Wrap It Up

Rehab is boring, especially when things are going well. 

(That's not a challenge, universe!)

thicc boi

We've been up to the same old, same old: lots and lots of walking, tacking on time to our trot work, AND we've just started cantering. One lap each direction. Kind of a big deal. 

I've been letting Opie dictate the work we do each ride. If he comes out a little creaky or uninterested--which isn't alarming with the shitty weather we've had lately--we stick to slow stretchy work and mostly walking. But really he's been coming out feeling ready to work and finishing wanting to do more. 

MB rode him for our lesson two weeks ago because this month has fucking drained me, and she was all compliments on how strong, straight, and light he's feeling. In our lesson this morning, she helped us clean up the work we've been doing on our own. 

came down with whatever flu/virus is going around
on xmas eve and i'm still not recovered. opie's been
getting more candies than riding lately

We've been working hard on our downward transitions, using the lesson from LB at the beginning of the month. Basically not letting him finish the transition unless he's carrying himself behind and not braced in the front. This is hard work for one Dopie Horse as bracing is basically his answer to all things. But we've had access to so much good education in the past year, and one the biggest takeaways from all the UL trainers is "think piaffe". Which like, obviously this horse is not piaffing, but think collect collect collect shorten the stride weight the hind end lighten the front end aaaaand tada you're in the walk. 

MB further refined this by telling me to help get him off my leg with a little SI while thinking piaffe and he finished by stepping softly into the walk. Good boy, this is going to clean up so many things in our test work. 

small boi next to his large boi friend

We've also been working on our flying changes...from the walk. And today we moved into the trot. He has no problem cleanly changing the bend of his body L-R which is why his L-R change has always been easier for him, but good grief. Even at the walk he finds suppling from the R-L so difficult. 

We've been doing changes of direction through serpentines, sometimes having to enter the right turn out of the SI to kickstart suppleness. I have to really hold his squirrely ass body together with my legs which I feel like is going to muddle the aid for the change, so I've given up on having my legs available for the cue and really making sure to use my seat to enforce when I would be asking if he was cantering. 

He's gotten much more confident and comfortable with these at the walk, so MB had us try them in the trot. They were a little sloppier--although the L-R was still good--but not as bad as I thought they were going to be. So much homework, I'm fucking stoked!

exhausting work being opie

As far as this year's goals and what I have planned for next year? Who fucking knows. Opie spent most of the year lame so we didn't accomplish much of anything. And honestly, for as good as he's feeling now and how well he's rehabbing, I don't know what level he'll be able to return to this upcoming year. Ideally he comes back even stronger and with all the holes filled in, and we carry on trying to move up to Fourth. Less ideally, he doesn't hold up to the level of work I want to do, and he finds himself a more suitable situation. After dealing with the insane buyers of the world trying to sell him previously for this exact reason, I'd rather not have to do so again. So keep your shit together, Opie. 

Capable But Crazy: A Brain Lesson

For once, I'm not referring to Opie with that title!

It's me. Hi, I'm the crazy one. Called out in a very frank way by one of my trainer's trainers. 

happy to accept my candies but has been nothing
but a good boi lately tbh

Firstly, thank you guys for the supportive comments on my last post. I think it ended up being a little bit of a good thing to have a minor menty b because it made me focus more on my position and body control. MB even told me unsolicited in our lesson on Thursday that I was doing way less bouncing with my arms and hands. 

Also in our lesson Thursday, we cantered one whole lap to the right under saddle! It took us like three laps to pick it up. MB was like, "What is happening, I would have asked five times by now." (The canter felt fine, just weak AF.) This is important because it ties in to our lesson on Saturday.

Opie is feeling really good w/t and I finally sold my jump saddle so I had a teensy amount of cash sitting in my pocket, so I signed up for a lesson with LB who you might remember from a couple of information-packed lessons at the beginning of the year. I knew she'd be okay teaching mid-rehab, and she would still be able to pile on enough homework to sustain us for months. I told her I specifically wanted to work on our downward transitions that are jumbled and braced, and she totalllly delivered.

• In our warm up trot, I've been doing leg yields and then LY to SI. She told me to get my hips swinging in a big motion, but keep a quiet leg and a quiet hand so the increased momentum didn't fly out the front. 
• "This horse knows how to do a leg yield. You know how to do a leg yield. Just do a leg yield."
• She called me out for setting him up like I was teaching a LY instead of just riding it. It's five strides of setting him up and anticipating and then creeping into it. 
• Just like MB calling me out for taking way too long setting up the canter transition instead of just cueing the canter.
• I need to ride more instinctually because "you have a very capable seat" (Sorry, I died a little. Her praise is few and....sometimes nonexistent lol.)
• Get out of my brain and just ride. She said she does all her warmup work while listening to audio books so she's not interfering unnecessarily. 
• Especially in the walk, where the muscles may be moving but there's no real impulsion, I can't be fussing with shit and taking away because there isn't anything to take away. 
• Never more than a 2 contact on the reins in the walk.
• That brought us to a long white-to-pink discussion which ended up being our downward breakthrough. 
• Basically, the gum turns white when there's pressure from the bit. Relieve the pressure, and the gum returns to pink. So I wasn't allowed to hold my pressure for more than two seconds before I had to release it for another two seconds. (Listen, y'all, if there's one thing I've learned coming up the levels of dressage you LIT ER ALLY ride from half halt to half halt, they are not kidding when they say that, holy guacamole.)
• Sometimes though, because she described Opie as a "latcher" which is so true, I only get to hold that white for half a second before two seconds of release.
• This visual gave me something to hyper-fixate on which allowed the rest of my body to just ride the horse without my brain interfering, and shocker, Opie turned to putty and was clocking around like a dream. 
• Also for the downwards, she compared TBs to a horizontal line and WBs to rainbows, and said that TBs really need a little bit of lateral flexion to break up that straight line so they unlock in the transitions. We did a couple steps of LY-out on a circle. 
• She said especially since he's still quite weak, he might not even be strong enough to come down in a full correct transition. Instead, find the spot that he stops feeling good and starts to fall apart and get out of the transition. 
• For instance, coming into the walk from the trot, the second the hind leg drags instead of continuing to push, back up into the trot we go. 
• Do lots of shortening and lengthening the hind end while keeping the front end the same. 
• Works the hamstrings and the core.

