2020 Goal Review and 2021 Goals

 2020 Goals:

1. Improve rider position. Let's be real, I'm never going to be the glowing example of dressage equitation, but I was able to be more cognizant of what my body was doing as both Opie and I got stronger as the year went on. Still room for improvement, but improvement was made.
2. Once a week stretch day. I scrapped setting aside one day a week specifically for stretching because without shows my riding/training schedule was pretty sporadic. But I made sure to incorporate lots of stretching throughout every single ride anyway, and there were plenty of rides where stretching was all we did. Gonna call it mission accomplished.
3. Be a bigger cheerleader for myself. Meh. Privatizing the blog was good because I was able to be more honest with how I felt for each ride, but I'm still pretty close lipped to anyone about the good things both my horse and myself do. 
4. Find a balance between pushing Opie forward and making sure he stays happy in his work. All well and good until we really started hitting the changes. And then no. Of course, looking back, how much of it was maybe some sort of lingering soreness in the groin/stifle/hamstring area since that L-R change was never much of an issue. He certainly felt confident with the added collection and cleaning up the lateral work, but the changes nullified this goal for us.
5. Do more jumping. Bish, yes, so much jumping. The 'rona opened up all sorts of fun cross country activities we probably wouldn't have done otherwise. 
6. Ride each movement in our tests. What tests? What show season?
7. Figure out how to score well in the turn on the haunches. What tests? What show season? I do think I broke this down in my head though, and will be able to ride it well next year. 

Well, at least the fundamentals got crossed off? Like a lot of people, this year was kind of a blessing in disguise with being able to step away from focusing on a show season and test riding and just kind of do the thing instead. 

2021 Goals:

1. Have an acceptable, clean flying change each way. They can be a little wild and wooly still, but I want them on regardless. 
2. Ride the lateral work forward.
3. Canter half pass.
4. Carry my hands. As in, in the air. Not with my lap.

The Cost of 2020

2019, with links to the other years I've done this starting in 2016.

Memberships: $45

• I renewed my GMO's membership in November. I ended up sitting on renewing anything else in the spring because I wasn't sure my truck/finances/horse's mental state were going to get us to a show ring. Turns out it was a prudent choice and I didn't waste a dime on memberships that I couldn't do anything with. 

Vet: $1,526.25

• Radiographs, ultrasounds, and plenty of maintenance kicked this one up a notch this year. 

Board: $1,710

• Getting abused in the morning by naughty horses keeps the cost down!

Truck and Trailer: $567.25

• I could have added more on to this one when the truck's transmission blew, but I told Hubby to blow the bitch up because I was done dealing with it. He fixed the transmission, but I didn't add it to the tally because I'm done hauling with it everrrrrr. New truck next year, and the trailer needs to get its electric sorted again so that's going to be a whopper in 2021.

Farrier: $630

Lessons: $0

Shows: $421.84

• A hunter show, a few hunter paces, a jumper derby, and a whole lot of cross country schooling. 

Supplements: $1,203.99

• This includes a monthly supply of Nutrena Empower Boost, a late addition of Purina Outlast, and a couple other cheap things throughout the year (Buteless for his bum leg, UGard before the Outlast, yada yada). It's also a six month supply of his expensive magical mushrooms for his teeth. He hasn't been on that for a month because I'm going to try to the old on for six, off for three thing to see if it can justify the cost. Or if his dentist ever gets back to me to schedule an appointment and she tells me he has a whole new mouth.

Tack and Equipment: $2,086.37

• I bought a western saddle. And a jump saddle. And a super nice double bridle. Really everything else was just chump change LOL. 

Total: $8,190.70

• This could have been so much more if I had showed for real this year! But also I probably wouldn't have bought a western saddle and a jump saddle if I had been focused on showing dressage, soooo....

2020 Year in Review

2020 was the first full year I had my blog private, and it turned out to be the perfect year for it. I feel like I was more honest and frank about my rides than I have been in a long time--both for the good and the bad. 

January

January was a mixed month. After giving Opie most of December off when we both got burnt out, we did some jump schools (good), some trail rides (good), some dressage schools (some good, some the typical mid-winter Satanic variety), and he got introduced to the double--just during stretch rides, but he took to it well. 

