Rehab Rollercoaster

Things are going well and also not well at the same time for TC. I'm trying not to let myself get jerked around emotionally by this mystery lameness/problem too much. But sometimes it's hard! 

I took a couple of screenshots on the longe one day

I'm super pleased with how he looks when he's moving, especially after warm up. He definitely still has a slight unevenness in his left hind, so I'm considering that this could be his left stifle - I'm going to talk to the vet about injecting that when we go back in February. But he does seem to work out of it pretty well. 

He's lifting pretty well through his back, I can see his abs coming in, with a nice line from his girth all the way back to his flank. He's reaching nicely for the contact, even though it's just on the long lines. His withers are staying fairly well up and his neck is staying out. He's pretty forward at the trot - certainly more forward after he warms up. He's still a little reluctant to canter all that much, it's a bit stifled and slow, but I have seen improvement in that. He's still building strength. We're doing cavalletti, transitions, reining back, and he's on the bit the whole time he works. He's doing the work, it's just not showing in his body. 

Like I don't hate this at all

And at the same time, he still looks like garbage in the stall/paddock. I know he is a low tone horse, and this is why I'm being patient (or trying to be at least). I really hope things start to change in that department though. His back is still sunken and he's got minimal glutes, so he just looks... awful. 

But I have been able to get him burning enough calories to eat more hay, and now we're slowly switching him from Teff to Orchard (better nutrients). Once that is done, my next goal will be to add some alfalfa. He is getting enough protein because of the ration balancer, but I'd love for him to get alfalfa in his diet too! We had to take him off of it because it was so high calorie. 

Zero topline, I am aware

I'm starting to make a list of everything I want to do in February as well. Reminder that I'm waiting until February after the vet said that we should see a change in the topline by then if it was a limb-joint issue that we treated with the injections. Patience is hard!

The vet I saw for the injections had said that he'd recommend getting an internal medicine specialist on the case. So I'm considering bringing them both in for the appointment in February. Here's what I'm thinking about asking for:

- Lameness + neuro exam, see if he's improved since our November appointment, especially on the neuro exam (if he is better, that would give me a lot of hope that he was just out of shape vs actually neurological)

- Neck injections C5/6 + C6/7 both sides

- Left stifle injection

- Scope for ulcers

- Redo all blood tests (incl. for Selenium levels this time)

After this appointment, I'll also get the nutritionist involved. I wanted to call her this fall, but I realized that a) I didn't have all the bloodwork I wanted and b) he wasn't in enough work where I could even feed him enough. So I think by February, we'll be all set to check on that. 

I'm really hoping that we get to a point where things start to improve and I can get back on him. I really think that's going to be a big test! I'm still waiting for his back to look like, an ounce better (well, more than that). 

I dunno, he's at least not getting horrifically worse

In the meantime, I'm ordering him some things to help him out. I noticed that when I was trail riding him (which I do bareback), his bareback pad was putting a bit of pressure on his withers. So I ordered him a fancy one that hopefully won't. And I'm also going to change his girth and get him a nice fleece half pad in preparation for riding him. I want to get him as comfortable as I can, even just to rule out equipment as part of the problem. 

So we'll keep plugging away and hope that one day the before pictures are actually BEFORE and not just pictures of what he looks now only cleaner. 

TC's Muscle Wasting: A Possible Answer

Well it's been a minute. But rather than jump into too many updates (Rico is great, my job is great, my people are great, TC you will hear about shortly but he is also great), I wanted to share a critical update. 

He is the light of my life even if we've
just been hanging out mostly

Five years ago I started chasing down an issue that TC and I were having as we were showing at Third level. We were scoring as high as I'd ever scored at the level but he looked *terrible* and he felt even worse. I called it muscle wasting, he seemed to not be able to put a topline on despite being in full work. He also exhibited a lot of balking, refusing to go forward, always slamming on the brakes. 

I chased this down pretty aggressively for years, sliding into insanity as I would receive answers that didn't quite fix everything in addition to a lot of gaslighting. I had trainers telling me it was normal for horses at the mid levels to struggle so we just had to get through it. I had people tell me it was his breeding, or just to keep pushing through and trusting that dressage would put a topline back on him. 

But something felt wrong, and I ended up listening to my horse and quitting dressage, last year we did a little bit of jumping (which he enjoyed but then once again the balking started), then this year I quit riding him very much at all.

The ranch remains casually beautiful

It was weird though, every winter he seemed to get better, which sometimes coincided with something that made a lot of sense, so I'd run with it, but every spring/summer, things would get worse again. I'd try and try again, then would seem to figure out what it was over the next winter only to be disappointed again. 