full zen after our lesson, marinating under his red light pad

We ended after half an hour because Opie hasn't worked up to a full forty five minutes yet (even though we spent a ton of time in the walk, and then some time parked to chat better), but I got exactly what I wanted--so much homework!

AND. She said nice things about Opie as well. She said right off the bat his hind end looks looser and his topline looks better, and that the SI injections--from what she was seeing this lesson from last winter--were definitely the right call. So that was nice to get more confirmation that I'm on the right track with him. I need constant positive affirmations, I can't help it. 

I'm excited to work on all our new things, and hopefully paying attention to them instead of how to ride actually makes me ride better. Because this brain do be crazy.

Spiraling

Y'all. Not even over my horse for once. He's actually continuing to do really well--we'll get to him in a minute.

I am spiraling over myself. Total menty b. Cried to Hubby. Whined to friends. Pouted on my own. Been through it.

Let me show you why and then we'll break it down.

UGHHHHHHHHHH.

IT'S LIKE NOT RIDING REGULARLY FOR MONTHS ON END REVERTS YOU TO SUCKING AS A RIDER.

AND I WASN'T EVEN THAT GOOD TO START WITH, I DID NOT HAVE GROUND TO LOSE HERE.

this is why we all do screenshots, no?

I audited a clinic last winter where the clinician told one of the riders she needed to bounce more in her sitting trot. All of us ammys were like, "Pardon?! You're not supposed to bounce in the saddle!" But her point was the seat needs to be absorbing the motion of the horse's movement, like bouncing on a yoga ball. This ended up being a really great breakthrough for me. My seat stays in the saddle, the hips are loose, I feel locked in to my seat. Only I stopped doing real riding for so long, all my other parts have begun bouncing as well. And I assure you none of those are doing absorption work. They're just bouncing. 

Now, coinciding with my horse going lame this summer, I decided to work on my weight and fitness. Therapy helped a lot with this as it's hard to break the emotional eating and deep, deep depression cycle if you don't bitch slap the root of the problem. But I also wanted to make sure I didn't turn into even more of a garbage human being than I already have in the past five years and become even more of a fat weakling if my horse ever decided to be rideable again. 

In the past five months, I've lost 25lbs through working out and eating less like a toddler with a credit card. I do a ton of pilates and can comfortably run several miles a day. I feel AM stronger, but as Hubby and MB have repeatedly told me, there is no substitute for riding. You can be as strong (and skinny) as you want, but you need the riding miles.

I don't love that as an answer, especially because my riding opportunities rest solely on a horse working through rehab. But it is what it is, so in yesterday and today's rides, I toughened up and made myself focus on me and not just on Opie. My leg is swinging in the wind? Ok, stop. Positive tension. You have abs now--actually you have access to multiple ab muscles! Use them to hold things down. I feel better about that already. Quite frankly I don't know what to do about my boobs bouncing. They're big boobs. Send sports bra recommendations that are on par with a corset I guess. Also I'm allowed to weight my elbows, even if my horse says I'm not.

Enough whining about myself, let's whine about Opie.

He's getting stronger every day, but he is still weak behind. Not surprising, we're just going to keep on keeping on as long as he continues to stay sound and feel better every ride. This is his last ride before he got his SI injections--I was getting video to show the vet, so yes folks, I know he was lame. This is from this past weekend.

The beginning of our rides are always awkward as I navigate what he needs to feel his best, so it's usually a lot of stopping and starting and some lurching around until we both settle into a rhythm and get to work. Plus I have to mentally fight with myself over "Is he doing this because his SI/LH is broken?" versus "Is he doing this because it's one of his go-to evasions?" For instance, this morning he was giving me some drama about me sitting on his right side/putting my right leg on him. He's been doing this for years--it's literally his favorite complaint. 

We've also been working really hard on standing still. Opie haaaaates not doing things. Why take a break when you could be WORKING. His brain is just never quiet. A lot of times when we halt, he immediately starts raging. Much drama, much flinging himself around--he basically turns himself into my body in the sitting trot lolololol. But we're getting there with repetition.

would rather annoy his friends and be covered in
poop than stand patiently

In conclusion, I'm in a weird funk with everything. Me, myself, and my bouncing body....and my horse, my weight, my strength, my abilities, etc. Hopefully the horse keeps improving so I can keep logging the minutes, and by spring not only will I have a sound, strong show horse, I'll be able to ride it without cringing. 

Trucking Along

The good news is, everything is continuing along in an upward trajectory.

The bad news is, that's super boring.

Kind of a bummer to finally decide to return to blogging only to have the star of the show spend the majority of the year going from one lameness to another. I mean really, Opie, we have content to create here. The people want to see media. The people want cantering. Instead the people are going to get another post about trit-trotting for five minutes.