February

We started off the month drilling the basics on the flat: being round, being forward, being supple in the lateral work...being obedient. All the horrible stuff, but much needed for both of us. He got adjusted by the chiro for an out of whack LH--there's that pesky leg again! We finished the month doing a few jump schools and owning game night yet again.

March

More enforcing the basics and cleaning up the Second level work. Opie finally started to understand the medium trot for the first time, and we finished out the month "starting" the changes. Even back then, the L-R was good, but the R-L was a hot mess. We did a few bridleless jump schools just for funsies. I railed about my lack of a reliable hauling vehicle and my horse's tension, and how they were going to ruin our show season. Then COVID was like, "Surprise, bitch, I can do all that for you." And no show season was to be had!

April

We attempted to pull Opie's shoes since we weren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future thanks to the 'rona. He ended up with an abscess in a hind foot, and his feet got too chewed up and tender barefoot so that was the end of any exciting farrier news for the year. We started to work for real in the double, and also introduced Opie to barrels. Because 'rona. Do all the things.

May

We started the month with a couple jumps schools which he was pretty wild for. We did a ton of trail riding, and kept sneaking in work on the changes with middling success. 

June

MOAR TRAIL RIDING. MOAR JUMPING. MOAR FUCKING AROUND. We enjoyed the shit out of June. Got a hunter pace in during which I almost died of heat stroke because Fat, jumped everything inside and out of the barn, and closed out the month by doing a jumper derby in which Opie was slightly rabid, but bold and brave and got a fourth in the Intro and a sixth in the BN.

July

We did another hunter pace and switched back and forth between cross country schooling and doing real dressage work this month. A++ for the jumping, more like a C+ for the dressage with some serious battles over the counter--specifically the counter canter.

August

EVEN MOAR TRAIL RIDING. And fucking around of course. We did our very first test ride of 3-1 which was sloppy, but felt doable. The R-L change continued to be our nemesis. We finished out the month with another cross country school. 

September

We kicked off this month in a horrible no good way. I was getting drama piled on top of me, and Opie was just adding fuel to the fire by having a complete meltdown over the changes. He fucked up my back badly, couldn't relax to save his life even hacking out, and earned himself a spot on the chiro's wait list. Halfway through the month I dropped the dressage, did a couple of hunter oriented rides, went on vacation for a week, and then came back and did a wild hunter show. By the end of the month, however, I had gotten us back on track and kept everything from imploding.

October

Opie got adjusted by the chiro at the beginning of the month and it kicked off a long lameness journey. He was out in the usual places, but when the chiro got to the LH (always the problem leg), he fucked around for a long time and then thought what was going on was more of a stifle soft tissue injury or aggravation. We did a Bute trial with zero success, and he went from dropping his hip to outright lameness all while only doing walk work. 

November

Getting nowhere with Bute, rest, and/or walking, I finally called the vet out for a lameness consult. She x-rayed, saw nothing, and made an appointment to come back out to ultrasound. Nothing there either even though he had now gotten even more lame, and all she could offer was more Bute and stall rest. He predictably lost his shit on the few days of stall rest we did do, and I quickly nixed that plan. Trying to get better ideas from her ended up futile as she basically fired me as a client and straight out told me to find a new vet. Thanks. What ended up working was multiple PEMF treatments in a week with weekly follow ups and a little Bute here and there as he came back into light work. The suspected culprit? A pulled groin--nothing the vet ever mentioned.

December

My plan was to walk for the month of December, but Opie's broken brain had other ideas, and ultimately it worked out for the best. With his weekly PEMF treatments and easing into real work, he's remained completely sound and is basically back in full work. He feels a little weak every now and then, and I definitely want to keep his pulse therapy going, but amazingly I'm finishing out the year with a sound and sane horse that should still be on track for Third next year. Provided we can get that R-L change this time around. 

Best Laid Plans

 I had every intention of walking Opie for the month of December.

That did not last.

I was hoping that being under saddle--even if it just was at the walk--would be enough to make Opie feel like he had a job again, and therefore put him mentally back in his normal routine where he didn't lose his shit in his stall. 

That did not work.

So I went ahead and added the trot back in. He feels totally sound albeit a little weak and wiggly from two months of doing nothing. 