This year, I decided that I wanted to give myself one last year to try to figure this out. If we couldn't do it, I planned to bite the bullet and fully retire him, let him live with other horses at a different facility, and move forward with buying a new horse (likely a little Irish horse since I've come to love them). I gave him from April until now mostly off, doing primarily a postural rehab plan that I came up with (it basically combined Jec's 55 corrective exercises with some very basic dressage and some basic bodywork stuff) and waiting until mid summer when things were at their worst to see a new vet. I had been worried that nothing would show up in the spring. 

Enter: a new vet (not pictured)

This vet came to me highly recommended for his fantastic approach with cases like these. Mysterious cases where the horse is totally sound and fine and just needs a good beating (aka something is wrong but the prey animal doesn't want to tell you because then he'd be even more prey-like). We had already seen three vets who said that he was sound and fine. But this vet was different and I'm so grateful we went! 

First, we started with the most comprehensive exam I've ever seen, he did a full lameness exam (shocker, TC is sound) and then full range of motion tests for each leg. 

We then went inside and took x-rays of all four feet and his entire spine. The vet did an ultrasound of his scapular cartilage, his bad stifle, and then he stuck an ultrasound wand up his butt and I was like..... alright. Sorry TC, I'll let anyone with a white coat do anything to you in the name of your soundness.

After his exam he was so happy to 
supervise the next exam

Finally we sat down and discussed what the findings were, he talked to me for 45 minutes! But right away he said "there is nothing clinically wrong with your horse" and I was ready to leave. In the moment before he continued I was like WELL OKAY THEN and had made plans to retire the horse fully and book a flight to Ireland. 

But he finished with "everything I'm seeing is man-made, and I think we can fix it." So I'm glad I didn't overreact (externally). 

He took me through all of his images -

1. TC has ECVM, equine cervical vertebrae malformation, essentially his C6 and C7 are swapped. However, TC is now fourteen years old (what! when?) and if this was going to be a problem it already would have. He has no clinical signs and this is not the issue. 

2. TC does not have kissing spine, his disc space is great and he shows no arthritis anywhere, his SI joint (rectal ultrasound) is normal as well

3. He has nothing wrong with his left stifle, which was his bad stifle for years

4. He has damage to his scapular cartilage caused by his saddle not fitting properly, although the vet thinks it's due to the postural collapse vs the saddle actually not fitting

So what is it?

Holy shit

It's his FUCKING FEET. Now, feel free to get all high and mighty (on your own, to your friends, not in the comments) but when I say no one ever really suspected his feet, I mean it. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but there was no real reason to suspect that this would be his feet. 

So I never chased that down. My farrier is a Journeyman farrier, she's a great farrier, his feet look great. I mean they're huge and friesian-y, but they look great. 

I have lots of feelings and lots of "should have" statements and some anger that I'm sure will come out about this that I will keep to myself. The point is that we have something that could possibly be an answer and that is all that matters. There's something that we can do. 

Circled is mechanical laminitis by the way

It makes sense. The horse is unable to lift through his thoracic sling due to his feet being painful in addition to the possible C6/7 switch that makes it harder for him to build muscle at the base of his neck. He then drops his wither, which slides his saddle forward into his scapula and also causes his back to spasm. The psoas and other muscles in his low back get rigid, causing all sorts of nerve stuff to buzz him.

It explains why he's better in winter (softer footing in his pasture, he can alleviate his feet by standing in mud), it explains why all the work I did seemed to work at first (building the TS) and then stop working (when he had to sit back on his hind legs and his back was still dysfunctional), it explains why I haven't been able to get a topline on him. And worst of all, it explains why over the years, it's just gotten worse, his feet have gotten worse and worse since he can't balance himself. 

And it explains that bodyworkers were finding it in his back end and thoracic sling, that vets were saying that he just needed more topline and he'd be good, that the chiropractor literally said that the base of his neck was tricky and he's just going to struggle with lifting it... it was like when three people close their eyes and are asked to describe an elephant and all describe very different things. No one was wrong. Just n one was able to get to the root of it. 

Mostly though, I'm so glad that I listened to this horse and stopped working him, because it seems like I preserved the rest of his body by doing so. The vet said the magic words "once you fix his feet and get him going properly, there will be no limitations, this horse could do the Grand Prix" and I felt more hope than I've felt in five years. 

