Plans for Horse #2 and Rico's Return to Light Work

I've been riding Rico about twice a week for a little while now. It all started when I was stressing out over buying a second riding horse in the next two years (I'm a planner, I can't help it). 

Sorry that you're part of my plans, sir

I knew I didn't want to do what I did in the past with the move from Rico to TC, take one horse through the Grand Prix, retire him, then start again on a barely broke three year old. It was ROUGH going from working on one tempis and canter pirouettes to working on not ramming me into the rail and loading onto the trailer. This could only mean one thing: having two horses in work. One entering the FEI levels with about four more years to go with me and one just starting in the world where I could take it easy for those four years. 

I worked it out and if I snag a two year old when TC was getting ready for Prix St George, so either next year or the year after, I'd be able to continue to focus on TC while working to start the baby, then as TC wound down from the FEI levels in a few years, the baby horse (BH) would be getting ready to start his (I'm a gelding person okay) show career. I had it all mapped out. 

2021: TC at 3rd and 4th level
2022: TC at PSG and BH 2 year old year doing basic baby horse things
2023: TC at I1 and BH started lightly at 3 year old and mostly trail riding
2024: TC at I2 and GP and BH starting his dressage career at 4 years old
2025: TC at GP and then for sale/leased out, BH getting more serious at 5 years old
2026: BH now my main horse at 6 years old, ideally at 2nd/3rd 
2027: mid life crisis? shop for another horse? buy eight horses? who knows. I have talked about going to Ireland and buying myself a connemara so I can have a fun all around horse to share with my niece if she likes to ride... is my entire life planned out? Yes. Have my plans ever worked out? Absolutely not. Do I still make plans? Yes. 

Are you game, TC? You're owned
by a crazy planner

There are two things on my mind when I think about having two horses in work (since Rico is technically mine, although he doesn't cost me much at all because he boards at the ranch, so I don't often count him in my horse list): Time and Money. 

Money: 

I'm set to get 5% raises for the next three years if I stay in my current position (public sector). Then my salary levels out for 3 years and then I get another 5% longevity raise. My plan is not to stay at my current position though. I hit five years in my industry in fall 2021 and that means my pension vests, making it "safe" for me to leave the industry and keep my pension (it pays out according to years worked, so I won't get a ton, but I also won't forfeit the money I've already put into it if I never return to the industry). It seems silly to not just work these last ten months and get that vested. Especially given that we're probably remote until at least then anyway and my current job is ridiculously flexible with my hours, so I'm able to do my business rather easily right now. 

My plan is to enter industry and aim to get paid enough to not have to do my business (I'll still teach a bit in the evenings and on the weekends, just not relying on it anymore) AND to have a bit more spending money to cover the additional costs of another horse. 

Wandering down the road

And what are those? Well, I've calculated it out and I could literally buy another horse right now (not an expensive one) but it'd wipe out my lesson and show budget for TC and any additional wiggle room for things like his ulcer treatment this year and future joint care. I don't want to ruin my career with TC just to buy a second horse. The point of having the second horse is not to replace TC immediately but to begin training his replacement WHILE continuing to train him. So that means taking lessons on him, showing him, and maintaining him as an upper level horse. 

I carefully calculated my budget out and with my raise last year and my raise next year, that will cover a baby horse. So in the mean time, I am now saving my raise this year into a separate savings account and pretending I didn't get a raise, with plans to do the same thing next year. That savings account will fund the horse's vet check (already saved yay) and purchase price. 

I thought I was retired...

Time:

Here I have another problem, and the reason I'm riding Rico. Very often I only have time to ride the one horse a day. Could I get up an hour or two earlier and ride another one? Sure, but this year I've been really revamping my life a bit and wanting to have more down time. I love riding but I can't have my life be JUST riding and work. I need time at home and time to do my other hobbies too. 

Plus, with the potential new job, I won't have as much flexibility in my life. Right now my life is chaotic but flexible. I'd like for it to be less chaotic, but I think with that comes a lack of flexibility. 

What I'm hoping with the timing is that the baby won't be in a 5+ day a week schedule until TC is not a major fixture in my life. I figured I'd follow the "work a 2 year old 2 days a week, a 3 year old 3 days a week, etc" schedule... at most. So right now, I need to be able to spend time with a second horse two days a week. 