"Rehab" will now consist of...rolling with whatever each ride brings. He's getting once a week PEMF sessions, and obviously I'm not dumping him right into full work, both of which will hopefully keep that leg/groin/area in general from getting sore again. The tricky thing will be not doing too much while still doing enough so that he feels fulfilled in his tiny brain. 

The overall picture here is, of course, that the vet is the worst and I'm pissed I'm in this frustrating situation at all.

Also that my horse is a nutter and if he could stop being that, that would be great.

No vets needed

 Hot damn, has this been the month full of shelling out ALL THE MONEY to the care of my animals. 

The majority of that being wasted on Opie's vet work. Just ask his vet, she'll tell you.

HAHAHAHAOMGWTFWHY.

Now I'm waiting until the afternoon to call my small animal vet back to get the black dog in for liquid diarrhea. Because that's the perfect endcap to this month/year. 

In good news though, after his third PEMF treatment--last Monday, Wednesday, and Friday--Opie is completely sound. He's off the Bute, off the Ace, and on his regular turnout schedule. I didn't get any calls about him losing his shit in his stall at night, and no more torn up mats or uneaten hay in the morning. 

At the end of his first PEMF session, he was giving some big releases the further up the inside of the LH she went. At the end of the second session, he was distracted and a little wound up, but he did some releases in the same spot again and then practically fell asleep when she moved high up on his hamstring. Same during the third session.

Allison--his pulse master who's trained to used the machine and whom I trust as a horsewoman but certainly isn't a vet--right away wasn't convinced it was stifle. By the second session, she felt confident it was more his groin area, probably running back out and along down his hamstring. This would show up as being in the stifle area obviously while explaining why nothing came up on imaging. I posited the "got stuck while rolling and leveraged himself off his anti-cast boards to right himself" theory to her and before I could finish she was nodding adamantly. That would explain a pulled groin muscle for sure.

All this means we're back under saddle! I'm going to stick to walking him for all of December, slowly re-introducing some low key lateral and pole work towards the end of the month and hopefully just blast into getting fit again rehab from there. 

His first day tack walking--the morning before his last treatment--I just let him plod around at whatever pace he felt comfortable at. He was pretty slow to start, but on his own he started stretching and marching right at the end. I've been on him twice more since then and he starts off with his big walk now, even wanting to step into the trot (Absolutely not, son, we're not going backwards again.). 

I'm mad at myself for spending all that money on the vet when they gave me absolutely nothing for it, but then I'm also mad at the vet for letting me spend all that money when she knew she wasn't equipped to figure out the problem. And I'm kind of mad at my fluffy black trash goblin for putting who knows what into her mouth and not letting me sleep for two nights in a row for her upset tummy. If nothing else, the dog's appointment can't be any more expensive than the horse's, right? 

RIGHT?!?!?!?!

Five Days

Five days. That's how long it took to break my horse's brain on stall rest I didn't want to put him on anyway. 

AND THEN THINGS JUST KEPT GETTING BETTER.

The vet was out last Tuesday and basically all she could send me off with--$850 later--was, "Put him on stall rest (...until when we will never know) and I'll see about getting you some sleepy drugs, give him two grams Bute for a week, and I'll talk to the other doctors and get back to you by the end of the week."

Sleepy drugs never came. Friday rolled around and when I called to pay my bill (because one of us was showing professional courtesy), I asked them to leave a message for Vet to call me to discuss where she wanted to go next. 

Unsurprisingly she never called back. Still no word on sleepy drugs. 

I was taking Opie out for an hour every day for grazing, low key strolling around the parking lot, and a good roll in the ring before putting him back in his stall. He seemed to be handling it well until Saturday when I took him out around noon. The 800 year old Haffie had been naughty for his previous up-down lesson so one of the girls brought him out to the outdoor to trot him around a bit in-hand. The only problem with that was I was grazing Opie next to the outdoor and said Haffie started thundering around.

Opie was like, "GREAT IDEA!" and started rearing because that's his fave. I got after him immediately, but the thundering hoofbeats got louder as Opie started striking out at my face at which point I really got after him. I finally got him back on the ground and started flying him back into the barn just in time for Mr Haffie to go cantering by us with no person attached. 

I half man-handled, half floated a levitating Opie into a stall and locked him in there until the outside was free of ponies again. He was better the second time around, but I did go grab his chain from my trailer for future use.