Our rides are basically walking for fifteen-ish minutes, trotting for five-ish minutes, and then finishing trying to convince Opie that a chill stretchy walk after such a boring workout is actually super duper fun. He's sort of starting to get on board with relaxing, but he's a horse that really likes having a job and doing the job, and he's much happier being overworked than under. Rest breaks are offensive, this stupid limited workload is offensive, wrapping things up after twenty minutes of low impact work is offensive, etc etc. 

He's been feeling consistently sound enough lately--although still weak on that LH--that I've felt comfortable bringing back in some brain exercises. For instance, today in our lesson we worked on upward and downward w/t transitions AND the halfpass! 

in our lesson 2 weeks ago we worked on riding a circle without
pulling on the inside rein. you can see why this was an issue lol.

Opie's transitions have always sucked because he anticipates everything and braces. It's great you want to be a smart boy and know the answer before it's even being asked, but maybe you could try to wait and listen. 

We were able to identify pretty quickly that he convinces me he cannot possibly go any faster if I insist on keeping my outside rein to myself, so I just chuck it at him. That's not correct obvi, so I focused on keeping my elbow cemented to my side and he just had to get over himself and move off my leg. That's the fun part of dressage--you never ever get done cleaning up the basics. Forever and always. 

He was quite annoyed with our insistence he could do things on our terms and not us giving in to his every demand. Instead of forcing the issue too much, once we got "good enough for now, just do those another thousand times (thanks, MB)" we got to work on the halfpass to give his brain something tricky to work on. 

i've been playing with bits since we're not doing anything
exciting and putting him back in his baby full cheek has fixed
his weird right head tilt

To the right, we went SI to HP to SI and back again, focusing on getting him to stand up his shoulders. The goal was to make him elevate in front so much he doesn't look like a pony anymore: "Opie, you look like you're 16.1hh now!" To the left it was renvers to HP without letting him get quick and crooked.

We did a few each way at the walk, and one each way in the trot, and then he got to be all done and actually deigned to do a really good stretch while only kind of running off with me. He says that was much better than what we have been doing, but mentally he could have done a whole lot more. Your weak AF butt disagrees, sir.

first snow of the season!
and today he's a nakey horse in the sun.

Hopefully we can keep trucking along on this path over the winter. I'd rather go too slow and bore poor Dopie to death and come out in the spring feeling sound and strong then rush things because it's boring and put us back at square one yet again. 

I'm planning on working on our right lead canter transitions next month if he continues to feel stronger like he is. Another thing to give him "work" without getting too wild. Add it to our fun list of: turns on the haunches, leg yields, straight circles (not pulling my horse's head and neck in), SI, HP, and stretching without raging. So many things to do in the walk! 

And for his cooperation, he keeps getting his red light therapy, PEMF, stretching, and special shoes. And custom diet that he mostly deigns to eat. We can't have things be too easy. 

Flatlined

One small step upward, one long plateau in front of us. Fortunately, there's nothing better than a NY winter to do absolutely nothing but grind it out. 

Opie got all last week off to chill (as much as Opie ever chills), and then I popped him on the longe over the weekend to see if there was any noticeable improvement. Besides warring with himself over manners vs rumpus time, he looked super sound w/t!

would like to do the bolting but knows we don't pull on the longe

settled for much striking just so i knew he was crazyyy

much prancing as well tho

That was obviously encouraging; as well as him rocketing off the hind legs, no sign of the LF lameness any longer either. On Monday and Tuesday I got back on him for two fifteen minute rides. The first one was exactly what I was looking for--he was launching me out of the saddle and begging me to let him do more work. 

The second ride, I turned him out with no sheet on because we had one day of no rain and it was supposed to warm up into the sixties. However, it was still in the 40s in the morning and he has a horrible time with being cold after Lyme, so he started off the ride super tight. MB watched him trot after I was like, "Omfggggg, he's back to being lame!" and assured me he just looked like winter Opie that hadn't had his pre-ride BOT time. Once he got some more trotting in, his stride evened out and he felt normal again. 

So important note to self, even in the fall, if it's chilly and he isn't already dressed in his jammies, he needs to marinate in them for awhile first. 

post-ride red light while refusing to eat because that
was also a thing this week i think i've finally sorted out

Wednesday, I popped him on the longe quick. He rolled/knuckled over his LH ankle at the trot once, and then when he picked up the canter going left he was fine for the first few strides and then non-weight bearing in the LH. Which was certainly alarming to say the least, and he did the exact same thing the weekend before I took him down to the clinic. The vet had no insights. One of my friends thought his stifle might have locked for a few strides, but I'm super familiar with locking stifles and it didn't look like that to me, and he immediately went back to normal dropping into the trot. MB thought SI still, and he's weak AF, and maybe we just don't look at the canter for at least a month--which was my thought as well, so we're just going to pretend it never happened until we get a lot more muscle on this thing.

It did, of course, lead me even further down the SI rabbit hole (as well as: the start of DSLD, he's severed his extensor tendon, his pelvic symphysis is damaged to the point he'll never be a riding horse again, etc etc). That wasn't a fun journey let me tell you lolol 0/10 recommend.

In the "horses are the worst" universe, MB actually dealt with a very similar situation with her Arabx last winter. Weird traveling hind end lameness with random unrelated front end lameness, none of it really showing up on imaging, and never getting an actual answer for what was going on. She spent the winter doing the most slow and boring rehab with him, and he came out the summer looking the best this horse has ever looked in his life. 

So MB is my inspiration in this. If I can keep this horse alive for the winter, there might be hope he can return to being a useful member of society next year after all.

every day he is determined to be retired at 12.
yesterday was a fat hock from a bunch of scrapes.