Also important is that I would probably have BH at a different facility for the first couple of years because 1) I don't want to always work BH off of TC, 2) I want a cheaper facility because I don't need mirrors or a dressage court, 3) I want BH in pasture and my barn doesn't have big pastures. So getting used to driving to another facility on my way out or in from spending time with TC was important too.

This is my favorite barn kitty right now by the way

Enter: Rico! Who is right next to TC's breeder's facility, which is where I've thought about putting BH until after he is started. Rico is happy to go out for 20 minutes twice a week, which is honestly probably what I'd be doing with BH anyway. Although I'm a helicopter parent so I'd probably stop in more often to pet BH and check his legs/body/brain for problems because I'm paranoid. 

So, Rico has been my BH stand in for a little while and I'm kind of loving it. There's zero pressure to do anything real with him. Some days we work in the arena, other days we just wander down the road. It's basically what I'd do with BH at first, sometimes work on things like loading in a trailer, sometimes just brush him and lead him around the property, other times bring him over to TC's barn and do some ponying in the arenas/exposure or bring TC over to his barn and do some ponying there as well, or even bring both out somewhere else. 

He is so ridiculous

Anyway, that's my long winded explanation as to why I'm riding Rico a bit again. And after making that decision, I have two clients having me ride their horses once a week and a third who needs her horse ridden sporadically, so now I'm riding quite a bit more! And with that it's apparent I'm very unfit, but that's a problem for future Megan who has room for some gym equipment at home. 

Rico seems to be enjoying it too! Which is just a bonus. He was such a goof the other day, I think he is actually enjoying getting out again. He hasn't seemed to be this enthused about being ridden in years. 

Riot at the Bombproofing Clinic

A week and a half ago, we had another bombproofing clinic! And this time, I decided to bring my dad's horse, Riot. 

Riot is a nervous nellie and he showed it in the first five minutes I got on him by tip toeing his way into the arena and standing in the middle trembling at everything around him. We brainstormed and this might be his first ever time in a covered arena. He was a trail horse before my dad got him and he's only been ridden at their property and on the trails for the years he's been with my family. 

He would not go near anything in the arena and I could feel his heart pounding as we walked quietly around in the middle avoiding everything. He's a good boy and his go-to move when he's nervous is to stand still and try to blend in with the background, but I was really hoping to get him near... something. 

SKEPTICAL

Noodles

After walking around and observing every obstacle from far away with lots of praise, I did finally get him to walk over the bridge, which I figured would be a good first obstacle because he's walked over bridges on the trail. We did that a bunch and I praised the hell out of him, trying to convince him that if he just held his breath and tried a tiny tiny bit, he'd get rewarded. 

From there, we would try getting closer to an obstacle, then return to the bridge to gain some confidence. Eventually he followed a few horses up to obstacles and would watch them do their thing while he stood and observed. This really helped him relax, and that plus interspersing the bridge, got him a little more curious and less terrified. 

Pulling the cart

He stopped caring after a while

From there, we slowly (over the course of two hours) made our way through almost every obstacle!! I was ridiculously proud of him. He came SO FAR over the course of the day. We kind of did them in a random order, making some progress on one, then going to an easy one, then going back to the original one, then introducing a new one, then going back to an easy one, and so on. 

He slowly gained confidence with each. Going from refusing to go anywhere near the car wash, to slowly following a friend through it several times, to cautiously walking through himself, to then relaxing about it and walking through no problem. 

The monkey in the barrel made him nervous, so at first he stood stock still with his eyes bugging out of his head, and eventually stood with a foot rested while it went up and down. 

Unsure about the monkey

The mattress was very scary and he was rather skeptical. I got him to put a foot on it and he scampered away from it. Someone else worked on it at one point so I let him stop and watch that person for a long time before trying again. Then he was way better at that. 

The tarp went about the same way, he was a little worried and put a foot on it, but then eventually made his way over it! 

The noodle wall REALLY worried him. He did not think he could walk into them. I ended up getting on and off, first making the walls very far apart with one noodle each, then slowly adding noodles and pushing the walls closer together. He ended up going through it with the same kind of relaxation that TC gives me through it! What a good egg. 