The vet had some dogs and TC was
obsessed with them

Now, I'm not entirely insane, I know that I have had these epiphanies before, where someone comes along, says the word "thoracic sling" or "postural dysfunction" or "rectal ultrasound" and I'm like YES THIS. So I let myself celebrate today, but only after I texted my local vet and my farrier, who I am going to smash together like a child making dolls kiss. My vet is going to come out and x-ray his feet as he gets trimmed so that we can get him back in balance. 

But I know this could just be one piece of the puzzle. And I also know that I may not actually know until April/May of next year since we are about to enter winter and things always get better in winter. While the vet doesn't see any damage done, there is the emotional/mental piece of this for a horse who has been in pain undersaddle for longer than he was out of pain. And there's my piece of it, making sure that I continue to advocate for this horse and believe him when he says no. 

But I'm genuinely so hopeful. Could this be the start of TC's return to dressage? After all, Rico did his first PSG at 17 years old and his first Grand Prix at 18. I'm giving myself small doses of believing that the sky is the limit for my sweet gray horse. 

TC says "uh if that rude bay horse can
do it, so can I, obviously" to that

Anyway, hello again, maybe this will spur a real return to blogging (maybe not, work is truly nuts right now, I apologize). 

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. 

Six Months Without Hills

TC came up off on Sunday during our ride. I noticed he was feeling a little iffy on Saturday, not off but not as willing to push through his body. And sure enough, Sunday he was lame. 

I didn't freak out though, nor did I call the vet immediately, I didn't even cry (2020 has made me way more likely to cry, I hope I'm not the only one lol). This is the third time this has happened and it always happens the same way. In the past I've been confused about it and called it different things, but given how things always go, I'm 99% certain that he has a weak left stifle that needs to climb hills to not be a problem. 

July 2016: last swim at the rehab center

November 2016: weak left stifle acts up (called the vet, talked about blistering it, he just said to ride him through it and climb some damn hills) 

February 2018: last trail ride before moving to the flat lands
September 2018: weak left stifle acts up (I thought it was muscle soreness but I'm sure it was his stifle looking back on it, he got better as we climbed a bunch of hills in 2019) 

August 2020: last trail ride before the smoke
January 2021: weak left stifle acts up (this post) 

Basically, TC needs to climb hills for his body to work properly, and when I don't have him climb hills, he doesn't feel great. And that's what happened this time. 

His stifle can't be feeling that bad if he'll do this...

Don't worry, TC was fine the next day. Actually he was fine on Sunday after being a complete asshole while I was trying to get some video of him being lame. He bounced around on the longe line, got chased backwards when he tried to bite me (he never puts his teeth near me but thinks it's hilarious to lip at me and I don't think it's hilarious, which he also thinks is hilarious), bounced around more as I tried to trot him away from my phone, and got told off for trying to bolt away from nothing. After all that chaos, he trotted off totally sound. 

Monday I came out to ride him and did some reining back (also good for the stifle) and then trotted him undersaddle in the ring. He kept stopping and acting weird and I started worrying until I realized his girth wasn't tight enough. This horse HATES his girth not being very specifically tight and he very politely stops every time I trot him to allow me to tighten his girth. 

When I tightened his girth finally, he trotted off quite happily and completely sound. I didn't ask him for any collected work and even though he felt fine, I still canceled my lesson on Wednesday this week. No reason to turn a weakness into an injury, my trainer said she thought he didn't do well in light work and I agreed. He's back to full work in two weeks and he'll be climbing hills from now on as well. His lungs have been fine since November, I think we're fine to climb. 

This is my llama

Given that he was sound on Monday, I figure I'll ride him again today and make sure he's sound (he did get some expired bute on Sunday that should have worn off by Monday but I don't want to make that assumption), then we'll try to get him on the trails tomorrow and this weekend (things are made more complicated by the rain and the fact that we are moving this weekend). Once he's climbed a few hills, he'll be 100% fine to go back to work. If we can't get on the real trails due to the rain, his breeder's barn has roads we can climb so I'll text her and head over there for a trail ride on the roads. Somehow, we'll climb some damn hills. 

If he takes one more questionable step, I do think I want to talk to my vet about his stifle. The vet I saw in November 2016 was not MY vet and I kind of want my vet's eyes on it at some point. Just to take a look in there via ultrasound and see if there's anything else I should be doing. He's totally sound and happy on it as long as he's in full work and climbing hills, he gets a pretty decent joint supplement and I always spray it with sore-no-more after we do anything interesting, so I think we're okay. But they do have these things that allow you to ice stifles so that could be a thing we do. Or we could inject it but I've heard that really doesn't help a horse with this kind of weakness that much. 

Sorry about the lack of trail rides, TC! We'll get out there soon! I'm just glad he was sound yesterday, and that this is a problem I have an easy and enjoyable solution for. If we ever leave our current barn, I'm going to need something with some good hills! 

