What's Going On With Opie

Spoiler alert if you don't want to read this whole thing: we still have no idea.

lol yay horses are fun!

Which makes this more of a what has been going on with Opie--a wrap up of the past year-ish of lameness(es?). 

my tack was getting very dusty so we went for a
trail walk in the double to justify deep cleaning it

Let's do a quick catch up of where we started with all of this last year.

• Right at this time in 2025, he had a massive knot/sore spot in his right back/rib area. He got a deep tissue massage which helped some, but chiro finally released it for good after adjusting the last two ribs and his pelvis area.
• He then went intermittently lame in the LF. We guessed stone bruise and put leather pads on.
• The pads didn't help at all. 
• We switched to aluminum wedges up front. That did seem to help.
• He would be completely sound some days, would work into soundness some days, and some days he would stay lame in the LF.
• He got another chiro adjustment that focused heavily on his left shoulder. The chiro felt he had hyperextended it.
• We treated for Lyme in the summer, and upon retest his numbers were negative.
• The LF lameness remained, while the hind end lameness developed.
• Sometimes on lame RH, sometimes only LH, sometimes both, usually with the LF as well but not always.
• Did shockwave mid-summer on the SI. This did help for a few months until it didn't.
• Injected his SI mid-October.
• Started "rehab" with tons of walking--in-hand and under saddle, lots and lots of poles included. 
• Progressed to trotting successfully. 
• Did a few rides with minimal canter.
• Had stretches where he was sound the whole ride. Some rides he would be sound by the end. Some rides he felt horrible the entire time.
• Blew a giant coronary band abscess in the RH late February. Was sound leading up to this, and sound for a week after. Has not been sound since.
• Farrier came to check on the foot after the abscess. He didn't grow any length to the hinds between his last two shoeing cycles and he usually grows a ton.
• She thinks the white line is separating from dealing with the trauma of supporting his shitty hind end. 
• There are a couple of shallow vertical cracks on that foot that she thought were probably pockets of gas that could be other abscesses lurking.
• She does not think it's likely that he will be able to return to being anything more than a companion/light trail riding horse.
• We changed his hind shoeing set-up to a rolled toe, full pads, and magic cushion mixed with copper sulfate to help with any infections in the foot.
• Farrier came back two weeks later to do his regular front reset, and while working on the LF, his RH had a severe three second spasm before it stopped and he caught himself.
• A week later, he got a deep tissue massage. 
• While longeing him quickly before he got worked on, after his walk warmup he went into the trot and the RH looked like the stifle was locking.
• While she was working on the right side of his neck, the RF also had a severe muscle spasm. 
• Otherwise though, the bodyworker thought he looked amazing. She gave me a posture exercise to use with the balance pads to fill in a bit of a void spot at the base of his neck.

this little spot here could get fluffed up

(That was possibly not such a quick recap.)

The bodyworker agreed with me that benign neglect is probably not going to help this horse. Pulling the shoes, chucking him in a field, not looking at him for a year, yada yada. If we do that, there's very little chance this horse is going to hold up to be able to bring back to the riding horse life. He needs the muscle, he needs the posture work, he needs the help to keep from not looking like garbage. And frustratingly, he looks SO GOOD right now. His weight and muscling are fantastic. 

He's just not sound.

Finally we get to yesterday's vet appointment!

He was scheduled for his annual hock injections (this is his fourth year getting those), and I wanted to also talk to her about EPM and PSSM.

I put him in the wash stall to clean his legs before the vet got there, and while scrubbing saw a nice thick dried blood trail down the back of his RH leg. Upon closer examination, I saw that he'd somehow managed to split his chestnut in half. And not like, oh let me just pull it off quick. OF COURSE IT WOULDN'T BE THAT EASY.

after i cleaned it, but before the vet saw it.
literally split down to the tissue underneath.

So that got added to her list as well. I love giving her special little surprises when she sees us.

She thought he had probably been kicked, and to just keep it cleaned and sprayed with alushield. Then on to the real stuff.

We started with a thorough neuro exam, including over poles as that was one of my concerns--sometimes when he goes over them it's like he's completely unaware of what his feet are supposed to be doing. Not just like he's an idiot that clobbers through them, it's like he legit cannot process what he's supposed to do. But of course yesterday in front of the vet he was perfect.

He passed all the other neuro stuff as well except circling to the right. He can't do it unless I'm right at his head pulling him around me, and even then his hind end is crab walking around in a very not normal manner. 

We did flexions which he was of course lame for the hind end ones, but not positive for anything in the front.