I did lesson yesterday for a very exciting 20 minutes. MB gave me a ton of low-key lateral/flexion exercises to do at the walk, and at the trot she held my hand and told me we did not need to do a traditional warm up with this horse. We're going to have to think outside the box and work with whatever he's giving in that moment, and whatever he responds well to. He's SOOO out of shape on top of compensating for being lame for months, it's going to take a hot minute before we even think about doing normal horse things.

Fingers crossed none of us lose our minds (or our soundness) in the next couple of months!

Upward Trajectory

To be fair, it's not hard to make upward progress when the bar is set so very low.

accustomed to a standard of living regardless
of his work status

But actually! He has genuinely been improving in the past two weeks. The week after he got his aluminum wedges put on, we stuck to the tack walking protocol. Mostly strolling around on trail, but still doing our "put your hind end under yourself so it doesn't completely disintegrate off your body" work in the ring. Each day he felt better in the LF, but I was starting to feel it behind the saddle. Which honestly was fine because he already had his SI injection scheduled to address the behind the saddle issues. 

I brought Hubby out one day to get video for me to see if what I was feeling matched up with what things looked like. The good news is, the LF did look significantly better--although I can still see it--but wowza, the hind end picked that day to be completelyyyy useless.

still knows his job with zero input at least

So that was the end of the tack walking until his injections. I didn't have a problem sitting on him if I felt like I was helping him and he was coming out feeling better than when he started, but that stopped being the case. Instead we went to the ground. Ghetto butt band secured, we worked on massive circles on the longe over walk and trot poles.

standing wraps work just as well as expensive rubber resistance bands

By this Monday, he was honestly looking really good. For him. In comparison to the last two months. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. He looked 90% sound at the trot, still maybe could see something LF, and the hind end wasn't as loose and through as it could be. But it made me hopeful the injections are the last missing piece of the puzzle to get this thing back into work for longer than a couple weeks at a time. 

pre-injection pemf because what even is money lol

Tuesday morning we hauled down to the clinic for stabbies. Unfortunately for one of my favorite barn kids from our last barn who now works at the clinic, it hasn't been warm enough for a thorough bubble bath in a minute, so she got to settle in for the tedious task of a pre-scrub before the surgical scrub. Opie might be permanently stained brown from iodine at this point, but at least he has the most sterilized butt cheeks in WNY. 

can't wait until he gets back into work so i can
body clip him
#manifesting

He gets to spend the rest of the week hanging out doing nothing before slowly starting back into work next week. Hopefully the mysterious LF lameness also continues to disappear. No idea why the shoe change helped so much when all his diagnostics were so clean, but don't look a gift shoe in the foot. Or something. And his Lyme re-test came back squeaky clean so we can't even try to blame that. 

Fingers crossed we're done with vet visits for the year!

we had to wait 30 mins for the horse in front of us
to come out of sedation but sir rage monster had zero
problems waking right back up and bestowing his side
eye upon all of us. this is why he has a special cocktail
recipe in his file for sleepies

Useless

So. As promised, zero riding updates since the last post. 

We had our vet appointment on Monday (because obviously I wasn't going to get away with not having the vet out), a chiro appointment a week and a half prior to that, and another farrier appointment this morning. 

Surely, after all that, we would have some answers and a concrete plan of attack, right? I mean, SURELY.

"you must be new here."

Let's start with the chiro appointment. RW spent over an hour on Opie, front to back, up down and sideways. His main takeaways were--as expected--the SI/pelvis was out again. Right side worse than left. Also though, his left shoulder was waaay out of whack. He said it was basically hyperextended--the scapula was pulled too far forward. 

Having had zero success with the leather pads that we were hoping would help a suspected stone bruise out, and not seeing anything that would lend credence to a soft tissue injury in the entire distal limb, it was one of those things like, "Well, why not the shoulder?" I put that on the never-ending list to discuss with the vet.

He had an entire week on bute last week and got ridden once, in a walk lesson last Thursday. As with all his scattered tack walk rides, he started off feeling....wobbly? behind. But you help him put himself together, and the hind end comes sound. Total nonevent, no complaints. And he doesn't feel lame in the walk LF, but obviously he is lame so walk only is all we've been doing. MB offered to video the ride to show the vet because you put him on the longe line and holy balls, does he ever look a hot fucking mess behind. But he can most definitely not look that way under saddle. But of course I was like, "Nahhhh, it'll be fine. I'll just tell Dr A."

"should have listened to the boss lady."

Our vet visit is the best excuse to use bullet points! And we have to take our wins where we can!

• Pulled blood for a lyme titer. Planned recheck after he'd finished his treatment earlier this summer. 
• Watched him go on the longe and was immediately like, "Yes, the LF, but what is going on with the hind end?!"
• It's fineeeee. I'd show you video but I don't have any lol.
• Agreed to do the SI injection at the clinic. She asked if I wanted to shockwave him again today since that helped him (short term) the last time, but ya girl is not made of money. Even though Opie seems to think so.
• Blocked the LF foot. Still lame.
• Did the next set up of blocks. Still lame.
• Ultrasound and xrays of the shoulder. Clean as a whistle.
• Xrays of all four feet. I did want to see if NPA was an issue in the hind feet since that can be a big factor in hind end issues, and his hind feet are a little bullnosed. 
• NPA not an issue. Tiniest bit of coffin bone arthritis, but nothing to be concerned about.
• Tiniest bit of pastern arthritis in the front. Dr A said with how much of a princess he is, she wouldn't have had a problem recommending injections for the LF for that if he had come sound after the block, but since he hadn't, she didn't think that it was bothering him any. 
• Otherwise, angles and sole depth and all that jazz looked delightful. 
• Xrayed the old set splints in the front legs.
• He's had them forever, but she wanted to rule out the possibility of a re-break. Non-issue, they looked completely fine.
• Ultrasound the LF soft tissues. 
• Totally clean, no issues at all.

