The New Protocol

The last few months I've changed some things up and there's more to change coming, so I figured I'd chat about it. 

The biggest thing I think I've changed has been TC's workload. Last summer, he did six solid days of dressage a week and sometimes we'd go on the trail. Now, we basically start the week planning around a trail ride. He's also getting two full days off a week, or one full day off and one light hack day where we mostly walk around the ranch. And then the other days we do cavalletti work or stretching in addition to some harder dressage days. 

Best thing about so much trail riding is all the nice
pictures I have to populate posts like this

So last week looked like this: 

Monday: cavalletti 

Tuesday: off

Wendesday: Tracey lesson

Thursday: trail ride

Friday: dressage

Saturday: cavalletti clinic

Sunday: off

So two cavalletti days, two dressage days, two days off, and a trail ride. Definitely a different look to our schedule than a random week last summer:

(he'd gotten Saturday off and Sunday dressage)

Monday: dressage

Tuesday: lesson with Anne

Wednesday: dressage

Thursday: off

Friday: dressage

Saturday: dressage

Sunday: dressage

(he got Monday off after this) 

I think TC is thriving in the variety. He loves to trail ride, thinks cavalletti days are pretty fun, and I haven't felt like he's lost anything in the dressage work even though we don't do it as often. It helps my mindset that we aren't pushing for a new level this year, I just want to stay at Third and get it a little more solid. 

I've also been thinking hard about how I have horses in my life and I'd very much like to adopt a "enjoy the horse first, show second" mentality, which I think I sometimes lose. Ever since going hard for my Gold medal, I very easily fall into an intense training protocol. I like to think it's because I now know what I'm capable of with hard work, but I also think it's just a habit I've developed. 

I feel bad posting pictures of our beautiful winter
weather but rest assured that this place will one
day be on fire

Cute cows

As you know, TC went to the vet at the beginning of this month only to be pronounced incredibly sound. He has now been on the Core Builder for two weeks and I do see a difference in his topline. I think we were already on a good track (so that's probably what I'm seeing develop now) but it makes me feel even better. 

From there, I'm also going to change up his supplements. I've always felt like his coat could be better and have been tempted to swap him to Platinum something or other, but thought it'd be too expensive. I ran the numbers and it turns out that Platinum CJ is actually a better deal than what he's currently on if I've done my math right. 

I was also chatting with a client who does some bodywork and she casually mentioned the taxation that oversupplementing can cause and so I kind of want to pull him off everything, just put him on Platinum, and reevaluate later. It's not a bad time to do it because we aren't moving up a level and his workload is pretty chill (see above). 

So I think after he's done with this round of Smartpaks (he just started a month so it'll be mid to end of March when he swaps), I'll pull everything except the Core Builder and his psyllium (he eats on sand every day so he gets it regularly) and start the Platinum CJ. 

Love these trails

The cows were all huddled under the tree

I've been so enjoying him lately. This last summer I absolutely had a good time but there was always a small bit of me that really doubted our training situation and the rides were not as harmonious. It's not that he doesn't get pressure put on him now or that there aren't moments where I have to work him through something that he's thinking is a bit tough. 

But let me say that I can't remember the last time I touched him with my spur or did anything more than touch him lightly with the whip to encourage him to step more under with the hind leg. It just feels better to me and I really feel like our relationship has grown in the last six months. 

Making trail riding a priority has helped my mental health, as has not going to the barn every single day. I love hanging out with him and do wish I could move him closer (the day will come but the day is not here yet) so I could see him every day, even on his days off (with him being 40 minutes away, "running" out to the barn isn't a thing), but not having to drive at least once a week has been amazing. This last week, I took Tuesday and Sunday off and this coming week I'm going to take Thursday off (he gets Sunday off but I teach a clinic so no day off for me). On Tuesday, the SO and I walked to get lunch at a restaurant nearby and on Sunday, we went on a hike.

I just love this loop

It was such a nice day

I'm excited to see where the new schedule and the new supplements take us. I think we're finally back on track to have a really good year. Between all these changes and the trainer change, we're really doing well and having fun doing it too! 

