No Show For You

Gotta keep with the theme of not getting anything going this year! Our show got canceled the day before it was scheduled to run because we have had so much fucking rain they didn't have anywhere to park us. Obviously a bummer, but definitely a legit excuse because everywhere has been under water. 

Instead, on Saturday, I went out and rode at home and I was rewarded with the best trot this stupid horse has given me in literal months. So at least that was a win?

We haven't done much since then. I just figured I'd give a show/non-show update.

The barn switched to night turnout at the beginning of the week so being tired has settled some of Opie's crazy down, and hopefully it's giving his calming supplement a fighting chance. 

he was flatlined in the corner the first morning
after night turnout. #amithedrama

Ironically, with the vet scheduled to come Friday, he's actually feeling super sound and comfortable. He's sluggish to start in the trot work, so I use the canter to wake him up a little, and then the sitting trot where I ask him to go to work for real is great. Canter feels great, he's been taking my leg (without spurs still) great. He had a little tantrum today when I got after him about sloppy halts, but it lasted only half the ring and then he moved on with life.

He has felt flinchy and grumpy in the neck/base of the neck when grooming the past two days. Nothing is showing up under saddle, and to me that's falling more in my sensitivity from possible Lyme category. 

passed out during his pemf

Hopefully we don't have to do anything too invasive on Friday to get him feeling better, and we can continue making some progress. The show organizer rolled our entry forward to their next one at the end of June so that's our next goal. Fingers crossed we get there!

Sound Not Sane

The old adage that you can't have both is definitely staying true this spring. Fucking horses.

When last we left off, Opie was lame in the RH tracking left due to suspected soreness in the SI area. Our vet appointment still isn't until next Friday, but our chiro ended up coming out a week earlier when he had a few cancellations and got us in on his way home. 

As suspected, he was waaay out in his SI. He also had two ribs out in the trouble spot found during his massage. Rob was great about slowly working his way between the two spots so as not to upset Opie's sensitive soul, and by the end of the appointment Opie was putty in his hands. And bonus, everything else felt really good on him!

He immediately felt sound afterwards, so definitely knocked the main culprit out of the way. Couldn't adjust his one brain cell though unfortunately. 

the barn group chat is an understanding lot lol

He's reverted back to his stall walking, eyes bugging out of his head, everything offends me and causes me anxiety that he had back at the old barn. The trigger? Who knows. I have a running list of things to address with the vet next week that gets updated on the daily, so retesting for Lymes has been added. The last time he had it, I only tested for it because he turned so spooky and for all his downfalls this is not a spooky horse. 

Under saddle, we had A Ride last Thursday. It was an hour and a half ride wherein we went every direction--including up--except forward. The trigger for that? I wanted him to walk a straight line down the long side while I had my right calf on his side. 

so capable when he's not unhinged

Opie has always had a hate-hate relationship with my leg. It's one of the reasons I've always worn quite a large spur. Get in, get out, get my point made, no more touching. So I've probably inadvertently played a large role in this. The last trainer I rode with insisted that the problem was that Opie wouldn't get off my leg. She had me in a rowel spur and was quite annoyed with my inability to use a whip on him. 

Working with MB, we've discovered it's really more of a won't get on my leg problem, aka he won't take my leg. He's so good at getting me to tiptoe around him to not set him off that when I do have to insist on my leg going on to fix something, it's the end of the fucking world. 

I did some ground work with him last Friday before walking two laps under saddle with my leg on and magically it wasn't that big of a deal after all. He had the weekend off, and then I took him to the park in an attempt to give him a positive mental deposit. While he enjoyed his splash parties with his favorite mustang, he never took a breath and settled like he usually does. It was all GOGOGO, spooking at random shit, and being a complete mare to his bestie. (Add all that to the Lyme section of my list.)

"I SEE EVERYTHINGGGG"
--opie, definitely

He was also tripping and falling all over himself in the hind end walking up the hills, which brings us to our next section of my list. Definitely still something funky in the hind end. 

I originally planned on giving him Tuesday off, but he was so bug-eyed and wound up when I turned him out in the morning, I decided to give him a little longe instead. Work usually settles his crazy for awhile. He was distracted AF starting out. I had to keep cranking his head in so he wouldn't fall down from not paying attention, even with doing transitions every half a dozen strides. 

I moved him over to a pole and that focused him, but tracking left he was falling all over himself again. He's never been the smartest when it comes to poles so I thought that might be it until we switched directions and he was completely fine tracking right. Switched him back to the left, and in the canter he kept doing this whacky ass LH leg jerk and then landing in a cross canter.

why u no just canter tho.
also he's lost some weight from being so anxious again

He's scheduled for shockwave when the vet comes, but maybe we just end up injecting instead. Who fucking knows. Add it to the list.

In good news though, the last two rides have actually been....normal? He's been wearing his Fenwick Equestrian mask to squeeze his brain cell into compliance, and I took my spurs off. I'm not giving him any (logical) excuse to be mad about my leg--even though MB agreed I'm a very judicious spur rider and that shouldn't actually be a problem. 