In conclusion, if you did a PPE on this horse without actually watching him move, he'd pass with flying colors!

buy the horse, not the xrays is the opposite of the
problem we have here.

That's actually super fucking annoying though, because after all that, she wasn't able to identify where of why he has been lame for two months. 

So the plan is to take him down to the clinic on the 14th for his SI injection. Keep tack walking him and see if continuing to help his hind end under saddle helps alleviate the front end lameness. (And also bring her a video of u/s work.) Her best guess is maybe we have it backwards: instead of the front end lameness (which did appear first) causing the hind end to become more sore through compensating, the hind end being a constant and forever shit show has caused front end lameness.

I dumped this pile of essentially useless information on my farrier like the good client and friend that I am, and said, "Do whatever you want, I don't really give a shit anymore."

She decided we might as well experiment a little bit since we had some time before the SI injection and put him in aluminum wedges. And to be honest, he walked down the aisle after that looking a little footy lolololol. But whatever. We'll see what we're working with tomorrow, and she can always come back and give him his plain steel again. I didn't have the brain power to address it this morning. 

I'm actually excited to be given the command to more intentionally work him at the walk, as the random rides I had been doing before have given us tons to work on. Like, we actually have really good turns on the haunches now!

Anyway. I'll be taking my small wins where I can. Maybe I'll not feel like the world's saddest panda at some point and do a walk ride post.

Walk It Out

MB got me feeling all motivated and smart in our last lesson which Opie took as a direct threat to his superiority and ability to run the show when it comes to our relationship and promptly went lame. 

still rly good at halting tho

It actually started after his previous shoeing where my farrier trimmed him a little shorter at my request because he grows SO MUCH FOOT even on our summer four week schedule they were looking horrible by the time she came back out. Our first ride after that appointment he was in the indoor and felt a little footy up front, but he always takes forever to warm up in there--and he did. He felt just fine by the end of the ride.

In the past five weeks, he would have a day here or there where he came out and it was like, "Well, if I'm being picky it feels a bit like the LF", but then he would always work out of it without an issue. And most days there was nothing to note at all. 

Until two weeks ago when we were once again stuck in the indoor and he was off in the LF. I ended up not being able to troubleshoot anything that would make him more comfortable. I texted my farrier and she said she had several horses this year that she's had to put pads on that have never needed them before because we didn't have rain for two straight months and the ground had been concrete. So that was our plan of action for the next appointment.

I was packing and keratex-ing in the meantime, and then I'd pop him on the longe quick to see how he looked. The LF remained gimpy, but then the hind end started to go as well. Lame on the LF going left, super lame in the hind going right.

Cue spiraling.

Obviously.

wants snacks, doesn't care about anything else

First and foremost in this horse's training, I always try to make sure he is strong. Strong back, strong hind end, all the muscling, all the fitness. But now I'm like, is he not going to hold up to the level of strength he needs to move through the mid levels? Is me trying to pack on muscle and keep the hind end super strong actually breaking the hind end down? Is that a thing?

We're also at the three to four month mark out from his shockwave on the SI which is right on schedule for needing another round according to my vet. So is it that he's experienced shockwave once in his life, and now he refuses to be sound without it? Does he think I'm going to shell out $500 every three to four months to electrocute his ass? Because let's get the animal communicator back on the phone; that's not going to happen, Opie.

Is it time to inject the SI? We went with the shockwave because it was a less invasive test run to injections, but that's something that was on the board at our last vet appointment. 

I dumped all this on MB's head one morning, and she attempted to talk me off the ledge by saying that maintenance comes with every mid and upper level horse, it's just a matter of how much and what it is. The chances of me training and competing my shitty little OTTB through Third and hopefully Fourth level on nothing more than annual hock injections is pretty much nil. 

My game plan became to wait for our farrier appointment and put the pads on to see where that got us. The LF is probably just a stone bruise--he got one last spring and it took him a solid month to get over it. Hopefully he hasn't exploded some soft tissue in there, but I feel like he would be much more notably lame in the foot, and we would also be seeing swelling or heat or something somewhere in the leg as well. Maybe being sore in the front feet kicked off his own spiral and made him sore in the hind end. Maybe he was running around like an idiot (a regular occurrence) in his field and wiped out again. 

The farrier came out on Monday and put leather pads on. Hasn't made a difference so far, he's still gimpy on the LF. And now I'm annoyed I can't do my keratex and hoof packing routine to that foot. 

annoyed he had to stand and wait an extra two
seconds for his bestie to finish before he could go
for a trail walk

Right now, my plan is to walk him. He wants to work, he's sound at the walk, he's all-in for the lateral work and strolling over poles, so we're going to walk. Lots of stretches, he's getting his boujie red light therapy back pad on every day, he gets PEMF this coming Tuesday, and I'm waiting on the chiro to get back to me. 

I'm going to give all that a few weeks and see if there's any improvement. My biggest gripe about this horse is his utter inability to cope with any discomfort in his life. He could have the most miniscule thing wrong with him and he throws the biggest shit fit about it. He would react the same way to a broken leg with the bone protruding as he does when I straighten his browband while he's trying to stare out the door--that is, as if he's having the worst day in his entire life the whole world is out to get him he hates it etc etc etc. A bubbly, winning personality this horse has never had. 

If he shows no improvement with the more moderate approach, I'll pull the gun on the SI injection. Hopefully his stupid LF is done being sore by then. 