Cavalletti Clinic

This weekend, my chapter of CDS finally got to host their cavalletti clinic! It's literally almost been a year in the making. We were supposed to have it last spring, but then covid, so it was pushed to the summer, but then fires, so it was pushed to fall, but then smoke... so now we had it in February! 

It was PERFECT timing given that 1) TC and I had had our first lesson with Jec (but no second one because of rain, I'm excited to go back soon!) using cavalletti to improve his posture and 2) my vet had just seen TC and recommended cavalletti as a strengthening exercise. I really do want to get him doing cavalletti at least once a week, but with the rain and my schedule (I need extra time to set up the cavalletti and don't often have it), we haven't been able to do it too much. 

So many poles!

The clinician was a cavalletti specialist, who does these clinics I think for a living. TC and I were in a group with three other horses of roughly the same size but of varying skill levels. 

We got there a bit early and had to wait a little bit. I think TC really wanted to get there and WORK so he spent the time waiting getting himself all in a tither about being at a PLACE and needing to do a THING. He's been funny about his work lately, like way way overenthused to do it, so this wasn't unusual but I did have flashbacks of his youth and realized that he's not so dark anymore so I can't even pretend he's a child. 

He did eventually settle with some canter work and realizing what was going to happen during the clinic. It was an unusual clinic, he hasn't done a ton of clinics and really not a lot of group work where we have to go in a particular order, so it was great exposure for him! 

And he did!

At the beginning, she had the four of us tell her the age and breed of our horses and that was it. I found that interesting as I always ask riders for their life stories but I think she really has her process down pat and just wanted to know what to expect from the horses (younger, older, typical breed responses to cavalletti maybe?). 

She put us in a specific order (TC and I were second) and we walked through four poles that were not raised, then we walked through them when she raised alternating sides. She said what she wanted us to do was 1) stay very straight, 2) sit very deep and back, and 3) keep our hands as wide as the shoulders. 

Straightness was not an issue, but the sitting very deep/back with very wide hands made my carefully sculpted, Mary Wanless inspired position VERY uncomfortable. She kept emphasizing to me (because despite trying, my position was disobedient) that I had to keep my hands wide to engage my core (disagree) and that I had to sit back to lift his withers (disagree, maybe my brain was like "nope" and prevented me from doing it lol oh no). 

I tried hard to do the things she wanted me to do because I always go into lessons with the mindset of "trying for one ride won't kill you," (and I appreciate that in my clients too!). Unfortunately, the patterns that keep me in my position are apparently VERY strong, especially when TC went through the raised poles and his trot changed, so I felt bad that I couldn't do it for her. One of the ladies in the clinic is also a MW person and we laughed about how it felt like I had my helmet touching his butt and I was still on vertical (she wanted me slightly behind vertical and apparently my spine doesn't want me to do that).

He thought he did a good job so he
wanted a cookie

We went through the cavalletti one at a time and after every time, she would add another pole. TC and I worked up to 14 poles in a row! He was really good about the whole thing once he realized that if he quietly hung out between trots, he didn't have to work as hard. For a while, I had to canter him in between to calm him down and he kept seeing the other horses standing patiently and I think it occurred to him that he could also stand patiently. 

Most of our feedback outside of my position was to get TC's neck down and "supple" him in the poles. I didn't want to be rude but I also wanted to stay true to my horse. He certainly can reach for contact more, but neck down is not something I equate to reaching to contact at this point in my education. I also don't know how to supple a horse through some cavalletti on a straight line without shuttling the bit back and forth. So I worked to get him more supple and into the bridle in our circles before the poles and she did seem to be happier by the end, so that's good!

Other than that though, the trot felt really good, he got very passage like and I felt more lift than his normal fake passage he's been offering me (and with the poles, guaranteeing that he was tracking up, which he loses in his fake passage). He got lots of praise for that and with so many poles, I hope I got that patterned into me so I can ask him for it again sans poles. It's good for him to learn to add suspension in his trot one way or another. 

He thought her bag had cookies in it

I can't really say how much I got out of the lesson. I think maybe if I'd gotten some video, I'd have come to a firmer conclusion about it. I think the different position didn't allow me to feel as much as I normally can (especially the wide hands, my god that just made it feel awful). I did see really good changes in the other horses, so I'm thinking that the changes were there on TC, I just couldn't feel it. 