Am I doing a good job?? He did not
go in the water though

Walking through the car wash after a while

I was probably most proud of him with the flag, which we did at the end. The instructor carried it around on his horse and I had Riot walk behind him, then slowly we made our way next to him. The instructor carefully transitioned the flag onto my foot and then handed it to me, and soon Riot was carrying the flag without realizing it, because the horse the instructor was on was still close. Eventually the instructor peeled off and Riot realized he was carrying the flag. 

He got a little worried and wanted to freeze and then speed up, but we just kept walking and he slowly started to realize that the flag was not going to attack him. 

By the end, he was letting me do this to him: 

Relaxed and carrying the flag around

Fine with it going over his head

Good boy, Riot

I decided to end on that. I would have loved to get him to do a little more and go through everything again, but going from standing in the middle of the arena LITERALLY trembling with his heart pounding to letting me whirl a flag over him was progress enough. 

I almost wish I were bringing him this weekend, but I do want TC to go to another one for fun. My mom was considering bringing Sunny to the one this weekend but my dad needs to get a COVID test for a routine doctor's appointment and that requires a five day quarantine for them or something like that. 

Hopefully there will be more bombproofing clinics this spring/summer so that my mom can do one on her own and I can bring Riot to another one! I had the best time with him. 

Sunny at the Bombproofing Clinic

I missed talking about Sunny at the bombproofing clinic in November, and then last weekend we took Riot to another one! So I figured I'd talk about Sunny in this post, then talk about Riot tomorrow and then the following week, we'll talk about TC, who is going to one next weekend!

Good pony!

So, I love TC to death but I do have to admit that he is now so bombproof and so chill that I find him a bit boring. Don't get me wrong, I adore him and the fact that I now have a horse I can walk around bareback in a hackamore on in the dark even when he's had two weeks off makes me very very happy. 

But when the bombproofing clinic people said they'd be doing three mini clinics this winter, I knew that I didn't want to bring TC to all of them. I wanted a bit more of a challenge. So I asked my mom if I could bring her pony, Sunny. 

Sunny is a good boy, but he makes my mom a bit nervous sometimes. It's not that he's super spooky or anything, he just *does* spook, unlike TC at this point who just looks at stuff curiously unless he's been recently poked with needles. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and ride something that actually spooks while also helping my mom out. She came out with me to see how he was and I made her bring her riding stuff just in case!

Noodles are sketchy

A bit worried about the monkey

Sunny unloaded just fine and was great walking over to the arena, but once inside he was a little bit overwhelmed. The instructor knew that I knew what I was doing with the bombproofing stuff (since I've come to most of their clinics in the last few years), so she said that if I just wanted to start, that would be fine and to let her know if I had any issues that she could help with. 

I started with walking Sunny over the bridge, since he's done a lot of trail riding and would probably find that one easy. He did and we then walked over to the monkey in the barrel, which he absolutely hated. It was in this moment that I realized how unbelievably good TC really is at this point. He doesn't even flinch when the monkey pops up even if it bonks him in the head. Sunny stood pretty far back from it and was ready to leave. 

We worked on it a little bit but my main goal was to find out what he was okay with after a couple of times and then let my mom get on him and do those things. So we moved on to the car wash. I made the mistake of pointing him at it against the wind, so it blew up in his face and he went to spin. We re-approached from the other direction and slowly made our way under it. He zipped through twice and then decided it was pretty boring. We then went back the scary direction and he was fine! Good pony. 

Not a fan of mattresses

Testing it out

After that, he wouldn't walk through the water, so we skipped that and worked on the mattress. He was weird about it at first but then relaxed and walked over that. The tarp went about the same as the car wash, with him refusing to go over it on the side that was a bit windy but being fine to go over it from the other side. 

The noodle wall confused the hell out of him. He didn't think he could walk through it because the noodles were in the way. So we moved the wall out to make it wider and he skirted through it a couple of times before I grabbed a noodle and bopped it all over him, then he seemed a bit more comfortable. We went through it a bunch and eventually he was okay about going through it. 

The last thing we did was pull a little kid's car thing around. He was really quite good about that, which is fabulous because he's supposed to be a good grandchildren's horse for my parents and he will need to tolerate that kind of stuff!

Learning to be a good grandchild horse

Gotta get used to bears too

My mom got on him after that and we went through all the exercises he was good about with me. She walked him over the bridge, through the box of garbage, under the car wash, across the mattress and the tarp, and through the noodle wall. Throughout the ride, my mom went from being very nervous and holding onto her grab strap and the reins for stability/control to riding around on a loose rein with her phone out taking video of Sunny doing all the obstacles. 