Cold Backed & Disconnected

On Monday I rode for the first time in two and a half weeks!

First, the footing started to go way downhill and TC was still feeling NQR in the hind legs here and there. Then it rained a bit so I gave him a couple days off, then the smoke got really bad. The smoke cleared last week but I'm going to be very careful to not do too much work while his body clears itself of all the crap that settled in his lungs. I bought him a $20 herbal supplement to make me feel better. He kind of hates it but reluctantly eats it every day.

So with rain in the forecast for this week and me kind of thinking that I'd stay on the in-hand train when it rains, I had one day to ride where it wasn't raining, Monday (and Tuesday as well).

I had to tell him to stop being a dingbat walking around and then
he was a good boy

Sunday night I longed TC lightly just to see how things were going. His left hind is still weak, but I'm feeling better about it after he had a couple weeks off. It's kind of a good thing that it still doesn't look great. I'd think that if it was an injury, it'd be much better.

Monday morning I got him out and longed him again because he had that goddamn look of eagles everyone loves so much. He got in trouble for thinking that longeing time was play time. Then he was great.

So I hopped on! I had one moment where I hesitated and then had to tell myself (out loud, no less) to either ride him with confidence or don't ride him at all. Such is life when most of my day is spent sitting at a desk instead of on horses.


He was a bit humpy and disconnected at first and I remembered that he could be like this when out of work. It's kind of his default way of going, tight in the back and short in the neck. I always forget how gross he feels when he's not being maintained. His gaits were shit, his walk was kind of lateral and his trot was super flat.

But it only took a few circles and praise when he offered a better connection before we were both in the groove again. I could feel the left hind wanting to press itself outward away from the body and during a walk break I really thought about the mechanic of it.

Hello I'd like to be bad but know that I will get
in trouble for being bad, life is a conundrum

Essentially, his left hind doesn't want to follow through as much as his right hind. It's a bit weak in the same way that when I do a heavy squat, my hips shift a bit. I'm not lame, my mechanic is wrong. It's the same issue I have riding where I don't want to use my left oblique. TC has always had this tendency and when he gets sore or unfit, it shows up more. I need to correct the mechanic.

But what exactly is the mechanic? To correct it, I need to understand what he's doing. I stared at him for a while on the longe line Sunday night trying to pinpoint it. When left to his own devices, he kind of rotates his entire trunk clockwise away from the left hind. This weights the right hind more in the stance phase, but it's possibly taking too much weight to transition to the pushing phase, so he steps off of it quicker and puts the left hind down before it really follows through.

We know that his left lumbar area is very tight, and it could be a matter of flexibility and strength through that area. That could affect the flexibility of the left hind leg, causing it to step down when he hits the point where stretching is tough. That tightness could be affecting rib cage mobility, where he is unable to move his rib cage to the right as easily to make room for the left hind leg to come under.

It also shows up in him wanting to get very much over his right shoulder. You can see that in the shoulder-in left being much more downhill than the shoulder-in right. You can see that in his drifting out through that shoulder vs connecting to the right rein (since all the energy is pooling in the shoulder, he gets very loose and wiggly on the right rein connection).

There are so many "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" questions to ask in this case. But I feel like I'm understanding the mechanic better after really thinking about it. 

It's so beautiful in the mornings

And regardless of how exactly the leg is moving, it all comes down to this though: get him balanced laterally and longitudinally and praise him there.

So I took a leaf out of Christine Traurig's book and put him in shoulder-fore tracking left to try to make more room for the left hind and activate it. He felt pretty great there, very much connected to the right rein and standing up on the right shoulder. Then tracking right, I again put him in shoulder-fore, this time working on the activation of the outside (left) hind leg. I thought for a while that haunches-in was the right idea for this direction, but I don't think it was addressing the main issue. You don't use crookedness to fix crookedness. I want to have him straight on a straight line. The shoulder-fore allows me to put him between my aids without sacrificing the straightness as much.

He felt great by the end of the two days! And then it started raining. Cool. I'll be riding him again tomorrow morning and Saturday though. A nice light winter coming into work after the smoke. Hopefully this time will allow me to really address this left hind weakness!

Sounder and Saner

So I rode yesterday morning, and I already talked about that ride. But I also went back out last night to do more hand walking. Because who has time for a social life or going to the gym (still can't though because I'm still sick) or sitting at home relaxing?