I really don't want this post to come across negatively, because despite not getting a huge amount of TC-specific help, I thought she was a fabulous clinician! I kept thinking "I wish I had Rico for this clinic!" because it would have been AMAZING to do it on him. TC is just a tricky horse in the contact and we frequently run into these types of situations where generally good instruction just doesn't work with him because of his neck getting so short so easily. 

But it was good to see how he did with so many poles, I think we'll up our game during our cavalletti days at home. And I definitely want to go see Jec again and get some more exercises from her. 

He had a good time

Although it didn't blow my mind, it was so fun! I definitely want to go again sometime and hopefully TC's connection will be a bit better with him understanding the game and with some continued work through cavalletti on our own. 

Apparently on the second day she does do cavalletti on a curved line, I didn't realize it'd be two different exercises for the two days or I would have signed up for the second day. Given that I know the spacing and I don't think the instructions would be very different though, I think I'm going to just set up our own curved line of poles this week and see how that goes for us! 

Wrap Around the Inside Leg

On Wednesday, I had a lesson with my old trainer! Since our last lesson, we'd been working hard on getting TC to stretch to the left rein and also working on our transitions so that TC doesn't fall apart during them. I mentioned the transitions to trainer but she was wanting to revisit the lateral work again, which was fine, really. I can do the transitions on my own. 

The balance is getting better I think

We began in trot and chatted about TC's low-tone-ness and how he's lucky to have me, a high tone rider, which I thought was funny. He does tend to want to melt into the ground sometimes. She was happy with how he looked in trot though, so we popped into canter. 

Trainer's main complaint about TC right now is that he doesn't split his hind legs enough, a theme for him (and anything with an ounce of friesian blood it seems). The split of the hind legs is how far in front of the outside hind leg the inside hind leg lands in the second beat of the canter. Friesians tend to land too soon with their inside hind leg and when you collect that, they get together behind and lack correct rhythm. New trainer's technique for more split was to basically gallop him over the ground, which did get him more split but it took him out of collection. She wants to develop the split without losing the collection, which was much harder but the canter we got out of it was AMAZING. 

Shoulder-in

She put us on a 12-15m circle tracking left and noted that TC got a little over his right shoulder in addition to not having as much split as she wanted. This also took him out of the collection, so she had me bring his shoulders in on the circle and ask him to glance outward, not counter flex but not flexed inward either. From there, I was to ride his neck long and focus on the connection on the inside rein. 

The change in the canter was immediate and the only thing I could say was "I can SIT this canter" and explained to Trainer that TC doesn't always want me sitting on his left lead. I really felt like I was on his outside edge and Trainer's directions were to "keep his outside shoulder under himself" which I know didn't mean keep it on the ground too long (longitudinally) but instead it meant keep his right shoulder under him laterally and in front of the left hind leg. 

To the right, the changes weren't as apparent to me because I can sit on him no matter what in that direction. I've been working my ass off getting better plugged in in the canter because I tend to unplug when he gets behind my leg or props. She complimented my seat when I told her that I could sit on him better in this direction, which was really nice to hear. She said that I had no cheese wedge and that even she struggles with her cheese wedge! I've always struggled with it so it was nice to hear that I was doing a good job with that.

Starting to put on some muscle finally!

She then surprised me again by asking to see his changes. Unfortunately, TC is very picky about the canter he wants to change out of and this canter was unacceptably collected for it, so we had two clean but proppy changes. She just kept telling me they were clean which I thought was funny, she said we'd work on them later. I told her that I'd refresh his memory of them and get them a little better on my aids (we haven't done that many since August) and then I'd love some help. 

From there, she asked to see canter half pass! What! I came into my lesson wanting help on the canter to trot transition and she was the one pushing ME along. My how the times have changed. 

The canter half pass felt fabulous (probably because I was surprised it happened because we also haven't schooled it since August) but she wanted him to be more wrapped around my inside leg, my main issue in half pass that I taught TC. She then taught me the exact same lesson I gave one of my clients recently, half pass to the quarterline, then leg yield back to the rail. It definitely helped get TC more on my aids but I don't know how much it helped get him wrapped around my inside leg. I think I need someone to get on him and put their pattern on him because even if I ride it properly, I'm sure TC feels my "fuck this movement" and is like "maybe not this then" lol! 