From there, we went on a walk around the whole property and Sunny was a good boy walking around. He even did a bunch of the trail course obstacles and walked around the field quietly. We would have loved to do more with him, but he's pretty out of shape and two hours in, he was exhausted. So my mom took him home after that. 

Tarp walker

It was SUCH a fun day. I loved having more of a challenge to work with through the obstacles so that I don't lose my touch with spooky horses. I think it'll be good to take Sunny and eventually Riot to these to work on my own bombproofing-ness so that I'm better prepared for my future horse. 

I also really loved seeing my mom have so much fun and gain confidence. She hasn't been riding much this year due to the virus and how insane everything has been. Without riding, she loses confidence and then it becomes really hard to start up again. So this was the perfect way to show her how good Sunny is and how she can trust him at home where there aren't any crazy things going on. 

We talked about getting her over to my barn with him to walk around and introduce Sunny to TC and then the two of us can start going on trail rides again. My mom FINALLY trusts TC and my assertation that TC is literally the most bombproof horse I've ever had (she thinks Rico "exudes calmness" and always trusted him but she knew TC when he was an idiot). So hopefully we can trail ride in the spring together! And if Sunny is bad, she can always hop on TC. I don't think she ever thought she'd ride him! 

A Lesson on Lateral Work

On Wednesday, I had a lesson for the first time in about six weeks! Tracey comes out to my barn every other week and it's been nice to have someone to work with on a more regular basis while I figure out a long term training solution (or maybe this is it? who knows). 

This lesson was a bit different because TC is on a strict fitness schedule to slowly bring him back into work without stressing his respiratory system. Tracey, always the voice of reason, told me that I was being very conservative because TC's breathing didn't seem to change between his work and his rest sets. That's exactly what I wanted though, to not stress his system at ALL until he's back in full work. I'd just rather go slow than pay my vet another couple hundred dollars to look at his lungs and tell me to give him time off again.

So poor Tracey had to keep stopping and starting exercises as I'd trot for exactly 1.5 minutes and then immediately walk for 3 minutes and so on. Eight sets (he moves to ten on Sunday, then we go to 2 minute sets and so on). 

But it was really good! 

Excited to see Tracey because the horse lives for
people watching him do his job

The primary focus was on two things: 1) get TC more energetic on a shorter step and 2) a refresher for me on how to ride shoulder-in and haunches-in properly. 

Generally Tracey has been the trainer that tells me to slow the hell down. She's told me this on every horse. I want to go fast, faster is better. I have a client going through this now who is like "but I can't get his hind legs unless I have him moving over the ground" and I'm like I KNOW RIGHT?? I FEEL THE SAME WAY. But it's true that TC, and my client's horse, need to understand how to keep the hind legs active and engaged without having to be ridden so much over the ground. Energy on a short step. It's necessary. 

TC gets himself rolled over his front legs with his shoulders pointing down and his front legs spending too much time behind vertical. Then the hind legs, which carry less weight in this posture, feel real active and fancy because he's not having to really dig in and use them. When I focus on making the steps shorter, he shuts down a bit because his weight shifts back and it's harder to keep the hind legs so active/keep him into the bridle. So I avoid doing this and basically run around without a half halt. 

Pivo didn't like the lighting so we didn't get much
usable video for that lesson

After telling me to slow the hell down, we played with the lateral work. This is the kind of lesson I wanted, drilling down into what is correct in the lateral work rather than a "more bend, less angle" type of instruction. That's fine when I'm prepping for a show and I just need to gain another point or two on each movement. But I do really want the lateral work to actually help him in his strength, not just be a trick he does. 

With all the more bend, less angle, I'd lost my alignment and he'd developed some bad habits in both movements. Woops. 

In shoulder-in, he had a tendency to just sneak his little neck in a bit more than usual. The angle was fine, but the neck was showing a small amount of folding at the base, meaning that the shoulder-in had eked toward being more like a leg yield. When I did finally get him aligned properly, he felt SO GOOD, like way more uphill in the shoulder-in and easier to half halt within it. 