I'd be more concerned/faster on the trigger if he wasn't otherwise acting comfortable in his daily life. He's still happily acting like an idiot in his field, he feels sound walking and more than willing to work, and his weight and muscling look fantastic. Everything looks great in Opie Land unless you ask him to trot. 

All that is to say, probably not going to be any riding updates around here for awhile again. It's definitely been one of those fucking years.

A Thinking Rider

It's no secret that actively working through problems I run into under saddle while still in the saddle is a completely novel concept for me. 

Panic first, spiral next, wrap it up with sitting on the couch many hours later ruminating on all the things I could have done differently.

It's funny because inherently I overthink prettyyy much everything, but generally speaking, when I'm in the saddle I'm either frustrated or in lala land just enjoying the ride, enjoying the scenery, yay horses look at me I'm on one. 

look at my horse trotting what more could he possibly need to do

Obviously this shows up the most in the warm up ring when I need to be managing my horse who's tenser and tighter than he is at home and needs me to be running through my Knowlege List to help him out. But I don't. Because I'm at a show wheeeee!

We did our little schooling show on Tuesday afternoon. These shows are put on by the local eventing club, but the last one of the year is sponsored by my GMO so they count towards year end awards. They're still plopped in the middle of a grass field with schooling show judges and minimal volunteers on hand though.

so grassroots they miscalculated my scores by 10% because addition is hard

It was 96* Tuesday afternoon so on top of my usual drifting brain, I was physically fucking melting. Opie was fine, Opie was thriving...Opie should have had his double bridle on. He spent the first test laying on the bridle and dragging me around, and nearly porpoised right on out of the ring in the canter work, at which point I made him halt in the corner so we did not leap out of the corner. He was significantly better for the second test, but me schooling "Do not launch yourself out of the ring" made my favorite judge (so much history with her! #besties #not) PISSED. Schooling at a schooling show? Absolutely not.

MB looked over my tests (I still have not lolz) and was like, "We have got to get this figured out. I'm getting on him to start your lesson Thursday." This being the horse laying on the bridle, but also me not doing anything productive in warm up.

I'm so glad she did, and also glad MB is who she is. Sympathetic to listening to my complaints, but completely unfazed by a "bad" show and immediately on to problem solving. Her takeaway was he locks against the right rein and I just sit there and try to walk it out. That doesn't work. Make him go sideways (SI, leg yield, half pass, whatever) until he fills the reins himself. In the canter when he gets braced an/or anticipates the transition, make him trot instead. Then spring the canter on him. A million and one transitions in and out of the canter, change directions, change the balance.

I feel like I have to save a lot of horse for the tests at shows, and she shut that right down and told me I can walk him for the whole fucking warm up if I needed to. He can do all the things in walk instead. Walking isn't just walking around. DO THINGS.

Once she got done schooling him, she had me get on and first things first told me to SIT ON THE HORSE. I was like, "Oh no, but he is tense and wanting to jiggity jig I could never." And she was all, "SIT ON HIS BACK AND MAKE HIM DO HIS JOB." 

So I did....and then he did his job.

Especially at the canter, let the inside seat bone move, but the outside seat bone has to be nailed down. Use the seat to influence the balance; knock him off balance and let him exist in a canter he doesn't want to for a circle. In and out, always up up up with the shoulders. 

By the time we were done, I could access any canter I wanted and they were all amazing. And this is why we pay trainers the monies.

opie says trainers suck 0/10

We also talked quite a bit about how the next thing to fixate on was strengthening his lower back. He gets so tight there he's not using it the way he should be and it's just straight up weak. This was great news for me because we agreed it could all be done without riding (aka being a thinking rider, that's such a mental strain) but addressing it more as physical therapy. More back lifts, butt tucks, and raised walk poles. Easy peasy. 

plenty of body work too of course

It's finally going to be not hot as balls next week so I'm looking forward to getting back on and attempting to use my brain for at least half the ride. Baby steps, y'all. 

Obey Your Master

In our lesson last Thursday, while Opie was thoroughly objecting to the audacity of asking him to walk along the rail while my legs remained draped along his sides, MB said, "This is a submission problem."

She came in halfway through our ride this morning when I was already well into my warm up. The trot work was good, but I couldn't steer this thing to save my life. And then the right lead canter was all over the place and things kind of just kept spiraling from there. One of the times I went shooting by her as power steering failed, she called out, "Maybe go grab the double?" 

But I was like, "Nooo, it's not a submission problem! It's just a steering problem! And rhythm problem! And he's just tense!"

MB got finished working her horse in short order and parked along the rail to watch me run through 3-3. The heaps of lateral work at the trot actually helped him a lot, and MB complimented us on how good our SI looked both ways--like, we can do them now! I remembered the stupidly placed halt and reinback, he picked up the canter quietly, did his left canter halfpass good enough despite starting to tense up again, and then absolutely lost his shit when I asked for the change. Conveniently timed as MB suggested maybe I just do a walk-canter transition instead since he was getting so tight. 

Instead he went straight up, leapt out of it, and bolted across the entire length of the incredibly large arena before I could get him stopped.

Needless to say, we put the kibosh on finishing the test. Instead I made him walk around. It involved inch long reins while he angrily chomped the bit, but every time I even thought of offering a release he would start jigging or running sideways. 

Eventually he slammed on the brakes and refused to move. Which was fair, being strangled isn't a fun game for anyone. But back to my last post, there's plenty of work to be done in the halt. I got to work on shifting side to side because he kept craning his neck around to shoot me death glares which would knock him off balance. Leg off, leg on made him go running backwards. Finally, he decided running backwards wasn't getting him anywhere so he planted his feet, tucked his nose to his chest, and checked the fuck out. 