We talked PSSM2 which would be the most likely variant for a TB. The test for that is a muscle biopsy which we opted not to do (yet). She agreed there was no harm in pounding him with Vit E despite his blood work showing he looked good there. She wasn't sold on EPM as he looks--again--SO GOOD with his muscling and conditioning and she would expect him to look more unthrifty.

However, she did say if I wanted to treat for EPM regardless (and to not bother spending money on the testing as pretty much every horse in the area would test positive without ever being symptomatic) she would support that. 

I then had to bully her a little bit into going forward with the hock injections. With how lame he looked yesterday, and considering he's been on and off lame for months and months now, she didn't think the hock injections were the magic cure. I don't either, but I DO know that they have historically always really, really helped him and for fuck's sake why would we not do something for him we know will do him a little good. 

We ended up xraying the hocks for the first time since 2023. Joint spaces still looked really good, the miniscule amount of arthritis he has had remodeled some, but nothing exciting.

We got three out of the four spots done successfully--the outside of the right (the one we really wanted of course) she kept hitting a blood vessel and didn't want to risk contamination but trying a third time to get a needle in. She said she would come back out in two weeks if I thought he responded at all to them to try that one again.

big mad he couldn't dive directly into his hay
three minutes after finishing his hocks. bro
blows through sedation like it's nothing

Right now the plan is to wait and see what the hock injections do for him. Add the Vit E. And then decide do we want to spend $1k on a month of EPM treatment, or $1k to go to Cornell for a consult when we don't even know what direction to point them? I'll probably first shell out half that and get in contact with another vet in the area that has a lameness locator to see if she can't narrow things down for us. Both my vet and farrier aren't confident that's going to reveal a lot since he's lame so many vague areas, but we've already wasted this much money, right?

The vet and I did scratch our heads for a minute and toss out the idea: is this one lameness we can't get to the bottom of....or am I just the unluckiest mother fucker alive and for the past year he's been rolling from one problem to the next and sometimes those problems trip over one another and spawn new problems and some are interconnected but some aren't they just never seem to end. The day before she came, he looked pretty sound. Then he wounded his chestnut and was very sensitive to that and looked like shit moving. Because his leg hurt from being kicked and injured? On top of being due for his hocks? Like where does it start and where does it end and start again?

Who knows. Cross your fingers he just really needed his hocks to get done, and maybe he's a six months between injections horse now instead of a year, and he just needs a boost of Vit E. Wouldn't that be a nice reprieve? 

WW: He's Not Dead Yet

I don't know, guys. There are new things to say, but they're also the same things I keep saying. The horse is sort of sound one day, not sound the next, definitely sound here and there--rinse and repeat. My next benchmark is going to see how he reacts to getting his hocks done at the end of the month because at that point I'll have done pretty much everything I plan on doing intervention-wise.

In the meantime, here's a pictural wrap up of all the things Sir has been busy with, posted in whatever willy nilly way blogger pleased. 

monthly pemf appointment is always a highlight

he got microchipped (trying to manifest a return
to usef competition) during his dental appt so ofc
we had to snag his baby pics

just a smaller, darker version of the grumpy donkey he is today

somehow snagged 3rd level champ with our 2 whole 
shows we did last year

first ride in the outdoor for the year! he wasn't particularly sound,
but happy to stroll around the property doing splash parties the past 2 days

continues to have the best time with his besties

good thing they have the mares next door to keep watch since there
isn't a brain cell among them

doing a ton of posture work to try to help him help himself

got a new shoeing package behind:
rolled toe, full pads, magic cushion with copper sulfate

brought about by this monster abscess that farrier thinks
is a sign of his feet starting to give out supporting his shitty hind end.
lots more on that front eventually--she basically told me to find him a
companion home because she doesn't think he'll be sound again.
but i don't think we're quite there yet!

The Right Things

The weather got worse before it got better.

that's not windchill. that was the actual
outside temp.

Although even now, with things warming up into the tropical low forties, we get to deal with The Thaw.

melting ice shelf taking my gutter down with it

Instead of feet of snow, we get mud and flooding and ice patches. But at least we don't get frostbite!

LOL winter sucks no matter how you spin it.

attempting to keep this feral thing's hair contained

Opie's still been riding our never-ending soundness rollercoaster. His worst days definitely correlate to how stupid he's been in the field before I get on him. If he's spent his morning galloping back and forth and/or doing a hundred rearing squats, when I get on he feels sore and lame. Lame from being sore. Whatever. He feels like shit. 

Some days he feels otherwise alright aside from the LF unevenness. 