My tendency in the shoulder-in was to not use enough outside thigh, which was related to the folding, I couldn't really keep him up into my outside rein effectively without the outside thigh being supportive. We played around with going straight and then transitioning to shoulder-in, focusing on the movement coming from my outside thigh rather than my inside leg. 

Tracey had to go get a chair and so TC was
confused as to where she went and why she wasn't
staring at him

Then in the haunches-in, he'd snuck his front outside foot outward toward the rail in order to manufacture more angle. When the outside front leg drifts off the line, it just becomes a leg yield, so we worked hard on getting his chest to point down the track properly. That made it very clear that he still struggles a lot with the haunches-in and that this is why we are having problems in the half pass. So that's some good homework for us. 

When we did the exercise of going from straight to haunches-in, it was VERY apparent that the way that I'd started to ask him for the haunches-in was to slide off to the outside and pull on my inside rein. Great. I had to really think hard about sitting to the inside and half halting on the outside rein when the outside front leg was in the air, which was really hard and kind of confusing to me. I look forward to asking my clients to do this so I can see it working from the ground. 

I told you it was mostly useless

That was basically all we got to because there's just not much you can do in such a weird lesson. But it was great! Since the lesson, I've been focusing on my biomechanics and wanting to not sacrifice my leg position to get lateral work either. He's such a stuck little thing laterally, so we've got a lot of this kind of work in our future to make sure that he's not faking the lateral work anymore. We're getting away with it for now with solid scores, but the score is only a small part of what the lateral work is for. I need to be able to really load those hind legs with the lateral work to start developing better collection. If there's anything holding us back from the upper levels right now, it's the collection. 

Lift Your Own Legs

At our acupuncture visit, I was encouraged to stretch TC's shoulders every day to help him with the struggles he has engaging his thoracic sling, so I started doing that. Basically just lifting each front leg up and hoisting his shoulder blade up and back. Trying to get him to have a little more flexibility there, especially on the right side which he seems nearly incapable of lifting. 

Then a week later I reinjured my lower back riding too many horses in one day. Ugh I didn't want to write that down, but it's true, my back is fucked up right now. It's getting better, but what a pain. 

Immediately, TC's giant tree trunk legs seemed SO HEAVY. He doesn't give me any help lifting them, probably because he has no motivation to do so. Understandable, but wow it's not helping my back at all to lift these legs every day. 

Alfredo loved Rico's trick

Switching gears, I stopped by to ride Rico last Thursday. Before heading to the arena, Rico dragged me over to lick my parents' dog, Ruby. Weirdo. My mom came out to see Rico because she's happy I'm riding him and for some reason, Rico started begging for cookies. My mom ran back into the house to grab cookies for him (and shared with Ruby, I am my mother's daughter okay) and asked me how to do Rico's one trick. 

I taught Rico to lift his front legs with the idea that I'd use it to teach him to Spanish walk one day. I tried and failed to do that, but he does pick up his front legs really well, even to this day. Especially when there are cookies involved. 

While I was on him and my mom asked him to pick up his legs to earn cookies, I saw his shoulder come way up and set back like TC's does when I lift his legs for him. You can see where I'm going with this. 

Rico loves dogs and Ruby loves attention

So now, TC is learning how to pick up his own damn legs to learn to stretch and strengthen them. He thinks it's a fabulous game because he loves to paw anyway and it's like I'm finally giving him permission to paw. I'm focusing mostly on the right side for now because I really need him to strengthen that side first so he can even out, but I'm doing a bit on the left side too of course. 

Hopefully I'll just have to bring cookies out every day before I get on and have TC do his new trick. And maybe I will follow through and teach this horse to do a Spanish walk. I'm already teaching the cue a little bit different so I can ask for it while riding. 

Rico and Sunny Get Acupuncture

 As I said yesterday, all three horses (poor Riot was left out, sorry Riot) got acupuncture at the beginning of December. I went over TC already, but Rico and Sunny also got done!

 
I mostly wanted to get Rico looked at because I have started riding him again. I'm riding him twice a week for about 20 minutes mostly walking and trotting, it's not much but I'd like to see him get a little fitter so that we can do a little bit more. I'll write later about why I'm doing this but the point is that Rico has gone from being retired to being mostly retired and I want to make sure he's comfortable. 