Then Saturday evening rolls around and at seven my BM calls me. She and A were just getting ready to leave and turning out the lights when they heard crashing and found Opie having a complete meltdown in his stall over nothing. I gave her permission to give him injectable Ace and headed out there.

Opie doesn't process sedatives for shit, and when I got there he was weaving a hole in the floor with his eyes bugging out of his head as BM and A stood at his door trying to force feed him snacks in an effort to keep him from maiming himself. 

He settled enough to pick at the loose hay in front of him once I took up position, but he definitely wasn't relaxed. When BM and A left, I shut off the aisle lights and hung out for fifteen minutes to see if the Ace would take any effect. 

Yeah, no.

I ended up bringing BFF Mo into the indoor and then leading Opie around with the chain until I felt certain Opie wasn't going to lose his shit with his bestie at hand. I released him and hung out with Mo in a corner for a few minutes to let Opie wander around and make sure he wasn't going to try to start a stampede. He seemed happy to just hang out with company so I let Mo go and sat in the ring for an hour while they rolled and played bitey face with each other.

No dramatics, no running, they were happy to just be back together. 

I finally put them back in their houses, turned out all the lights, and hung out for another ten minutes to make sure he wasn't going to have a relapse, but all was quiet when I left. 

The next morning I got there first thing and repeated the process, eventually bringing in other BFF Easy. Again, no running or wild rumpus time, so I chucked them outside with extra hay. 

I figured that would be the last of it. He'd go back on turnout, he'd be chill again, and no more stall rest drama. 

Yeah, no.

I got there Monday morning to feed and he's dug up his stall mats and made a fucking sink hole at his door from weaving. Half his hay net was still filled from not being quiet enough to eat. 

He was quiet and happy to go outside, but the second the vet opened I was on the phone to demand some drugs as clearly his brain broke and now he associates his house with Satan. While on the phone with this office, I asked her WTF with Vet not getting back to me, and she wrote a polite but strongly worded email to Vet on her day off to call me the fuck back. 

Meanwhile she wanted me to just give her my credit card number because they were out of the expired reserpine and had to special order it. I made her look up the price before I did that. $176 for sixty days. 

Yeah, no.

She was able to find thirty days for $60 so I went ahead and placed the order for that which wasn't ideal as I would then have to wait for the drugs to come in and meanwhile my horse thinks his house is haunted. 

After I got off the phone with her, Vet calls. 

"I don't think we should do injections because we don't see anything, but I'm not sure on that. There's nothing on the images showing anything that would cause his level of lameness. I think at this point you should get a new vet. We all have our specialties and lameness is not one of mine. I would get an appoint with Vet A who I've been consulting with to come out and look at him herself, but do it now because she books fast and won't be available for most of December."

All of this was said in the tone of, "I'm done working on this case. Stop bothering me with it."

EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS WORTH OF LAMENESS WORK UPS DONE AND SHE TELLS ME TO GET ANOTHER VET BECAUSE SHE'S NOT QUALIFIED.

MAYBE TELL ME THAT EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS EARLIER.

Obviously I did NOT schedule an appointment because I was straight up losing my shit. 

Then driving me home the inventory manager calls me. She can't get the thirty days of reserpine, ever. Sorry, bye. At which point I was like, "WHOAWHOAWHOA FIND ME SOME FUCKING DRUGS."

We decided to give Ace tabs a try so an hour later I was down at the office to grab a bottle. Of course she'd failed to give me a price, but when the office lady told me $96 I was basically like, "Just give it to me, it's the last money you'll be getting from me, BYE."

He got two tabs with dinner and his stall looked alright this morning, and his hay net was empty for the first time in days so hopefully that's a good sign. He was weaving more than usual waiting to go out, but he walked out politely and went right to eating once free. 

I'm going to keep giving him the Ace at night for the rest of the week in hopes that resets his brain about being in--with the rest of the barn--at night. 

Meanwhile I'm weaning him off the Bute. He did look mostly sound for the two seconds I had him on the longe on Monday. A friend came out yesterday to do targeted PEMF on that leg, concentrating mostly on the stifle area. She'll be back out again tomorrow, and we'll go from there to see how often she wants to do it. 