But then we do have days where he feels 100%. Like today and yesterday, when the arena doors were open so he was lit AF, he felt amazinggg. 

hot mess express.
me, not opie.
well, actually also opie lol

I love rides where he's a sound sound horse. I get to focus on me more instead of managing every single step of his. It's made me a better rider--a quicker rider--trying to stay one step ahead of anything that might lead him to take that wonky looking stride, or cause him any discomfort, or mess up the perfect balance he has to stay in to make sure I'm rehabbing his body the correct way so we at least can't blame whatever the fuck is going on with him on muscling. 

We did a ton of work on our transitions yesterday, keeping the shoulders up and the head steady in the connection. Renvers is his bestie with getting his shoulders under control so he always does his best transitions out of that, but he's getting better about doing them out of any sort of bend. And today he was absolutely on his game with them. It helped that he was steering really well, which even at Third Level he still finds a struggle sometimes.

Today he was also a complete grown up and didn't hold a grudge that yesterday he thought I had asked him for a flying change which made him lose his shit. I'd tried to straighten him with my outside leg instead of my inside, and the outside leg is the changes leg so he just started flinging his body everywhere and experiencing All The Feelings. It took a minute to come down from that, but he eventually got over it. 

Which leads me to my next ramble!

kitten supervision

Despite the fact that I can't say we've solved the lameness issue(s?) (yet), I have improved this horse in a lot of ways. His topline looks the best it ever has, and we're not even done building it. More exciting than that, to me, is his overall demeanor. He's always been such an intense horse since the day I got him. He weaved nonstop, he stall walked, he felt everything on a 10, I had to treat him for ulcers multiple times a year, etc. 

A lot of his anxiousness went away when we moved barns and got him around better vibes, but he's been so downright pleasant lately. Zero reaction to girthing which has always been pinned ears and a tossed head, he doesn't make horrible faces at people when they pass him in the aisle, he loves mugging for candy over the fence any time he sees anyone, he comes to the gate as soon as my car pulls in the driveway.

Overall a happier horse even if we can't figure out why his LF (LH? RH?) still wants to cause us problems. The vet comes the first week of March for his dental and to discuss if she has any ideas she wants the farrier to try the following week. And then at the end of March is his hock injections. I'm willing to try Adequan as well, but beyond that we're not going to be exploring any other medical intervention shit for him. Quite frankly I don't know what else is even on the list to try. 

But I think so far I'm doing the right things and the best I can for him. Hopefully it all eventually pays off with four working legs and a working SI.

Keep Being You, Opie

I am just kidding.

Actually, Opie, if you could be literally anything but what you're being right now, that would be a fucking delight. 

You fucking walking dumpster fire.

relates to these discard tires on a spiritual level

Like most horses in the NE, last week we didn't do much of anything due to the cold. And the snow. And the wind. And the way all of the above sucked the will to live out of you. MB set up a trail course for everyone to play with just to keep brains occupied, so we cruised through that a couple of times. Opie  also got longed a couple of times, although everyone found the multiple feet of snow that accumulated the Most Fun to play in so there was very little standing around going on outside. 

"you guys want to go do bad things?"
"YES."

On Monday Opie had a farrier appointment, I planned to ride him after that for the first time in 10 days, and then he was getting PEMF.

One of his big physical hangups is that he's not comfortable standing for the farrier. She's super accommodating of him, but doing his hind end takes some patience. When she got done with his RH, he was like, "I cannot put weight on this." Which is extreme even for him. Thinking she might have gotten him with a nail, we stuck him on the longe when she was done and....he was totally sound. Behind. He was lame in the LF. We just ignored that.

so broken

He felt completely fine under saddle for the most part as well. No worries in the walk, zero off steps in the trot (not even in the LF), and we had the best left lead canter we've had in probably six months. We were going to finish up with the right lead canter, except that's where he decided he was in fact broken. Total peg legging, cannot cope, abort now. So we walked it out to finish--which, again, was fine.

can move like this while looking like garbage
just standing around.
make it make sense.

He hung out on the balance pads after our ride while we waited for our PEMF lady to arrive. He loves those, and we've been doing a lot of postural work lately to try to continue building the hind end up with as little high impact work as possible.

didn't feel the need to do weird splits if he had the pads

With the PEMF, he was really only reactive when she looped it around the RH foot. Is he working on an abscess? He's never had one since I've owned him so I don't know what that looks like for him. It seems like he should be lame moving if that was the case.

But that's been Opie in a nutshell with the whole never-ending "lameness" odyssey. Why is he lame in the LF when nothing blocks or shows up on imaging? Why does he have completely clean imaging everywhere yet clearly isn't RIGHT? But also, why does he ride around completely sound when there are things that should make him look lame? 

