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.

Fishtailing

Metaphorically and literally lolz. Such is life with horses.

Opie got his deep tissue massage last Monday, and obviously the main issue was the sore lumbar area. Actually, I guess I could say delightfully his main issue was the lumbar area. Everything else felt pretty standard -- a little sore in the TMJ which has always been him, and some soreness in the pecs which is always and forever him. Other than that, he was in mighty fine shape!

KG pinpointed the specific spot that was bothering him the most to just above his last rib on the right side, so chances are he popped that rib out. A little manipulation, a little coaxing, and some good old fashioned magic fingers digging in there had him feeling much softer. Even so, I did four days of Robaxin following the massage. By the end of the week, he finally had a happy back again. 

we were also assigned this SI stretch which he is
OBSESSED with.
video here for an explanation

Good for him because he ended up getting dumped right back into full, never-ending work. 

I've been slowly creeping back into feeling like a normal human being now that I've finished steroids which means I'm kind of sort of ready to ride seriously again. (Still iffy on if I'll be able to breathe the whole ride, but it's getting there.) Just in time because my lack of riding while sick meant almost all of Opie's rides were coming from the people that lesson on him. And while MB is a very good instructor, she can't turn low level amateurs into neurotic Thoroughbred that loves taking advantage of people to get out of using himself correctly whisperers. So Opie was out there living his best crooked bully life, clocking along, conning people into letting him go however he wanted while making a perfectly pleasant picture. And I know MB tries to bully him right back into being correct, but there's only so much someone from the ground can do when the riders can't/won't make the corrections. 

stretch out, you naughty creature

It has been tedious getting him back on track. He is the king of what I call microaggressions. Every step he's trying to see what he can sneak by you, and if you don't immediately shut it down, the inch you just allowed him turns into 800 miles. 

He had to relearn how to get the fuck off my left leg. And then my right leg. And then you do not jig when I pick up my reins after a break. You do not giraffe when I shorten my reins. You hold the counter canter. Etc etc etc....

when we're done stretching out, you keep marching

After several quiet rides where I mostly focused on getting him straight again so he'd release his back, earlier this week I put it to him and asked him to really hold himself accountable. He started off feeling so shitty that I actually got off and put him on the longe thinking he was broken. Surprise, he wasn't, he looked great. He just didn't wanna. 

But then I said, you're gonna, and when we came out the other side, I suddenly had a trained horse again. Thank fuck.

this was the first time in 2 weeks i'd cantered and i couldn't
breathe afterwards it was the worst

For my lesson this morning, he was tired. Even though the work wasn't technically hard or went on for very long (because physically I simply cannot), I never ever ride him that many days in a row. Fortunately all I wanted to work on was the ability to go across the diagonals in the outdoor while maintaining straightness instead of feeling like I was playing ping pong with his haunches. That ended up being mostly worked on through the walk.

Forever and always, MB had us going back and forth from the renvers to the SI. He can't be dramatic about it. He can't get overbent in the neck. He can't cheat and wing his haunches around instead. Quiet, straight, correct. 

This made Opie angry. It did not make me angry. I Zen Ninja my way through his tantrums. If he got quick, we halted. If he got mad in the halt, he could throw his tantrum, but I was not engaging. (MB joked during one of these tantrums he walked out of super well after that we needed to tell Anne Gribbons the next time we went to one of her clinics that we find sideways piaffe works much better for collection than her go-to of normal piaffe. #ragemonster) If my leg went on, it stayed on until I got the response I was asking for. Eventually he figured out that I wasn't going to let him get his way, and suddenly he was able to do the Very Hard Thing I was asking for -- that being walking straight across the diagonal. 

having a get off my leg talk

Our left lead canter was good. MB reminded me that when I got the neck straight, that was my cue to ask for more forward because it meant the hind legs were where they're supposed to be. 

The right lead canter was its usual discussion. We did a couple of w/c transitions because he wanted to get very hoppy in them, and then the canter felt like riding a pogo stick, even when I got into half seat and tried to get him to go out. So back to the walk to reestablish straightness and loading the hind end. Eventually we got there off a 10m circle which is one of the best cheat codes for Opie. 