Smiling angrily because he's hungry

I figured it'd be helpful for a diagnostic point of view. As we're all hoping, the horse is young, big moving, big body-wise, and lives in a stall with a small paddock 24/7, so having a stifle weakness would make sense. It would get worse in the winter, when it's cold and he doesn't move around much, and it would get better when he gets out more.

It's still in the back of my mind that it could be an injury though. Even though the vet doesn't think so. So I'm thinking that doing light work this month is a good idea all around, treat it like a rehab and do lots of walking with minimal work that could aggravate his suspensory or the possible stifle injury. But do enough so that a stifle weakness won't get work. It's a balancing act.

My schedule won't let me go out twice a day (I work an hour away from the barn/home but mostly fuck going to the barn twice a day), but I figured this would be good information, so off I went back to the barn.

At work I worked looked up a lot of information on strengthening stifles and also read some of your comments, which were super helpful in creatively trying to work around the limitations we have here (no turnout, no trails, no hills). One of the things that stood out to me is doing poles, specifically backing up over poles. And another thing was doing walk trot transitions in hand. I could use the jogging too.

So much fucking walking

I pulled TC out and put on his boots, but didn't tack him up with the chambon. We then went into the covered ring and did a bunch of ground work. He bolted twice, but generally was super into what we were doing. And biting me. He thinks that's hilarious.

We did some shallow leg yields, rein backs, walking over poles (there were two poles in the arena already), backing over poles, and even some trotting in hand.

When I was trotting him, he looked sounder than he had been that morning. Hmmm. Hmmmmmmm. Could it be that getting out every 12 hours instead of every 24 had made a difference? Not sure. Because I've primarily felt his lameness rather than seen it, I couldn't be sure that this was better. Maybe he doesn't look as lame (will be getting video this weekend) as he feels.

So dumb

Now, if this was Rico, I would have tied up the lead rope to make reins, and hopped on sans helmet and sans back brace and kicked him around the arena trying to sit his trot. But I'm not stupid. I went to get the bridle and my helmet/back brace. But ugh I was wearing work clothes and mud boots rather than riding boots, and it was like 8:00 so tacking up would delay me by quite a bit.... Whatever, I'd just grab mane and jump off if he bolted.

I hopped on him bareback and we walked around a bit. He's okay with being ridden bareback, though I've only done it a few times. He's not very wide, but he's comfortable. The only thing uncomfortable is when his head goes straight up and you're suddenly sitting on a 2x4 that's about to explode into a million splinters.

I asked for trot and he turned his head back to try to bite my leg like wtf man, you have no saddle, we are not trotting. It took a lot of convincing to get him trotting. He tried to pick up the canter instead, he ran sideways a bit, and he shook his head a lot at me. But eventually we trotted. And actually his trot wasn't too bad to ride bareback! We trotted one circle and he WAS sounder than he had been that morning. Success!

Pony rides are okay but please don't trot me

This morning I headed out to the barn to ride before work. One boss was gone, the other one with two coworkers was in an all-day meeting. I figured that before I asked to switch to riding in the mornings, I should find out if I actually like riding in the mornings. I do. So I'm talking to them on Monday (Mondays I can't ride in the mornings because I have a 9am meeting).

We hand walked all over the facility. It was actually REALLY nice. TC was super quiet after being ridden every 12 hours the last three rides. He was actually so quiet I thought that he might be in intense pain or be sick. He marched happily and quietly all over the ranch before I got into the covered arena. We did one lap in each direction and then I got on to walk.

And he was super quiet with me on him too. I worked a bit on my position. I'm focusing on getting back on the back edge of my seat bones, as lots of conversations this weekend made me realize that I basically sit on the horse like I'm trying to sit on a pin cushion. With the new position, I felt like my stirrups were way too short, so I'll be messing with that soon enough.

Upset because he wants me to put him back

I asked him to trot and..... he was sound! Still feeling a little clunky here and there, especially when we lose power steering, but it definitely felt more like he was weak on the left hind than lame on the left hind. Trainer came in to see him trotting and said that he looked better than he'd seen him in a long time. He was sound and also relaxed and stretching into the bridle. We didn't do anything fun, but just trotting along and looking at ourselves in the mirror (since sometimes me shifting weight to look over there causes him to bolt) and hot damn my horse can be so pretty sometimes.

I was ecstatic. Not only was he totally quiet and fun to ride, he was sound! Sanity AND soundness in the same ride??? What is this nonsense?!

I had to hold myself back from skipping work and riding him all day. We did maybe 3 laps around the whole arena in each direction and then called it a day. He felt SO good in the bridle, a bit hesitant to fully let go and relax, but not at all nutty about anything.