At this point we're going to go with that: PEMF, time off, and he'll get Bute if he looks super lame. Whether it's soft tissue or a pulled muscle, I doubt a vet would say to do anything different. 

Hopefully this fucking saga resolves soon because my mental fortitude is basically broken at this point. 

All the vet work

 Yesterday was vet appointment number two and, because this is my horse, we still don't have an answer to Opie's persistent and now getting worse lameness. 

Two weeks ago the vet came out for the first time for a full lameness workup. I gave her the rundown of the issue from the start:

• The LH has always been the weak/problem leg, but he's never been actually lame on it. 
• It's been managed successfully with chiro when he starts to get crooked and/or stuck in the lateral work. His last appointment was due to the drama in the R-L change.
• Immediately after the appointment he went lame in that leg with a hip drop that developed into a consistent lameness.
• All signs are showing a big arrow pointed at the stifle.

She manipulated him in the aisle quickly and he was very reactive to the left stifle only. She didn't notice any fluid or swelling in either leg.

We moved on to flexions in the ring, and again the only thing that flexed positive was the stifle.

All signs still screaming stifle, we x-rayed that area. I honestly wasn't expecting there to be anything glaring there as it seemed more pulled muscle or soft tissue to me, and indeed there wasn't. There were a couple of spots on the joint heads that weren't quite as beautiful and perfect as they could be, but for a horse that raced a ton at a very young age and is already schooling Third with all the collection that entails, there wasn't anything to get excited over. 

She thought she saw one pocket where maaaaybe there could have been more opacity that maaaybe indicated a soft tissue disruption, but she couldn't tell from the x-rays. She took them back to the office and did a consult with Cornell's sport horse specialist as well as reviewing them with the other vets in the office, but no one else saw anything that would be causing this lameness either. 

So from there was on to visit number two with the ultrasound a week and a half later. 

We discussed the possibility of it being the proximal suspensory as that can show up as stifle lameness, so we planned a block and possible ultrasound of that area, too.

In the meantime, I stuck Opie on the longe once last week just to take a peek and see how he was doing. He. Looked. AWFUL. He was more lame than he'd been the entire time. I told the vet that when she got there so I put him back on the longe quick for her and the intern she had with her, and she immediately agreed. He'd gone from 3/5 lame to 5/5 lame doing nothing but hanging out in his paddock six hours a day. 

The intern requested seeing him jog with the stifle flexions only quick so she could get a baseline. We did those, he was obviously lame AF from them, and we moved on to blocking the proximal suspensory first to rule it out. 

The block did nothing to alleviate the lameness and after about half a lap of trot the intern was out the door to grab the ultrasound and the vet was like, "Yep, we've seen enough of that."

They spent forever on the ultrasound. They both made sure every inch of the stifle got looked at and found....nothing. 

There was one tiny spot where it should have been solid black for the joint spacing that had a tiny ridge of "schmutz" as the vet called it, but nothing that would explain why he's so lame. So, again, back to the office for consults to see if anyone else can find something or come up with some ideas.

The intern wanted ultrasound practice so they also did the proximal suspensory for free, but that was perfectly clean. 

We discussed injecting, but since there wasn't anything obvious to inject for, she cautioned waiting on that until talking with the other vets because sticking needles in joints for funsies is not advised. Instead we're going to do another week of bute, but instead of tapering throughout the week we're going to do a week solid of two grams before tapering. 

He's also hanging out on stall rest which is not ideal as he's so neurotic about his friends. She said he could have some solo supervised turnout in the indoor which he wasn't too impressed with this morning, but at least he gets to leave his house for awhile. She also said she'd look into getting some free reserpine for him to take the edge off his neurosis. He wouldn't even touch his hay this morning until I went and captured the free roaming million year old Haffie and stuck him in the stall next to Opie to babysit. 

That's where we're at now. I'm waiting for a call back to see what the next plan of action is--injections, a million years of stall rest, trying to get different images...who knows. 

I will say that my limit for stall rest is one month. If it's going to be more than that it's just not going to happen. I'd rather have him heal slower and be mentally sound that completely break his brain. 

If nothing else, hopefully in a week after being on lockdown and stuffed full of NSAIDs he'll show some improvement because really he can't get much worse. RIGHT?!?!