I sat there with my legs quietly on because having a meltdown doesn't get you everything you want. He had a great big loop in his reins so literally no reason to be curled into a ball. And then I just clucked and told him to walk on without moving any part of my body because I knew he was looking for an excuse to go up again. It was a long, boring wait on my end, but he finally jolted himself out of it and burst into the trot. That's fine, that was forward. We did a lap of the ring in trot before coming back to the halt on my terms, and repeated the vocal cues until he walked off. 

Good boy, so smart, how about a little canter to reestablish forward. I did it in half seat which convinced him to loosen his back, and then into the sitting trot which was A+++++. We cruised around for a solid five minutes with a trot I'd be stoked to take into the show ring any day. When we halted out of that I hopped right off and shoved a candy down his throat. 

It was a full hour of riding by the time we were done, but I think it was a conversation we needed to have. A conversation about....submission. Whomp whomp. I've gotten sucked back into the habit of tiptoeing around him when he doesn't wanna because he's been so good the majority of the time. 

He's getting tomorrow off, but on Thursday I'll put the double back on him and see what I'm working with. He'll get ridden once more by me on Sunday, he gets his PEMF Monday, showtime Tuesday--hopefully without dying in the predicted heat and humidity. Zero percent enthused. 

(I am enthused thinking about who will be offended by this title tho.)

Learn all the things

My cup has been runneth-ing over with knowledge lately. I am living for it.

Obsessed.

Blessed.

Grateful to do anything that doesn't involve being hot and sweating.

Absolutely thriving.

give me a clipboard and a ringside view any day

Last weekend I spent all day Saturday volunteering at the first day of my GMO's recognized dressage show. One of the perks of doing a lot of volunteering is that you eventually get seniority and handed the cush jobs. In this case it meant sitting in the air conditioned indoor being ring steward/equipment check for the first half of the day and then helping with the breed show in the afternoon--something I've never done before, but it was super interesting. The show secretary made me her right-hand man and I learned so much from her. Bonus was that my trainer was scribing for the indoor judge all day so driving home we were able to compare notes on what I saw watching the rides and what the judge thought from the booth. An hour and a half of complete dressage nerdiness, we were in heaven!

once again, opie being mocked in the group chat.
sir, you might hold your weight better if you stopped
giving your food away.

On Thursday I had my lesson where it was 62* and raining so we went to the indoor. I was in my element--it was legit the best day of the summer in my opinion. However, I didn't anticipate it being too cold and wet for sensitive Opie and he came out SO tight and SO angry.

Lots of stretchy walk and trot, big circles, and changes of directions eventually got him feeling better so we went to move on to the canter. He was not having it. He immediately locked everything up again and any attempt to ask for the transition was a shuffley tranter with his head in the air. At one point I gave him a little tap behind to try to convey he needed to get his fucking legs sorted out and try, but this was VERY OFFENSIVE and he completely lost his shit.

dripping sweat even though it was freezing

We eventually got him to put his brain sort of back in his head with a lot of lateral work and moved on to my request of working on the walk pirouettes. Shockingly he was perfectly okay with being drilled on these, and we figured out the missing piece was me letting his neck get too bent which is generally the bane of my existence tbh. He's so gumby, and so annoyingly capable of bending every single inch of his body in a different direction all at once. 

We tried the canter again after that and sort of got it okay, but MB reiterated that his neck is doing too much and he needed to be a lot straighter. So we used the solid walls of the tiny indoor to make him walk in a straight line with my calf resting against his side.

It. Was. Awful.

I went full Zen Ninja while Opie threw every evasion in the book at us because HOW DARE we ask him to hold his body straight, and HOW DARE I expect him to do this with both my left AND right calf touching him. Over an hour after my lesson started he finally got it enough that I could dismount and be done with him.

it was 68 and sunny the next morning but he got
BOT for half an hour anyway. no using being cold
as an excuse to be an asshole.

I rode him in the outdoor the next day and MB and I agreed I was guilty of being a little sloppy with the straightness out there. The ring is so big you really don't ever need to be on the rail so it's easy to lose track of your straightness. With that lesson in my head, it was easier to pick up on when the haunches came in too much or the shoulders started creeping away. That was a really good stretchy, straight ride which he needed to give me to redeem himself for how awful he was the day before.

Saturday morning, MB had one of her trainers out for lessons with both her horses so I went to watch. Her warmblood is mentally identical to Opie, and that lesson was SO interesting to absorb. Specifically at the end when her horse wants to physically and mentally quit and if she pushes him he loses his shit. MB had him going amazingly, but right on cue he checked out and refused to walk on. LB had MB keep him in the halt and make him work hard in the halt. 

IT WAS SO COOL.

LB had her rocking slowly side to side to make him shift his weight to balance her, and then she had her take her legs off completely so that when she laid them back against his side he needed to take that as his cue to lift his posture. Then pick up the reins and with the leg on and posture raised he should go on the bit on his own. So even though they weren't moving, he wasn't being rewarded for quitting--he was still having to do hard work. 

LB explained it to us afterwards that the halt is actually more work than moving, because movement is momentum and that momentum makes it easier to carry the muscles. If you think about it in yourself, it's harder to sit in a chair in perfect posture than it is to wander around at the walk. 

working on his stretchies

I had that on my list of things to try for this morning's ride, but I mostly just wanted to do another nice stretchy ride. Unfortunately his wife was in the indoor getting worked and he could hear MB talking to the mare's owner so he was suuuuper distracted. And then my reins got twisted so I spread my hands wide and shook them out to untwist them, but this meant my whip went out wide as well and he saw that and took GREAT OFFENSE. 