Immediately I talked to him about getting TC on a schedule where the guys hand walk him on the weekdays. We can't quite do every 12 hours, since no one wants to stay late to walk my horse at 7:30pm, and the guys won't be doing the walking over poles/backing over poles/trotting in hand that I did last night, but it's better than him standing in his stall for 23 hours before I get on and expect him to be sound. Eventually that will transition into him getting turnout or him just being in a bigger paddock. But for now I'm not paying for turnout when it's not going to happen much when it rains and there are no big paddocks open.

He looks so little here! He's just narrow

I'm also dumping him onto an expensive joint supplement for a month to see if that helps things too. My mom reminded me (when I called her to get all upset about TC being unsound) that when I first got Rico, he was uneven behind and we put him on Hylasport and he didn't have that issue again until he was much much older. His right hind was just weak. I can't afford Hylasport ($80/month no thanks because I'm already paying like $60 for his calming supplement), so TC is getting put on a Smartpak supplement that has similar ingredients.

I'm sure this isn't the end of our issues with this stifle. And this is classic suspensory behavior, where he'll be sound for a bit and lame for a bit. So I'm absolutely not celebrating yet. But it's really good news that we had a great day of soundness and sanity. And I'm really hoping that we have more and more of those days until that's our norm.

Gimps McGee

Tuesday I didn't ride the pony because I can't ride on Tuesday nights unless I'm taking a dressage lesson with my dressage trainer. And after all these fucking vet bills, that's probably at least a year or seven away. So trainer rode TC and said he was sound and sane. With Monday night being his last day of bute, I was thinking that it still may be in his system. And I was right.

Wants breakfast

Wednesday I got into work early and got to the barn earlier than normal, but still after dark. I tacked TC up with the chambon and then hand walked him around the property and in the arena for about 20 minutes. Then I got on and we did another 20 minutes or so of walking undersaddle. I was pleased that he is handling being walked so much, and the walk is feeling better and better. He's stretching out and down a lot easier and is like his normal self in the connection for the most part.

Trainer and I talked about how it isn't quite solidified yet though. Like he's willing to do it but it's not where he wants to be and given a choice (or when something makes him nervous), he pops his neck up and back at me. So more stretching and walking and stretching and walking.

Trotting, TC wasn't sound. He wasn't lame necessarily, but not very even. I hate riding a horse who feels lame. But he isn't even lame. Like if he was 15 years old and had been in hard work most of his life, it'd be fine. He's sounder than my friend's fourth level horse I ride sometimes who can come out a little stuck/stiff too. But like, my horse is five.

So we trotted a couple laps and I tried hard to get him to step better into the left rein and tapped his left hind to get its shit together. Then we took another long walk break and trotted again.

The second trot WAS better. Definitely sounder but still not completely even. He felt pretty good over his back, though was noticeably more tense just because of the owls making noise. He stayed with me. So at least we had sane even if we didn't have sound.

After the ride, I hand walked him again for 10-15 minutes before putting him back.

So much walking omg

Today I had a dentist appointment in the morning, so I opted to ride TC beforehand. It felt weird to plan on going into work around noon and then leave at 4:30 to go ride. And man, I love the mornings! It's so light out (by the time I was riding)! TC disagreed. He had a, for lack of a better word, tantrum about working before breakfast. Hey man, I didn't have breakfast either.

After positively wrestling tack on him, I put the chambon on and we walked around in the rain while the arena was getting dragged. Once as the ring was free, we walked around in there too. I think we did a total of 25 minutes of hand walking, which is less than usual, but I was on a time crunch.

When we got into the arena, TC saw a big white bird sitting in the field next door. He was SUPER offended by it, despite it literally not moving a muscle the entire time we walked/rode. Every time we walked past it in hand, he'd bolt and drag me across the arena. Ugh. Okay.

I started talking to him, mostly rude things at first, but it seemed to help him stay with me. Whenever he was good, I'd sort of sarcastically praise him "look at how good you're being, only jigging when you could be galloping away from me" and he started to relax a bit more. Horse loves praise.

Morning rides in the DAYLIGHT

I hopped on him and he felt like a bouncing ball. Despite getting him stretching down and out in hand, he was NOT doing that with me on his back. He spent most of his time at the walk flipping his neck around, striking out, and jigging (then threatening to rear if I didn't let him jig oh my god). I ended up hopping off after he exploded in bronc bucks so that I could get him walking forward again, then I got back on. That helped a lot. I praised him for the difference. Good boy TC, walking is nice, jigging is not, please don't buck me off, I have to go to the dentist after this.