WHY IS EVERY DAY OPPOSITE DAY IN OPIE LAND?! 

We had a really good lesson yesterday, doing a bunch of collected work and swapping between HP and SI. 10/10 he was super, and when we were done he looked super pleased with himself. MB pointed out that Opie is not one to hide his feelings, so if we were pushing him too much, he would let us know. We had a lovely w/t stretchy ride this morning that he was all about--zero lame steps--and then he went out and played rearing bitey face with his dumb friends.

isn't being a riding horse fun, opie?
we should try it all the time!

In conclusion, I'm still going absolutely insane over here. Nothing new to see.

Is it, Isn't It

A little past-week recap while we hit pause for the weather because ain't nobody riding when the windchill is in the negative double digits. 

refusing to move from the gate while i collected
his less sensible friends to come in early

hasn't stopped anyone from continuing
to destroy his clothes for funsies

Hubby had MLK Jr day off so he was nice enough to come out to the barn in 18* to get some video for me....after the farrier stopped in to put Opie's RH shoe back on. This is only the third time since I've owned him that he's lost a shoe, and it was at least a hind shoe, but still. He refuses to make this year any easier for me.

It was a good visual check-in for me to see how he's looking vs how he's feeling because those are still two different things currently. For instance, I thought we were absolutely flying in his left lead canter. I was like, "Yaaas, we are the wind, he feels amazingggg." And then upon watching we are in fact barely moving. 

got him cooking in the right trot tho

But all good because when I next rode him on Thursday, I made him actually move. He still felt sound, and he still let me help him out and get him straight, so all's well that ends well. 

The trot to the right felt fine. I get kind of stuck in this just go around in circles with some direction changes and as long as he feels sound that's good enough. I'm still afraid of breaking him and setting back all the progress we've made, but the better I can get him going--using all the tricks he knows, not just doing laps--the better his body is going to feel.

Or I'm going to permanently break him, and honestly that would solve some things as well.

To the left, I think he feels better than he looks. He still looks....NQR to me in the stupid LF.

He didn't pick up the noticeably lame LF steps, but he's still not even. I put him on the longe Wednesday and my goodness. He was very lame LF at the walk and trot tracking left. I kept him going though, and asked him to stop shuffling along, and by the end he looked completely fine. So I'm back on the rollercoaster of:

• Is this a mechanical lameness?
• Is it actually the LF or compensating for the hind end?
• Am I helping him by making him push through it by showing him how to use himself better?
• Or am I just helping him mask the problem?

idk have some more red light

With all that swirling around in my dome piece, I got on him Thursday with Mr Tappy determined to get him moving and moving correctly from step one.

He was SUCH a good boi. He hates Mr Tappy with a fiery burning passion, but he let me annoy his LH multiple times to get it stepping under him and all he did was get a little tense and rushy. No drama, no meltdowns, went back to work when I told him to ignore it. 

renvers king

There was a huge difference in how he felt once the LH was securely under him and working like it's supposed to. Maybe it's still hind end weakness making him rein lame in the LF? Because I didn't feel LF for a single step in this ride. 

Idkkkkkkkkkk 

MB is setting up an obstacle course for mental stimulation for everyone while we get through the cold and snow, but it's going to be a hot minute before we get back to real work. Hopefully he comes out feeling better for his little vacay instead of worse. If nothing else, the two feet of snow we're currently accumulating will keep his butt muscles working.

Teenager

Today Opie officially becomes a teenager!

side eye king

This is actually a big deal for me because I've never gotten a horse past twelve years old. I've owned one horse who was thirteen when I bought him so that doesn't count. And then I've put down horses at seven years old (a chronic flipper, he was legitimately a danger to himself and others); Red at eleven years old from a burst stomach ulcer that was causing him to bleed out internally; and Bobby at twelve from complications from sarcoidosis. 

So Opie has broken the curse! He is alive even if he's also been useless for awhile. Small wins, folks.

he took this milestone very seriously

MB fake laughed about it yesterday because I went to bring him in and he was acting like he'd broken his jaw. As previously shown, he likes to grab the chest straps on his blanket to play with. He likely wrenched his own stupid mouth while doing so and gave himself a nice adjustment. Fortunately, one of the boarders does repairs so he's going to sew the straps down so sir can't stick his teeth in them anymore. Fucking nuisance. 

an absolute child

In riding news, he's felt not the best under saddle. He's really ramped up his rumpus time outside with his friends. It's great he's clearly feeling so much better and wants to do partying, but rearing while playing bitey face for twenty minutes straight shockingly acts like doing 100 squats and makes him sore behind. 