We worked on our half passes and TOH yesterday, and today in our lesson we worked on:

• The trot work in 3-3. Shoulder-in to half circle to half circle across the CL. Turning left is not always a guarantee with Opie, so half a 10m circle in the wide open space of the middle of thing ring is trickyyyy. 
• MB said to think of riding the haunches instead of the shoulders because your boy loves to fishtail and we might as well use them to propel him around himself. 
• The SI to renvers in 3-2 tracking left. There are fine going right. To the left I have to use my right leg and that is Opie's bugaboo. They got really good by the end though.
• He gets too diagonal in the SI--too straight in his body instead of bending.
• Think of disconnecting and moving the shoulders over, don't just try to get the angle. 
• The medium/extended canter.
• Went right first and he gave us a beautiful one the first try.
• To the left, I wanted to chase him into it and force it. All that did was make him flatten out and run. 
• Think lifting the front end and allowing it to open up and out instead. 

I'm actually going into the show this weekend with a super mindset. It's nothing more than an opportunity to ride the tests in a ring off property. Forget the judge, forget trying to force things into happening, just ride though the movements in a thinking way. If he needs to be a little underpowered to keep the relaxation, that's what we do. 

I've ridden 3-2 in its entirety three times in my life--the first time at a show two years ago and he was too wound about half passing into the changes that I couldn't get him across the ring without rearing so I switched to 3-1 instead. The second two times were the other weekend where I forgot the 20m canter circle both times. And we haven't ridden 3-3 since last July. 

It'll be great, totally prepared, going to crush it, yada yada, blue ribbons etc. #manifesting

Can't win for losing

We're still riding the wave of inconsistency over here. One step forward, bare minimum one step back. 

We got his back all sorted out and he promptly threw his ass out instead. 

an absolute nuisance who has not been shorted
any candies so has zero regrets

It started last Monday when he was doing his lesson horse duties and MB texted me to say he looked short in the RH tracking left. I came out that evening to put him on the longe and he was definitely stabby with that leg. I checked for any signs of an abscess, prodded his back all over, and gave him a gram of bute without having found anything conclusive. 

The next day, I got on him because I wanted to test the theory that it was having other people riding him (incorrectly, despite their best efforts) that was what was making him look off. He actually felt 110% sound tracking right, but that wonky feeling was there to the left. The ride helped in that it very much felt high up in the hip area to me which was something to go off of.

Wednesday he had his regular PEMF appointment where his SI area basically had a seizure so we at least confirmed that was the area. I popped him on the longe to see how he looked and it was better-ish. Sounder to the left, but maybe not as sound to the right. But very much sound both ways in the canter, and the walk looked a lot better.

He did a light lesson for someone else on Thursday where they learned how to walk a serpentine pattern and then hacked out, so when I checked him on Friday I was expecting further improvement. Instead he was dead fucking lame and I quit after three steps of trot each way. 

I had a little menty b to a barn mate who agreed with me that other people riding him wasn't doing any favors regardless of what was causing the lameness this time. And then I had the same menty b to Hubby at home. And later to MB who actually brought it up herself, so we agreed to cut out his biweekly lesson people who can't get off his face and can't ride straight. They've gotten better since they started last fall, but not good enough fast enough to not be a detriment to Opie.

That sorted, he then got four days of methocarb while doing light w/t work on the longe to stretch the SI. He's consistently started off looking tight AF in that RH but working out of it. So much so that the past two days I was able to actually ride him again.

In our lesson yesterday, after letting him stretch himself to soundness, we did five minute bursts of work, building on each block while taking breaks in between to see if the added stress made him uncomfortable. The only indication of discomfort was his left lead canter feeling labored. Counter canter serpentines helped a lot, but it was very Opie-esque that he's always fucking awful in the right lead and yesterday the right lead was the best its ever felt. 

MB took some video because of course we were dissecting his every move and she wanted to know if he always moved so narrowly behind. I've heard of horses tightrope walking in the front, but I guess I never really thought about them doing it behind. It makes sense on him though because he's super cow hocked and narrow behind and his pelvis is permanently crooked. I looked back at other video and this wasn't anything new, he's always swung his hind legs completely underneath his midline. 

i have video but youtube will only load it as
a short which i refuse to do so you'll have
to settle for this screenshot.

To sum up a very wordy post:

• Opie (likely) threw out his SI. 
• Through bad riding or being an idiot in the field, who knows. Either is possible.
• We eliminated the possibility of future bad riding. 
• He needs to stretch himself out on the longe to loosen the SI area.
• After which he becomes sound! Yay!
• I'll keep plugging along at the light rides after longeing as long as he continues to come sound.
• I'll also be doing some in-hand work over poles to see if I can't get him a little wider behind.
• Next week the chiro comes out to adjust him to see if that helps.
• The vet can't come out until the 30th because she's the practice's only lameness vet who has a clue so everyone wants her. 
• Regardless of if he comes fully sound without having to stretch on the longe first, I'm keeping the appointment. I told them I wanted to shockwave the SI so we'll plan on that, but we'll see what else she has to say. 

Fingers crossed that at some point we'll get some linear riding and training going. We have a show scheduled for the 24th I'd like to do, and while he's very much confirmed in the Third Level work at this point, there is no such thing as too much polishing the basics.