I got Sunny looked at as an early Christmas present to my mom. Sunny has silicosis and has had some degeneration in his neck, she's always worried about his balance and strength, so I figured that we'd get some good information about that and hopefully make him feel better. 

Facebook memories reminded me of this 11 years
ago when Rico was heading off to rehab for his
suspensory and when I didn't think eating food was
necessary for my own existence

Sunny went first as my mom was babysitting and my niece went down for a nap right as we got started, good timing, baby! 

Sunny immediately showed TC up by having fabulous flexibility through his shoulders, but his neck showed some resistance turning to the left. Weirdly enough, when she tested out his hind legs, he showed that he wanted to lean right with both hind legs, indicating a restriction back there. 

He seemed to LOVE the acupuncture, he yawned a whole bunch and then fell asleep during the treatment. She did the same electro acupuncture thing on Sunny's lumbar area, as he was also sore there. She and my mom chatted about saddle fit and we have more information about what kind of saddle my mom needs for her security vs what kind of saddle Sunny needs to fit him better. 

By the end of the treatment, he was standing up MUCH straighter, like he looked a full hand taller. That was INSANE. At that point I didn't know how much better TC felt and while I was impressed with what she found on him, Sunny's treatment was the first one that had visible changes the moment she was finished with him. 

Sunny's evaluation

Sunny, see the weirdness on number 6 with his hind end?

Now, while all this is happening, Rico was surprisingly envious. He stood at his door staring at us aggressively. It may seem like this is just what my horses do, because TC stares aggressively at people who he wants to pay attention to him, but it's very unlike Rico. Rico is kind of a wallflower in comparison to TC, he and I are much more alike that way. We prefer to observe from afar. But Rico was very curious and seemed downright giddy when I got him out. 

Rico's case was very interesting as while both Sunny and TC had a bit of pain in their lumbar, normal for riding horses, Rico's pain was in his thoracic area, directly under the saddle. He had almost no ability to lift his ribcage with the belly lifts and showed some pain in the base of his neck. Apparently a lot of warmblood dressage horses show pain there, so it was not surprising. 

As he got worked on, Rico got a little worried. In his older age, he's lost a lot of confidence. I think it's that he doesn't feel as spry, so is probably aware of the fact that if something came after him, he probably couldn't get away as easily. He especially doesn't like that there are noises outside the barn sometimes, so when a car went by behind the barn, he got a little nervous. But, apparently there's a point on the horse's forehead where, when poked by a needle, it calms them right down. And when Rico got his poke, he immediately relaxed. I asked whether we could just leave it in permanently! I'd just take it out to ride him. 

Oh Rico, you've lived quite a life

Rico also had a huge physical change. She worked on his thoracic area under the saddle and did the electro stuff there. Then she did another belly lift and we heard a big CRACK and from then on, his sway back was WAY better. His neck also improved visibly over the course of the treatment, with him being able to bend it better in both directions. 

Her recommendations for him included the equiband, and I don't ride him in spurs, so I might bring that over and ride him in it to see how he handles it. I haven't been using it as much on TC recently because he's been feeling pretty good in that department lately, so it's good timing to try it out on Rico. 

See number 5 for his thoracic issues, I mean he has a
lot of issues being 24 years old, a GP dressage horse and
a preliminary level CDE horse and casually jumping around
4' courses his whole life

I rode Rico a few days after the treatment and didn't feel a huge change, but he did stretch down quite a lot during that ride, which he hasn't done in a long time. I've yet to ride Sunny but I'll ride him today I think. I doubt either of them will feel completely different to me because I'm not actively asking them to work against their resistances like I am with TC. Neither of them are as in tune to me as TC is and they are both rather quiet horses who probably won't run away with me because they feel good, unlike some gray weirdos I know. 

Generally the acupuncture was a huge success. We are definitely doing this again, in a perfect world I'd love to get her out once a month for TC and then have her do Rico every other month. My mom is sold and wants her to come back out and do Riot and maybe Sunny again. I'm so excited to have found a bodyworker that works for TC! Our chirovet is great, but I have never felt this kind of a change with her. I think it's just a matter of finding the right person for the horse and I think TC picked his person. 

TC Gets Poked

To start out December with a bang, on the first, Kate and I held an acupuncture clinic for our horses! My fabulous friend and client runs Topline Vet Therapeutics and I've been dying to have her work on TC, Rico, and Sunny. And we coordinated to get a few horses at Kate's barn. 