The smiliest and most obedient

From there, we went to the trot and did some shoulder-in and half pass. Bend was a theme there too (I hate half pass) so we did a lot of shoulder-in to half pass to shoulder-in and throwing in 10m circles before and during the movements. It definitely got better and her reminders to keep pressing his neck forward and out away from me was really great. He's the kind of horse who gets shorter and shorter and shorter in the neck the more he does, so I think I need to implement some new techniques in our test riding. Mainly, ride a movement, lengthen the neck, ride a movement, lengthen the neck, and so on. 

Overall, it was a great lesson and I was glad that she pushed us a little bit. I still ended up working on transitions today, but it was good to get her eyes on some of our actual Third level stuff. I'd like to start gathering scores for All Breeds and Championships in early April, so we have like five or six weeks until our first show of the year. 

Our next lesson is this weekend! But not with this trainer, we are riding in a cavalletti clinic and I'm so excited for that for so many reasons. Fingers crossed it goes well! 

It's Almost Been a Year

Oh my god I didn't want to keep writing these, and I didn't for a while because it really has just become the new normal. But there are some things to update now so I may as well update! 

I for one, would like it to stop

Masks

My barn has finally implemented a mask policy, it happened right after three people at our barn contracted COVID, I wrote about that here. I've also been wearing a mask around my family as well. We were using them whenever we were indoors or in close quarters before, but now it's just a normal thing. The only time I don't use one is while I'm riding or when I'm teaching AND no one is near me. I can teach 1-2 lessons in a mask but after that, it gets tough for me. My 8+ lesson clinics are impossible, but when the nearest person is across the arena from me, it's probably fine to slip my mask down to teach. 

This made me laugh

Also this

Unusual Holidays

For Thanksgiving, the SO and I went down to my parents' place and spent a few hours with them and my siblings/niece outside. That was great and no one got sick (as a reminder, my mom, dad, brother, and SIL had COVID last March), but apparently not everyone was so lucky and we saw an uptick of cases. 

The SO's mental health has not been great this last year, I mean... he moved away from all of his close friends in the middle of 2019 to a country with a shit administration that hated immigrants and then a global pandemic hit eight months later when he was juuuust getting the hang of his new job and his new girlfriend (me!) had just moved in. He and I hit a bit of a wall in November with how awful he's been feeling and with a lot of careful consideration and hesitation, we decided that he should go to visit his family for a few weeks over Christmas. 

Lol. That did not happen. Thing got way worse, obviously, and he absolutely could not catch COVID over there because his immigration status was in jeopardy if he was away from his desk for more than 30 days. So he canceled the trip (he hadn't bought tickets or anything, we were waiting on COVID numbers) and we hunkered down.

Christmas Eve, my family usually does a big dinner and we were very on the fence about going. We decided to stay home and I basically cried the entire evening. But we opened presents with ourselves that evening and the SO got me a new laptop because he said that mine was "an abomination" that he didn't want in his house, so we had fun setting that up. Then on Christmas day, we went over to my brother's backyard and stayed VERY FAR APART and kept masks on while we exchanged presents, then I went down to ride TC. It was a good day. 

I fell asleep at 9:30 on New Year's Eve. I mean, as per usual for that holiday though. 

Yes please

Lol excellent

Moving

Oh man moving was amazing. I have all my stuff with me, the SO and I have so much more space, he has a place for his bike trainer, I have my own office, and we have a backyard with an orange tree! We are still house shopping to buy, but being in this house makes that feel less urgent.

Having my own office has increased my productivity for sure, and it's made teaching so much more fun. I can sit in the sun and look out at the backyard and keep the door closed so I don't have to hit mute if the SO needs to make coffee. 

The only downside is that the laundry is downstairs but if the SO is around, he'll carry the laundry for me because I do it so pathetically (why carry the laundry downstairs when you can drag it and have it flump flump flump down the stairs?). 

