Definitely Not Right

I finally got back on my horse on Tuesday after he got three days off. I rode him again the next day, and then today BM got on him to see what she thought. 

What a fucking mess. The vet will be out next Friday to draw blood for a Lyme test which we both think is probably the best guess at this point with how he's done such a complete 180 in both his under saddle work and his personality in general. 

fake tied in front of the fan so he would stand
still and dry after hosing off the full body lather
he'd worked himself into...from walking

Both days I got on him, he was tense AF and wanting to blow up over everything. I managed to defuse him on Tuesday, but Wednesday it was a complete brain melt down. I ended up not being able to take him off a 20m circle in the middle of the ring at the walk because the second I tried to go straight he tried to go up. 

Why? Because I asked him to slow down his walk instead of speed racing crookedly face first into the ground.

The audacity, I know. 

BM didn't get to experience the bolting/rearing/leaping/spinning shit from the saddle (she's seen it plenty from the ground), but she did get to experience everything else--including Opie Logic where he knew he just COULD NOT do shoulder in so she was like, "How about we just halt off my seat then, and stop rage walking?" To which his response was, "OMG I'M JUST GOING TO GRIND MY TEETH AND IGNORE THAT VERY BASIC REQUEST AND SHOULDER IN RIGHT THROUGH YOUR AIDS FOR THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE RING INSTEAD OF HALTING."

She agreed that overall he felt incredibly tense and anxious over nothingggg, and pretty much felt like shit in general. She thought he was very blocked in his shoulders which was translating to being blocked in his neck too. 

She rode for about thirty to forty minutes, the majority of which was walk, and when she was done he was absolutely soaked in sweat and very reactive to being touched along his shoulders and flanks. She dug into his back and lumbar area when I pulled the saddle off, but he was completely nonreactive there.

So, again, certainly things that would make sense for a Lyme flare up. Because if it's not that, then who the fuck knows what's going in his giant black head?