Again the praise got him to focus and relax better, and soon we actually had a really nice walk! I think I'm going to constantly tell this horse how great he is. Or how terrible he is. As long as it's in a nice voice and I pet him a lot, he'll take it.

wants cookies

Trainer came in to teach another lesson so I trotted TC for him. I personally felt like TC was much sounder than he had been the day before, but trainer said it was about the same. Maybe I'm just getting used to the unevenness. We again cut the ride quite short, maybe 2 minutes of trotting at the most, and then I hopped off and hand walked him.

I was proud of myself for dealing with his bullshit by myself and for staying relaxed even when he felt like he was about to explode. I'm trying this new thing called NOT EXPECTING THE WORST POSSIBLE SCENARIO and it's helping a lot. He might have a horrific stifle injury, but then he'll be retired, so I may as well enjoy every day that I get with him before I have to send him away. Just taking it one day at a time, slowly trying to build up that stifle.

Trying to rehab my horse from a suspensory like...

I'm stuck because I can't afford to get the vet out AGAIN this month, so he's going to do a lot of walking, a bit of trotting, and an unknown amount of bolting, until next month and then we'll see. If we get too far down the line and he's still NQR, we'll try a blister or something to get the stifles feeling even better. And to make me feel better immediately, I'm going to email my vet and get some more information from him (since remember, wizard vet didn't see him, other-wizard-vet-who-in-my-opinion-isn't-as-good-but-he's-still-pretty-good saw him).

This stifle thing is driving me nuts, I just want a sound, mostly sane horse who I can stop spending so much money on and actually enjoy riding.

Loves the Vet

Yesterday I was too freaked out to post anything, I had posts ready to go and then I just pulled everything. Last year when TC went lame I posted immediately, I wanted to know what you all thought and to include you in my slowly increasing panic until the vet came out.

This time when he went lame, I went rapidly through the stages of grief until I got to INSANITY, and then I stayed there all by myself. That's a stage of grief, right?

Change that first bit to "Life with Horses"
to make it more accurate

Let's start from the beginning.

Monday: TC and I have a lesson with trainer, detailed in this blog post, aptly named The Beginning of Collection (since this one could be named The Delaying of Collection).

Tuesday: I took a lesson on another horse with my dressage trainer, then longed TC on a big circle in his normal chambon + side rein combo. He bolted two or three times and I found that putting him on a 10-15m circle (just one or two) in shoulder-in was a great way to get his focus.

Wednesday: I threw my horse at my trainer to ride so that I could go to the gym and not ride my crazy baby horse in the dark for a week! Trainer reported that TC was good, he rode him mostly on super light contact, trying to get him to reach out, and he also worked on the collection in the canter.

Thursday: TC came out fine, we wandered around the ranch a bit and then worked at the walk. He picked up the trot and felt okay, but a bit stiff. Then I realized that the inconsistent connection was consistently inconsistent where he was head bobbing on the right front leg. The one with the suspensory. FUCK. I got off. I longed him and.... fucking nothing. He maybe looked a touuuuch stuck on his left hind but zero head bobbing. So I walked him for a LONG time, lots of shallow haunches-in and shoulder-in, some leg yields, really focusing on getting him loser on the left side of his back and butt. Trotted him out, let him canter a bit, and he was fine. I still kept the ride light.

Friday- you can always tell when TC has been in
a trailer, ugh

Going places!

Friday: I had this whole post written and then deleted it. I took TC over to the ranch for some fun and experience in a different place. He was SUPER GOOD there! I even cantered him undersaddle! By myself! In a new place (well, he's been there but it was the first time going to the arena)! But not before having to longe him down a bit, I used the shoulder-in on the circle technique quite a bit to the left because some people were walking with their family and TC has never seen humans before so he was quite upset. Never took an off step though.

Saturday: It was supposed to rain so I asked for a lesson with trainer. We did a ton of walk work to start and then... TC is lame again, head bobbing on the right front and stepping short on the left hind. Trainer palpates his butt and says that he's probably just really sore from the hard work on Friday (and Wednesday?). I convinced myself it was his suspensory though. Gave him some bute, surpass, and threw wraps on him.

Sunday: Get to the barn in the morning and TC had eaten his wraps off of his legs and peed on one of them. Okay. Butt still super sore, bute, surpass on the suspensory, and no wraps.

Monday: I decided I was too crazy to deal with this with the ol' wait-and-see. If he was lame, I was calling the vet. Trotted him on the longe line. He was lame. Frantically emailed the vet. Spent the next six hours searching for hind end lameness that also includes front end lameness that also includes sore butts. Stifle injury. FUCK. I (equine) Web-MD-ed myself into a panic and barely slept.