I got dosed with caffeine (I can't have it, it
makes me anxious) and was WIRED one day

Love this

Stolen Time 

For some reason this winter, I've had a really hard time with the pandemic and feeling like it's been "stealing" from me. It stole the rest of our "honeymoon" period as we had to learn to cope with the literal worst year of our lives together. It stole my ability to see my extended family and my SO's ability to see any of his family/friends. 

I keep trying to tell myself that while sure, that's valid, it's also given me a lot of flexibility in my schedule working from home and teaching new people remotely and playing Stardew Valley with friends and I still get to see my immediate family because they live close and we have the ranch to socially distance at. But there's definitely some mourning happening there. 

The Deep Sate drank the blood of a bald eagle
while forcibly vaccinating a flag hahahaha

That's pretty messed up

Self Quarantine

For all of January, the SO and I basically self quarantined. No stores, no errands, nothing except me going to the barn and to my teaching barns. Masks and distancing when I went to the ranch to let my niece ride (we only did that once or twice). We did this because he had an immigration appointment in early February. 

When that was over (it went well), we celebrated by going shopping, lol. And then we had a socially distanced house warming with just my family in our back yard! 

This

Probably nothing wrong 

First Birthday Zoom

My niece turned 1 at the end of January and my brother and SIL took her up to her other grandparents' place because she's 1/4 Korean and there's a tradition of letting the baby pick a fortune for their first birthday. The sweetest kiddo picked the pencil and paper, meaning she'll be intelligent, then she dumped a bunch of rice on the floor and ate berries off a cake. 

Last weekend, we had a dual house warming (the SO and I just moved) and in-person celebration with my parents and brother's family. My niece is so close to walking! And I bought her too many birthday presents. I also bought her too many Christmas presents. It's going to be a theme! 

Also how I negotiate when TC wants
cookies, he gets cookies

The SO had to explain it to me like six times

GameStop

I was so entertained by that. That is all. That's all I wanted to say, I found it so unbelievably entertaining. 

Hope

We do have some hope in the form of the vaccine. My dad got his first shot a few weeks ago, I have numerous friends who have been vaccinated (some with the second one on board too!), and the SO's father got his first shot as well. My mom is too young so she is still waiting, but that works out because the vaccine hit my dad fairly hard, so she wants him to recover from both shots before she gets hers. 

The new administration obviously has given me some hope. I was not a Biden fan early on but I was happy to see that some things are happening. I still want to be critical of any government, so I am disappointed that more hasn't been done, but I do have to acknowledge that even with the delay on some things, it is objectively better than having our previous administration in charge. The SO and I are feeling a little less stressed about immigration. 

Lol I love it

In 27 days, it'll be a year since we were put on Shelter in Place. Eleven months of living with the virus in our lives. I cannot wait for life to return to some semblance of normal! Hope everyone reading this is healthy and excited to get their vaccines (if you can, I have one who cannot and who is very disappointed by that). 

WW: Climbing

 Not the kind you do at a bouldering gym, although it's been almost a year since I went to mine and that makes me a little sad. I'm talking about the kind you do on your horse! 

I snuck out on the trails very early a couple weeks ago and TC and I climbed quite a bit for a horse who hasn't been doing much climbing recently. He felt great out there, quite strong, and he was a really good boy despite a lot of activity. 

I also took him out this last weekend and did the entire short loop for the first time this year! It was a bit windy but he was perfect. What a good boy. 

It was actually pretty cold (for us), like 45*

Love that the green grass is coming in

He's the most bombproof creature

The lighting wasn't the best lol oh well

Best trail horse ever

It was so bright! 

Can't wait to go back out!

Transitions Transitions Transitions

Since the vet appointment, TC has felt great! I rode him on Tuesday and Wednesday, he got yesterday off, and then I'm heading out to ride him today. 

On Tuesday he was wild, obedient, but wild. He had Sunday off, then the only thing he did on Monday was get hauled to the vet to be checked out and then hauled back home. So by Tuesday, he was really needing to DO SOMETHING. 

We basically got zero things done that day because it was all I could do to keep most of his feet near-ish to the ground. So that was a bust. 