Not to sound selfish, but damn, dude. Save some of those hard fought rehab results for me!

lots of time spent with the red light pad draped
over his butt

In typical Opie fashion, what seems to be helping him the most is doing the opposite of what conventional wisdom would say. 

He's been feeling good in his left lead canter--and seeing as how he was legit non-weight bearing on the LH when I first checked in on that after his injections that's a big deal--but the right lead and RH have been feeling locked the past few times. I put him on the longe over the weekend and asked him for it, and both directions he lifted his back right up, stepped under himself, and cantered off softly and happily. Ideally I wouldn't go about strengthening the canter with a questionable SI on a circle in our small indoor, but if that's what he wants that's what we'll do. For now. Until he changes his mind. Which he will inevitably do. 

One of my barn mates watched him go this morning after not having seen him in awhile and was like, "He looks way better, buuuut..." I told her to look away and come back in five minutes when he had a chance to warm up. Except she just kept (kindly) throwing out suggestions that logically made sense, but in no way would have worked for Opie. Asking him to lengthen his stride and drop his frame? Girl, no. Watch how fast he somersaults onto his head and really goes lame. 

He was in the double, and I coiled him up up up before slowly letting him out. And at the end of the ride, hot damn there was his back and ass and elevation and a real dressage horse. 

unit.

So we'll just keep keeping on, balancing the line between what Opie wants and needs, and what I can sneak in to keep pushing him forward. At least he didn't die of a broken jaw the day before he turned thirteen?

Certified Nuisance

After all the drama this horse put me through last year--all the vet visits and mysterious lameness issues, having to change his shoeing setup three different times, I don't even know how many diet changes, etc etc--you'd think he'd enter the new year with his own personal goal of being less of a pain in my ass.

He did not.

just trying to enjoy my morning

Of course it was in the single digits, so after I piled allllll my winter shit on, I drove over to the barn--in my truck so I could use 4wd because it never stops snowing here and the roads were still complete garbage--and pulled in to see Opie fully committed to the destructive lifestyle.

his bestie biscuit is gnawing on him on the other side

At our last barn, his favorite game to play with his friends was halter tag, but since no one gets turned out in halters here his new friends have taught him the joys of playing with clothes instead. 0/10 recommend.

I went out to get him and found that not only was his nose still bloody, but he'd clearly been annoyed by it bleeding and rubbed it all down his leg and across the front of his blanket.

this is why we love grey horses

I got him scrubbed clean, and I figured while I had him inside I'd let him have some rumpus time in the ring. Of course, after all the bucking and partying he blew his nose bleed open again and I had to do another clean up job before putting him back out, but it was good to see him move from the ground without just having to watch him casually trit trot in a circle around me on the longe.

He looks super sound at the trot--as he should at this point, but I'm so nervous about setbacks--and was sound at the little bit of canter he did. Interestingly though, he didn't want to canter around the short sides. That doesn't bother me, you pretty much have to be in collected canter to move correctly in our tiny ring and I don't think he's strong enough for that yet. However, he only cantered down the long sides in counter canter. If he was tracking right and picked up the right lead, he'd come down to the trot and then pick up the left lead to finish his "lap". So that probably means something, but I don't know what.

In the end, I think the nosebleed was nothing more exciting than a burst blood vessel or something. It was so fucking cold out and running around like an idiot is one of Opie's favorite pastimes. I couldn't find a cut or scrape anywhere in his nose, although he has plenty of dings on his head and neck from bitey face with his friends and probably scratching/rubbing his head on the hay feeders. He was fine, no worse for wear at the end of the day.  

I rode him the next day in the double because it was still cold and I wanted to do a walk-only ride. We spent the first half of the ride on the buckle with one hand, doing all the steering and stopping and rein-backs, and just generally having the most fun being a Good Boi who knows what leg and seat aids are.

When I asked him to switch from leg yielding to half pass, I finally picked up the reins because the shoulders did not understand without help. Which is completely on brand for Opie. 

so cute back in his big boi bridle

He remained super quiet in the mouth and happy to do the work even as I started to really collect him and add lateral work to the collection. Everything feels like such baby steps, but they're big deal baby steps. Being able to get on and walk right off without having to support him every step so his hind end doesn't start tripping and falling out felt amazing. It was only the walk, but he felt so sound. Like, I didn't even realize how subtly not sound he'd been before we started this rehab and fixed so many things.

Fingers crossed we keep ticking along in the right direction!