Tuesday morning: got an email from my vet saying he was out of town but that his lesser (IMO since I'm picky) yet still highly qualified (esp in lameness stuff) vet was around. Okay fine. Got a call from the vet confirming at 1pm. I was sick anyway so barely made it through my first meeting and then got in the car. Sat at the bagel shop drinking a weird boba smoothie thing that was way way too sweet for honeydew but was still good and ate half a bagel (for dinner I had the other half and some ice cream... good life choices all around!).

Yum, wraps

Ugh

So now the vet check itself. By this point, not only am I convinced that TC has a career ending stifle injury, I've already made plans to find a good home for him, give 30 days notice, cancel his smartpaks, cancel the clinic this weekend (well, that's for sure out anyway), etc. I was wavering strongly back and forth between sobbing and numbness.

The vet palpated him all over. The vet tech held him and tried to have a nice conversation with me:

VT: how long have you had him?
Me: a bit over a year
My brain: and you won't have him for much longer
Me: *gets choked up*
VT: he's so cute, how old is he?
Me: five
My brain: and already had two severe injuries, you're a great horse owner
Me: *holding back tears*
VT: what breed is he? He looks super fancy
Me: he's a friesian... *sniff* friesian oldenburg
My brain: and you'll never be able to afford one like him again because no one will ever sell you another horse
VT: wow that's so cool
My brain: she knows you break horses all the time and she hates you for it

Hi mom I just want you to know how much I love the vet

I happily handed the horse off to her and sat off to the side sort of ignoring the whole process. I'm lucky that my mom is nosy helpful, since she had come by to yet another vet appointment. She kept an eye on things and asked the vet what he saw.

Loaded him up with a bit of dorm after he wouldn't trot with the nice vet tech and instead tried to bite her to get her to play with him. Lame on the left hind and right front. Because they often compensate, it wasn't clear if it was a) the suspensory acting up so then he overloaded his left hind and hurt it or b) hurt his left hind and overloaded his suspensory, making that get sore.

We went to longe TC to see if it got worse on a circle (it did), but TC, who had been off since Saturday was NOT having it. I watched him leap across the ground, spin toward the handler, and rear up about half way. All I could think was damn, he's so elegant.

More dorm.

Horse quietly trotted around in the circle. I ask the vet whether I can get some dorm. He thought I meant for riding the horse. I mean yeah both of us could probably use dorm on a regular basis.

At the vet check

After all that, I had a couple of choices. Do we block the suspensory or do we assume it's the suspensory? I know his suspensory is a bit fucked up, sure. But I also know that it was totally fine a month ago at the last ultrasound and that he's honestly not had such hard work since then to suggest a reinjury (plus it wasn't swollen, just a bit sore when palpating it, which honestly, if you palpated the ligament damage in my back, it'd hurt but it doesn't hurt when you don't poke it). So by blocking the suspensory, we could find out whether the lameness behind was compensatory (so he'd get all better with the block) or something else.

I had no idea what to hope for. He was still lame. So it was something in his hind leg.

The next step could have been to block up the hind leg. But the vet was fairly certain that it was either a weakness in his stifle (but not an injury because he palpated normally) or that he was chiropractically out in his SI joint. I'm not the hugest believer in chiro for horses, but let me tell you that I am super super lame when my SI joint is fucked up.

Either way, the prognosis was the same at least at first: chiro/acupuncture and then ease him back into work and lay off the collection for a while. Then if it comes back, we treat the stifle with an injection or blistering. Vet is fairly certain that my extremely unofficial, driven-by-insanity diagnosis of a stifle injury isn't the case. Phew.

TC's first experience with acupuncture was ridiculous,
he's settled here, but his face when they put the needles
in at first was hysterical 

Apparently it's relatively normal for a big young horse to have trouble with their stifles as they grow up? Much of the information I found on stifles was from injuries in older horses where they slipped or fell. That plus me getting sick and being pumped full of cortisol already made me jump some huuuuge boundaries to get to all of my terrible conclusions.

It's not over yet. Well, we can hope that he just comes back totally normal and good. But it's not good news per say (honestly though the only news that could have been good news is them telling me that I've won a million dollars and that my horse is now a cyborg and won't ever go lame again), it's just not terrible terrible news.

So we wait. We wait five days of hand walking and then we start trot work. A week later my trainer leaves for a month. And by leaves I mean tries to leave and then gets locked in the trunk of my car and made to stay.

We'll see. Right now I'm just trying to stay positive and ease the cortisol (and mucus, ugh, I'm home sick) out of my system.