Finding the Path

TC and I finally got to see the clinician from this post last weekend!! I’ve been so stoked to see her and to have her see TC. It’s been great to do what we can without her help up until this point, but it feels a little bit like neither of us really knew what we were doing and we were just winging it. Like, he's improved so much, but I knew that this clinic would make or break this work for us. 

No regrets, best clinic I've ever been to

Unfortunately as we were coming home from the Working Equitation clinic, my trailer started to smell like burning, never a good sign. It has an appointment in early December to get that looked at, I think it's the bearings on the right rear tire. Luckily, being at the ranch makes borrowing my mom’s rig super easy, so on Sunday afternoon, I pulled that out from behind the barn and put all of TC’s stuff in it while he watched me. 

TC has hauled in that trailer once or twice, it’s big and a lot nicer than my trailer. I didn’t realize how much TC was attached to my trailer though, because when I went to get him, I got his halter on and then he made a bid to leave and I let him go just to see what he would do. He galloped full speed from his stall to the middle of his pasture. Then he turned around and looked at me with confusion. I guess that’s par for the course for this horse, or maybe it's a regression to his younger self. When in doubt, go very fast away from the thing that confuses you. 

I went out to get him and he loaded just fine, but I warned the clinician when we unloaded and walked into the arena that he might be a little emotional that day. 

He wasn’t though! I don’t know if he got all of his emotions out about the trailer with the gallop or whether he was just being a silly creature. Or maybe he saw his best chaotic gray friend (Kate’s horse) and thought that this place was going to be very inclusive of chaotic gray horses. Or maybe he just loved the long horns next to the arena because they reminded him of home. Who knows. He was super chill there though. 

I don't know if you're aware, but that
is not my trailer - TC

She knew a little bit about us because we’d chatted at the last clinic. I told her that I’d been encouraged to ride him in a way that I’m now thinking has been damaging to him. I’ve been encouraged to drive him into a heavier contact than the one he prefers, I’ve been encouraged to narrow his shoulders to make him more steerable, and I’ve been encouraged to hustle him over tempo to get him more responsive to my leg. 

I told her that vets, chiros, and many other horse professionals have pronounced him totally sound and just chocked his lack of muscle up to a lack of a muscle building supplement or just needing to get him fitter or his breeding. Friesians don’t have good top lines, I’ve been assured, just keep riding him, give him this supplement, but remember that he'll never look like a warmblood so don't worry about it. But I can’t shake the *crazy* idea that horses are supposed to get easier to ride and better muscled as you move up the levels. That my Third level dressage horse, despite his breed, shouldn't have a sunken back and an upside down neck. 

She worked on him for a while and TC kept interrupting after almost every release to go roll and think about things. I think all of the bodywork I’ve done with him this year, from chiro to the PT lady to my amazing acupuncturist… I don’t think TC would have let her in as much as he did without them slowly chipping away at his ridiculous exterior shell. But he was not a clown, despite having Kate and her assistant there (both of whom he loves to show off for), he just trusted that she was going to help him because of all the fabulous bodywork he's had this year. 

Kate got the most magnificent photo of him

After she worked on him, she asked about his behavior under saddle. I didn’t know what she meant so I told her his history, he had about a year or two of bolting, then two years of leaping and bucking, there was a week when he was younger when he just stood up on his hind legs. But now, he’s pretty damn good. And he always takes me with him, I trust him completely even when he's being a loon. 

She asked me if he’d do anything naughty that day and I said no, he gives his rider ample warning and both Kate and I would be able to see what was happening from a ways away. She then asked to ride him. 

The farm was BEAUTIFUL and had
these amazing cows

No one rides this horse. I mean, I do and he gives my niece pony rides sometimes. I put some friends on him when he was younger. And Kate has ridden him. But I've balked at putting people on him lately due to his current issues and I've always balked at putting professionals on him (other than Kate). 

But with her, I just said “yep!” with no hesitation, and she hopped right on him. 

She walked him for a while and asked me some questions about his training. Then she trotted him and I think his girth was too loose, or he was worried about her (she's pregnant and he's totally that horse who will value your unborn child over your demands, he is very careful with my niece), but he was very tentative in trot. 

While she was riding, I saw the way he held his neck and it was just awful to start. He takes his third vertebrae straight back to the rider’s chest and the bottom of his neck is completely rigid. But she slowly worked through things with him, helping him find a better posture, dissecting what he was doing with his right hind, which was very stuck. By the end he was lifting beautifully through the base of his neck and seeking contact. He looked stunning. She then hopped off and put me on. 

It was mostly walking on Sunday so these are from
Monday

Immediately I felt like I had my horse back, but a much better version. Like if you had combined Rico and TC and given them a shot of vodka or a couple dozen muscle relaxers. He felt so loose and his aid system was completely normal. She had me do some of the exercises I’d been trying to do on my own, but they were much easier after she’d shown him how she wanted him to do them. The walk we got out of doing this work was so magical. There was video taken but I haven't gotten it yet. I'm so excited to see what it looked like. 

Then we talked about his right hind. He has a significant gelding scar on that side, something that PT lady found and that she said caused sciatica on that right hind. He has always been super itchy back there but no matter where I scratch or how long, he never seems satisfied. Itching is just a low level of pain, so I think he feels a little tingly sensation and thinks he is itchy. 

She said she thought the same, that he might have a little sciatica in that leg at times, but that we could fix it by teaching him to abduct his right hind while tracking left.  

If you're wondering, this winter is definitely the
winter I give up trying to wear my nice boots, I
don't want to stretch them out over my multiple
pairs of socks or thicker breeches

She gave me some exercises for this (because of how damaging the exercises can be without doing them under instruction first, I'm not going to write about them, but she does distance sessions so feel free to get her info from me) and we got his right hind leg under him and, surprise surprise, under ME. Then he lost it. I’m so used to riding him with a trailing hind leg on the right side that it took me a second to figure it out. I felt it first in my left seat bone, it felt like his hip was up. I told her that and she encouraged me to also focus on the right side. As I brought his outside hind leg out, I couldn’t feel anything, I kept asking and then he filled the right side of his back in a way that I realized he’d never done before and when I felt that, she said YES! And we went forward out of it. 

We worked up to doing it at the walk and I started to feel the vacancy on the right side rather than having to infer it from what was happening on my left side. It’s easier for me to feel things on the left than the right due to my own SI injury (something I’ll be fixing this spring when I’m on the SO’s amazing health insurance woohoo). Feeling anything on the right was so exciting for me, because maybe it’s my SI injury (I’m sure that contributes to it), or maybe it’s just the fact that my horse has never been able to put his right hind where it needs to be. 

He looks nice though, despite my attire 

We stopped after that and I was glad to. We were going to see her the next day anyway and I didn’t want to push him after going through so much in the body work. 

She told me that there was nothing wrong with TC physically and that I'd done a fabulous job with his training, he just needed help finding a different posture. I believed her. Hearing it from vets and other body workers was fine, but it was hard because no one told me WHY he looked like this, they just told me to keep on keeping on. She had clear reasoning for why his body looked the way it did. And she showed me the path to fixing it. So I could finally believe that there was nothing physically wrong with him. There were answers and there was a plan. Finally!