He looked WAY better than he felt that day

Wednesday was a stressful day at work, we had federal reporting due and I thought it was finished but I had a bunch of it pile up. I finished it before my ride but I was pretty twitchy and my boss messaged me like 5 times in the first 15 minutes of my ride and I kept worrying. TC couldn't handle my shit so I got off of him and hand walked him to the covered arena, turned off my phone notifications, and took a deep breath. 

He luckily recovered immediately because he's the best and we had a fabulous ride in the covered arena (which is our comfort zone currently). 

Buzzy pony

As I said yesterday, I noticed in my last lesson with Tracey that TC's transitions were probably a huge part of why he isn't going as well. He's always been rather difficult to ride through transitions. Obedient most of the time, though he will sometimes get stuck in an upward transition and refuse to go anywhere. But he loses tone through them. Tracey had us practice a few, but on Wednesday, I came out wanting to do a bunch of them. 

Just like Anne and Jec discovered, the more you throw at him, the better things go. I have a very bad habit of just going around and around, and I put a limit on myself with how often I had to change something. TC got better and better, the transitions slowly improved, and he looked (and felt) really good in the mirror. 

That neck can get so short when he's not under 
my influence ugh

I want to come up with a good warm up for TC and I think for a while, it will involve a lot of transitions. Once he was thinking about sitting down, being on my aids, and keeping his tone up, he was way easier to ride. His gaits felt better, he was sharper to my aids, he felt easier to ride. 

One of the kids I teach has a very strict warm up and I keep adding new things to it and taking out things that the horse comes out doing perfectly. I think it really helps set both them and their horse up for success each day. The horse knows what to expect and the rider can use the warm up to determine if anything is off with their horse. 

I didn't think much of it until I realized that my warm up on TC could be summed up with "walk around the ranch, trot and canter around in working gaits, get to work" while my rider's warm up includes transitions, lateral work, and lots of figures. So I'll be adding transitions to TC's warm up, and maybe some other stuff too! Anything to get him feeling as good as he felt on Wednesday every day. 

Addressing the Connection

Last Wednesday, I had a lesson with Tracey! The lesson two weeks ago was really good and I have been practicing some of what we went over in the lateral work and the straightness, but the connection has really alluded me. I do really well given a protocol and I didn't get that at my last lesson with her. This lesson, I think I got it. 

It was a really good, classic Tracey lesson. It reminded me of my lessons with her on Rico. Riding a mid level horse on a twenty meter circle working on the connection and doing absolutely no interesting exercises. 

After a winter of riding my horse deliberately off the bit, Tracey has been harping on me to put him... on the bit for the last few lessons. I'm obviously interested in putting my horse on the bit, as it is a requirement for the sport we are doing, but I'm being careful to make sure that I reeducate him, his default is still to want to get a little too curled. 

Tracey had us warm up and once again had me slow down, she really wants him quite a lot shorter with his step in the warm up, which is expected. We did that and then played with some trot to canter transitions and some canter to trot transitions. I took note in these that TC is *terrible* at them, he's always honestly been really tough in the transitions. 

You know those little animal figures that are held together by tight little strings and then you push a button on the bottom of them and they fall over? I know I've referenced them here before, but TC is one of those horses and in transitions, up and down, someone has to be pushing a button to make all his strings loose and therefore he falls down. 

Trot work is getting better at least

Tracey had us do a few transitions to encourage TC to stay a little more toned in them, but I ended up having much better transitions this week and will write about that day later. 

From there, we decided to revisit the lateral work we did last time. But Tracey wasn't happy with the connection, so after a few failed starts at shoulder-in, she gave up and put me on a 20m circle and left me there for the rest of the lesson. 

I was SO happy though, I keep talking about how I need more access to this horse, I need more work on the basics, I need help with the connection and the collection. He knows how to do a shoulder-in and so do I, is it garbage sometimes? Absolutely, but I can line myself up behind the mirror and work through it. What I can't do is figure out this damn puzzle of a horse!

Canter coming along pretty well

I'm excited for my next lesson with her because I want to have this same lesson with her and get more of a protocol out of her. But it was a really good time. She emphasized not letting go of him in the contact, keeping him up to the left rein, using a slight counter flexion to the left if necessary to get him into the left rein, and using a tangent line to the right to keep him upright. 

