 

But, THIS lesson. 

This is not from the lesson but a couple days after

Tracey watched me warm up and didn't yell at me for walking too fast, so that was good. I rode as much of my typical Tanya warm up as possible - lots of bending exercises and lateral work, lots of forward and back. I have to hand it to TC, he is getting way better in that work and comes out more and more through each day, it definitely makes me feel like SOMETHING is working? Who knows what at this point though. 

Her main feedback in the beginning is to make sure I come back enough in my forward and back. That I'm too quick to shoot him off and not quick enough to half halt. Valid. I definitely feel better sending this horse over the ground (and horses in general, let's be honest) than putting him in collection. 

She also had me go a little less sideways in our leg yields for a little more balance, which was a good call because it did seem more effective that way. Given that my mantra leaving my Tanya lesson was "don't let her tell you these things again," I think we're doing well. Tanya is always saying more sideways and more forward, so next time I want to bring her a completely terrifyingly forward horse that won't go in any kind of a straight line. According to Tracey, I might have achieved this. 

Making sure it's tracking me lol

From there, she put us into canter and I instantly regretted doing it. He started out very behind me and when I put my leg on, I felt him prop behind, which is his first step toward bucking through an entire ride. I think this was in response to him getting worked somewhat hard the day before in canter in the covered arena. He hates cantering in that arena and it always makes him more behind the leg in the dressage court for some reason. 

We never really got it right. Tracey did not appreciate my way of dealing with it, but she didn't have a lot of ways to fix it other than telling me to not ask him to do anything that made him kick out. Okay. But he kicks out when I put my leg on and to me, a Third level horse scoring in the high 60s and low 70s should, I don't know, probably not kick out when I put my leg on. He does this about once a month and we just have a nice galloping day and he is committed to being in front of me for the next month. Vet has checked him out blah blah blah, it's just a thing we do. 

This set me on a rampage and I felt a little bad for getting frustrated at her. I challenged her when she said good, saying that it may look good, but I had no ability to ride him when I couldn't feel his hind legs. We had a discussion about how this might just be his conformation and maybe I just will never be able to feel his hind legs and I shot back that I could feel his hind legs just fine when he's got enough power. We honestly didn't end on a good note in the canter and I kind of want to stop writing about what a shit show it was. 

Stretching to contact like a good pony

Back in trot, I was probably a little too combative (with her, not TC, poor Tracey) after the canter. I basically said that I needed to feel his hind legs and that's all I wanted to work on. There's no point in riding this horse through movements without his hind legs because they're not going to be good and I'd already gotten a couple of digs about TC not being anywhere near ready for the level of collection required for Third level. Of course he's not showing the level of collection required, I have no hind legs. I made it very clear that when I have him in the right place, I've never not been able to ride a movement. There is even a canter I can get out of this horse where I could easily put a canter pirouette on him. I dunno, it felt kind of shitty to make proclamations to me when we've already proven that we have enough collection for Third level by scoring so well.

So we brought it way down and worked on half steps to collected trot to half steps. Tracey was impressed that TC knew his half steps and he was a good boy about coming back into them and stepping out of them. In this work, she had me think a lot about making my sit trot mechanic more vertical and said that she wanted him to be responsive to that. 

The change was great, he was way more engaged, way more collected, and seemed more softly responsive to the aids. He seemed to like it. But I couldn't shake the feeling that there was just no power in it. There's no way we move up the levels with respectable scores without power. So I asked Tracey, I like the trot, it's a nice trot, it feels good, he looks good... but it's not powerful, there's no medium trot living in it, there's a lot of floatiness but not a lot of digging into the ground and pressing upward/forward. She explained that he just needed time to gain the power in that posture/collection and I called it a day after that discussion. But I don't know, is collection attainable without impulsion? No. I wouldn't call what we got a trot with a lot of impulsion. But he did get more vertical in his chest and more upright in his front end, which is a better place for him to be and not where we get him with Tanya with his neck out like that. 

He looks downright SHORT in his back and that
inside hind leg is under my seat, whaaaaat, neither
trainer got him moving like this!

So at this point, I'm struggling with the two trainers with very different philosophies thing. All last week and weekend, I rode him a little softer and swingier than Tanya wanted, but with more energy than Tracey wanted. That seemed to be helpful (where these screenshots came from, the whole ride was like that on Friday) and I was happy with where he was. He was not as rideable as he is with Tanya, but his posture was much better. He was not as collected as he was with Tracey, but he is much more forward. You could say it was the best of both worlds or that it fell short of what both trainers want. 

If I had my pick, I'd take the power and responsiveness that Tanya provides us and combine it with the posture and collection that Tracey provides us. 

Basically, Tanya is willing to get his neck a little short and get him a little unloaded behind in order to get forward first, then we half halt to fix his neck. But I can't help thinking that I don't really ever want his neck short and his hind legs unloaded. And then on the other side, Tracey is willing to sacrifice the electric responsiveness to my aids (and therefore the power/energy) to get him in the right posture, then when he's strong there, we add the responsiveness back. But I can't help thinking that I don't really ever want him behind my leg or unresponsive. 

Hopefully my trainer friend will help me out this coming weekend. I think getting fresh eyes on him from someone who has been extraordinarily successful at all levels on off breeds and from someone who knows me so well (but not him, she only knew him as a 4yo) will be unbelievably helpful. Also as a bonus, she's fabulous at putting piaffe and passage on horses! So we'll be at least getting those half steps better developed. Fingers crossed she's the help I need!