It was such a fabulous experience! TC was first and this blog is mostly about him so we'll start there. I'll write about Rico and TC in my next post because that was also fascinating. 

Happy pony waits for acupuncture

I mostly communicated that I wanted TC to feel more comfortable lifting through the base of his neck and his thoracic sling. That's been a huge thing for this horse to overcome throughout his training, so any help on that would be great! 

She started by going over his body and seeing where she found restrictions. It was pretty amazing what she found with not very much information (mostly because I forgot to tell her some things). TC's old weak left stifle showed up in this exam and apparently his right shoulder is not nearly as flexible as his left, which is also not very flexible. The horse is NOT naturally flexible. 

Another place she found slight tightness/pain was in his left lumbar area. She says that most horses, due to riding them, have lumbar pain, so was happy that he only showed it on one side and it was fairly mild. He also was not restricted in the base of his neck like many horses are (especially warmbloods apparently), but WAS restricted in the first three vertebrae. He found it harder to flex those vertebrae to the right, which is exactly what it feels like undersaddle. 

She did some stretches and said that he lifted his back well with the belly lifts and that if I told her I did them twice a day, she'd believe me! I basically never do them though. But I'm glad he's so flexible back there! She also pulled each front leg out and he was a little more resistant on the right side than the left. But that stretch often shows pain in the base of his neck and based on what TC did, she didn't find any pain there (vs that's where Rico had his neck pain). 

TC's diagram

With all of that information, she started by working on him with a massage gun to loosen him up and then began with the needles. TC took it well until she got to the left stifle where he had a CRAZY negative reaction, popping forward in the cross ties and looking a bit shocked that she'd poke him (after he's been getting needles in the rest of his body). That surprised me because he has been super sound on that left stifle for a while now, it was mostly a problem as a five year old and he kind of grew out of it. She was able to go back to it later on and he was fine though, so that's good! But maybe we need to continue our stifle exercises forever even though he's totally sound. 

She mostly worked on his lumbar and his right shoulder though, which he seemed to appreciate. While the other horses (more on them next) relaxed with the acupuncture, TC wouldn't relax because he kept trying to help her out and wanting to be involved. She'd go by his butt and he'd lift his hind leg to see if she'd scratch his butt cheek. She'd go by his neck and he'd turn and stare at her (like he does when I braid him, it's not helpful). He's just ridiculous. 

The plan for TC

She wanted him to have a day off the next day, so I gave him that and took the day off myself. I was itching to find out how he felt, so I got up first thing on Thursday to go see how he was. 

HE. WAS. AMAZING. 

Wow what a freaking difference. First, his bolting has definitely gotten way easier for him and I found that hilarious. He positively dropped to the ground and ran off with me during our first ride. Apparently this is normal for horses! 

Too excited to be feeling so good

But outside the squealing and running away with me, he feels REALLY good. He felt way easier to connect, easier to keep straight, easier to get to lift through his thoracic sling, and easier to steer. I really couldn't believe it. 

It was just easy for him and he definitely felt better. More relaxed but also more powerful, like there wasn't such a blockage in his neck to get the power to connect to the bridle. Since then, I've really felt like I'm able to ride him more up and out than I used to now that his neck isn't so locked. 

I've obsessively looked back through pictures of him over the years and WOW lifting through his thoracic sling has not been his strong point ever. He has definitely struggled with it more this year and that's what's causing me to feel weird about how he's going, but looking back through pictures made me feel better that this is something he's always done, it's just more extreme this year. But the rides that have occurred since the acupuncture visit have definitely been better in that department. We have a long way to go and he may never look as "filled in" in front of the withers as Rico did (Rico still has a ridiculous cervical trapezius in retirement lol), but we can make sure he feels good enough to use the muscles when I set him up well for it. 

Lifting so nicely here!

So with this and the fitness schedule, he's feeling amazing as he's coming back into work. I've implemented a few changes in the way we are going and what our training situation is like. More to come later as he's getting back in shape. 

I'm so happy to have a fabulous acupuncturist now! Hopefully we can bring her out once a month so that we can continue working on TC, it's one of the best decisions I've made this year I think. 

Tomorrow we'll talk about Rico and Sunny! They enjoyed their visit VERY much and showed huge changes too.