It took a while but he felt great by the end of the trot work! It actually sounded about 90% of what I tell one of my riders right now, which would be infuriating if it hasn't happened for most of my teaching career, oh well! 

In canter, she had us work in haunches-in to establish more sitting. He did feel much better in the canter but he also felt a bit hesitant. I asked her about that and said "does this mean I'm doing something wrong or something right?" and she said that he needed to gain confidence in that canter so it was okay for him to feel like that. This was before the vet check so I was a little worried, but I think it's just a strength thing. I was a bit hesitant the first time I squatted over 100lbs, that's a lot of weight! I could do it though, but I was just concerned at first. 

Best pony

This week I had wanted to go up to her barn for a lesson but it's raining so that might not happen. I'm going to ride with her next week AND ride in a cavalletti clinic though, so that'll be fun! 

Paying for Peace of Mind

On Monday, I took TC up to my lameness vet. It had been 4.5 years since we last saw him, thank you TC! That has to be a record, actually. Not that we haven't seen the other vet, but I haven't had to haul him the hour north to the vet clinic, so that's nice. 

TC has actually been feeling great since he came back from his most recent stifle issue, but my lameness vet had never seen him about it and I also wanted to get TC checked out in general by a sport horse vet before I started putting on any pressure for canter pirouettes or piaffe/passage. 

I told the clinic that I basically just wanted a lameness exam focused on his left stifle, that it's going to be a very faint lameness because he is sound enough to ride. They asked me if I wanted any imaging and I said yes, probably ultrasound and/or x-rays. 

He's not easy to photograph

We got there... late. Apparently I'd put it in my calendar as 1:45 and it was actually 1:00, how dumb, but I was right around the corner at 1:20 when they called me to ask if I was coming and was there at 1:25 so they just hung out to wait. I just HATE that, pandemic brain has me completely stupid sometimes. 

No harm no foul though, we were there less than an hour because TC did not take one single off step. 

He doesn't like expensive supplements
but he IS sound so I guess I'll take it

They did a VERY involved lameness exam. He got palpated everywhere, we trotted him on a straight line on hard ground, then longed him at walk, trot, and canter in the arena in soft ground, we then came back and longed him on hard ground at the walk and trot, walked him in tiny circles, and flexed all four limbs. 

Not one lame step! I mean, at ten years old I'd *hope* he wouldn't take a single off step with flexions, but it gave me so much confidence that he's really okay. Better yet, this was the vet who did his suspensory injury and there's NO evidence of him being at all affected by that five years later. Both fetlocks in front dropped evenly and he did not respond to palpation. 

He said he didn't want to x-ray, didn't want to ultrasound, no legend, no adequan, no injections, nothing. My horse is sound and there's no reason to do anything else at this point. 

So did I just pay a bunch of money to my vet to hear that my horse was fine? Not really, my vet understood why I brought him to me. 

Slight issue with his pelvis

TC's left butt cheek is slightly less developed than his right, his left gaskin is a little smaller than his right, his left long back muscle is a little weaker, and even TC's left hind foot is a slightly different shape that suggests he doesn't weight it as much as his right hind. 

All of that led my vet to prescribe us a preventative health plan. He says that it's evident that TC has a symmetry issue and that I'm doing the right thing trying to figure this out NOW before he starts having problems with it rather than when he either gets an overuse injury on the right or that left stifle does blow. 

He thought the cause of the problem wasn't the left stifle, but further up in his pelvis, it's tilted left. He asked if TC had ever had chiropractic and I said yes but it doesn't seem to make a difference, so I switched to acupuncture, which I have felt made a difference. He said that sometimes chiro takes several visits to have an effect BUT that it depends on the horse and that his favorite chiropractor, who comes to the vet clinic once a month with limited appointments, could determine whether TC was a good candidate for regular chiro. 