It's almost like there's a common theme with you, Opie. 

would prefer a life of baths and grazing

So I had to scrap my stretchy trot plan and just go with whatever he would give me. That ended up being more walk pirouettes, the trot work from 3-2 in a super collected sitting trot because whatever floats your boat, and then a stunning swinging L-R change. I did try some stretchy trot again but that was a definite no lolz. 

Instead we tried the halt work! He was fine for the l-r shifting; he looked back at me like, "You suck at being centered every day, but this is sucky even for you." The leg off to leg on made him Big Mad. There was a lot of running backwards and sideways in reaction to being expected to stay still and improve his posture. But eventually he did get what I was asking for, and while he didn't remain in the halt for long, the exercise went through. 

Now I have to come up with a plan for the rest of the week that should probably involve running through 3-2 or 3-3 at some point before our show next Tuesday. If it could be not hot or smoky with an AQI of 160, that'd be a great help, thanks New York.

Canter work

We left off with good vibes/good rides only. Immediately after that we had a couple rides that were not good vibes.

But we're all about turning losses into wins, and the good thing about both those rides is that I was able to use the tools in my toolbox to deescalate the situation and get him back on track. Me being a thinking rider during my ride is still a bit of a novelty, not gonna lie. What worked for him was quietly but insistently working the inside rein until he released his braced underneck, and then asking him to get super deep and low. That's not going to work for every horse, but for Opie it gets him to soften his whole topline and give me his back. And from there we can go about our business!

was being so naughty he got his dunce cap and
was made to stand in the crossties instead of being
ground tied. he couldn't believe the injustice.

He also felt like he was getting jammed up in his left shoulder while cantering, but a perfectly timed PEMF appointment fixed that and we were full send for our lesson over the weekend.

barn cat june supervising from the hay.

It's been so ungodly hot and humid we haven't actually done a whole lot of riding. I am not a hot weather person, and when you add 97% humidity to the mix I am out. But one of the times I did ride, I was playing around with changes and unlocked some new things. 

Instead of doing his whacky karate chop with the RF during the R-L change wherein the mechanics of the whole thing are completely wrong and I don't know how we even end up on the new lead, he was instead just changing late behind. Which is a totally normal horse problem! That actually felt like a BIG step forward in the right direction because while still obviously incorrect, there are a million and a half exercises to fix that issue. 

And then, when asking for the hind leg to change, he responded immediately when I put my left leg on instead of my right. That's the opposite leg I use to ask for the change in this direction, but it's the LH that's not jumping over so I guess it makes sense. I tried switching Mr Tappy to that side, but that was too much for his tiny brain. He's just getting comfortable with Mr Tappy's existence hanging out in my right hand, apparently we're not quite ready to try it in the left yet. 

telling his wife about all his abuses

I took this new information to MB for our lesson so I could get her eyes on the timing of everything. I thought I got our canter going pretty well for warmup, but in true trainer fashion MB said not good enough. She wanted him way more elevated in his shoulders and forever straighter--both things I think I've got under control until she gives us exercises to improve them and yep. Can still do better. Dang it. Opie's got such a good counter canter (to make up for how shitty his changes are lolz) that we went hard on that to get him unlocked and lifting. Waaaay better afterwards, and we were given the "Now just sit there and enjoy it" trainer seal of approval. 

From there we hit the changes. First his "easy" way, L-R. Of course I screwed up the first ask letting him get too long so it was late behind. I let myself get caught up in riding forward that I forgot to ask for the collection before the change. He needs to be packaged right up to jump cleanly over, but as MB reminded me, ride forward into collection--don't shut down the energy. Y'all, that's two aids simultaneously before the aids for the change even come into play. RIDING IS SO HARD. 

But we got there, got the L-R change with a "That's fine" seal of approval from MB (which is a solid 8.5 on the praise scale from her lol), and moved on to see what we had with the R-L. 

We were working them coming up the CL so I could really focus on riding him straight. Except MB immediately called me out on leaning into it instead of riding my H. I needed to stretch down into my left stirrup and keep a strong rib cage, not just fall off the left side and hope Opie's LH would follow me over. We only played around with a few changes this way because you could tell he was really trying to think through the ask. He never got anxious about it, but we didn't want to drill him on the chance we got a clean one. Even though it's still a problem, it's a new problem--frankly a better problem--and he's not going to figure it out in one or two rides. So I'm kind of approaching it as if we're starting to teach him the R-L change from step one. 

We finished the lesson off with some trot work that took less than a minute to settle into. Big, beautiful, and bouncy and proof we do our homework.

alfalfa mash goes hard

For our ride this morning, we got our next level canter from the counter canter work again, and then I played with riding the L-R change correctly. Predictably I messed it up the first time, got it fine the second time, and the third time I completely bungled my half-halt so badly Opie broke to the trot with his legs going everywhere. I reached back and tapped him with the whip which made him pick the left lead back up, go forward, and when I put my aids on for the change he gave me the best one he's ever done. Even MB, who was riding with us, was like, okkkurrrrr!!

So I didn't bother fucking with the R-L one for this ride since that was such a good boi.

Instead we finished with the trot HP zig-zag from 4-1 which he crushed. I'd feel so good about trying that test in public if I could just finish unlocking the right ride for the changes.

most of the barn is on hay strike because the hay got baled super late
this spring with how wet it was so it's not soft candy (but it's perfectly
lovely hay, they're all spoiled brats) so sir is looking leaner than we like.
upped his alfalfa, upped his grain, hopefully that ups his rib coverage.
fucking thoroughbreds.