Any time I take a conformation picture of my horse,
I want to ask him HOW DO YOU DO THE THINGS
THAT YOU DO? Because he is a very oddly put
together creature

He also agreed that TC could have more muscle development and he gave me a 30 day supply of Core Builder, the muscle builder that Rico was on at the FEI levels that this vet recommended. It's not cheap but it works and TC will be on it for 90 days. He then asked if TC was on vitamin E and had me increase that to 10,000 IUs.  He also wants me to send him TC's diet so he can recommend any changes. TC obviously didn't like the Core Builder (it's powder and he doesn't like his food to be wet, oh well, sorry pony, it's either that or you get it in applesauce inserted into your mouth). 

We talked about a fitness plan and he wants TC on the hills once a week from now on and I said yep, we can do that. And he also emphasized the need to trot him over raised cavalletti on a curved line. I told him we did some cavalletti but not that exercise, so we'd do that. 

I hate dis food

We hauled back and I took these pictures as a reference to where he is today. Kinda undermuscled. Kinda fat. Kinda uninterested in his new supplement (booo TC eat your food). I dunno, I think we're closing in on the missing piece here, but we're not quite there yet. I'm glad I can rule out stifle pain as the cause. 

I laughed with my vet a bit about this conundrum I'm in. Rico's topline looks amazing no matter what you do to him. I did NOT ride him well and he still looked pretty fabulous even when he wasn't going well. TC feels 10x better than Rico ever has and it's like I look at him funny and 20% of his muscle turns into flub. I know a lot of this is his breeding and conformation, but I want to make sure that's the ONLY reason. 

Game Changer

So I've been using my pivo quite a bit when I can, unfortunately it's been raining so the arena has been too busy to use it, but I've really enjoyed it! They've made a lot of changes to the software and it definitely doesn't lose me as much as it used to. 

Pivo recording my lesson last week

One thing I haven't done is tested Pivo Meet in quite a while. Last I checked, it required you to give the trainer permission to take control over the camera every time and it loses me enough where that's a deal breaker for remote lessons.  

I keep meaning to bring my Pivo home to test it out, for like weeks, and I finally did this weekend. 

I set it up on my kitchen table and joined on my laptop, I made it track my face and I'm sure the SO was wondering wtf I was doing as I swayed back and forth. At first I couldn't get it working because I had the settings wrong, then I clicked on the wrong link, and then I finally got it right!

And finally, FINALLY it worked! As the instructor, you can take over the pivo and turn it left and right and zoom in and out without asking the rider! 

Can't wait to have lessons out here!

I didn't test out the audio though... I just went on my merry way. 

I texted the SO during the day on Monday to see if he could last minute test it on the horse and he wasn't available, so I bothered my mom. She was free and I sent her the link and she clicked on it and I could see her and she could see me! I definitely couldn't hear her though, but she could hear me. 

I walked and trotted around and chatted to my mom to see how the video quality was and to see whether she could hear me from across the covered arena. I got back to the video and she mimed to me that I was a chatterbox and then called my dad in to laugh at me and watch me trot around too. When I got back to the camera, my dad was holding his fingers up like bunny ears behind my mom's head and my mom was miming weird shit to me. So I hung up on them and then called her to find out how it was. 

She said it only got a little blurry once (and their internet is very slow so it could easily be them) and that she wanted the camera up a little higher for zooming in because I guess when she zoomed in, it cut off my head. Other than that though, she said it was great! And this was in the covered arena too! I am hoping that the dressage court (which is outside) is even better. But that'll be closed for a couple of weeks. 

Hopefully being in the dressage court is even better

So the audio is my project today with the SO who thinks he can figure it out for me. If it doesn't work, I'll just have to use a second phone to call the instructor on, and I think for the first few lessons, I'll try to have the SO there to troubleshoot anyway so I can use his phone if necessary. 

I'm glad my parents had such a ridiculous time making fun of me while they helped me test out the pivo. Definitely having the SO help next time... although he will definitely make fun of me as well. Clowns, I'm surrounded by them, including my horse who was constantly trying to knock down the Pivo. 

Overall I'm SO impressed!! I can't wait to take an actual lesson. I have NO idea who I'm going to try riding with first, I need to pick someone who is a bit techy, has good internet, and has time to waste (I mean, I'll obviously pay the person). I think I want to ask trainer friend, although she is very busy so I'll feel bad if it doesn't work out. Maybe during her lunch break??