The canter from there got super lovely. Definitely under powered because he was tired, but straight which is all I wanted for the day. We finished getting a super duper long diagonal where the rhythm stayed metronome and the track stayed razor straight. 

i am soooo proud of this pic because it's mid-reinback
WITH HIS HEAD IN FRONT OF THE VERTICAL!!!!
getting too deep has been the bane of one of his otherwise top movements
so this was such a huge win for him. 

He obviously gets tomorrow off, and then I need to get serious about setting up a schedule for the both of us where I'm riding him enough to cancel out uneducated riders without making him tired. Thankfully the fitness of the Thoroughbred comes along with the questionable brain cells.

Just kiddinggg

We are not back in action, that turned into a total lie.

Whomp whomp.

My sickness turned into COVID which saw itself out by leaving me with bronchitis. Rude. As such, breathing is a real struggle which doesn't really lend itself to physical activities like riding. 

For my lesson last Thursday, I showed up in riding clothes fully intending to push through, even if it was just a low key work on the lateral stuff at the walk ride. Instead I had to keep sitting down to catch my breath while grooming and MB put a training ride on him instead.

This ended up working well because she was able to affirm that he feels (spoiler alert: felt LOLZ) much better after the hock injections and he was ready to go back to full send work when I was. 

zoomies while cooling out at the trot

I'd been struggling with his neck positioning while riding, and she was able to clear that up for me as well. In summation: less is best, as always. I was trying to make sure he was connected to the outside rein, and it felt like that's what I was doing, but then looking at video I would actually have him too far tipped to the outside making his neck crooked. But if I tried to think inside bend, I'd end up doing way too much inside neck. She took a picture of his neck while on him to show me where the "bend" should be - basically, I should barely be able to see the inside cheek piece of his bridle. 

To the right, he wants to tilt his head so it will feel a little more dramatic to the inside to get him straight. But it all comes back to her most favorite exercise for us, the renvers to SI. When I change to bend to go from one to the other, I can't actually ride the change or I make it go crazy and piss Opie off. I just have to let it happen. Same thing with the neck positioning. Just let it happen, the adjustments are so miniscule. 

Friday, I gave myself a ton of time to get ready and was able to climb aboard for the first time in a week. I spent a ton of time doing walk serpentines, focusing on neck positioning. MB's explanation helped a lot so that was a win.

As always, we also worked on the walk-canter transitions. I think we're finally starting to get rid of the jiggy anticipation while still being able to collect and sit.

me: barely alive.
opie: doing the work anyway.

I've been playing with adding turns on the haunches in when he feels my outside leg and anticipates the canter transition because leg means more than one thing stop guessing and listen, sir.

(You're welcome for the Pivo clip. It followed me the whole time, except I didn't wipe off my camera when I stuck it on there so the zoom footage is all through a pocket sweat filter. Can't win.)

It was only a 20 minute ride, but we hit on the two main things from the training ride the day before so calling it a win.

He had Saturday off because sick, and then I tried to rally and ride him Sunday but I couldn't breathe through the grooming again. (It was at this point I finally caved and went to Urgent Care where they loaded me up with meds and an inhaler #bless) Which worked out anyway because he was back sore AGAIN. And when I went to stick him on the longe untacked in his halter to give him a stretch, he was short on the RH. Broooooooooo.

Fortunately the deep tissue massage body worker the barn uses was on the schedule to be here all day day and she's able to fit Opie in this afternoon. Hopefully that helps him out. We'll try some methocarb from there if it doesn't, and if that doesn't work, the vet is on the schedule to be back out on the 30th for the minis so I can add on to that. But hopefully it doesn't come to that. I have to put my cat we've been trying to keep alive since November down tomorrow, and I have to tell you, I am tapped out on taking care of animals.

would never let anyone see him enjoy cuddles, don't tell!

Back in action

As expected, April has started off at a glacial pace. In good news though, this was the least eventful recovery he's ever had after his hock injections -- a week after he got them done, he was fully sound and back to being ridden. I still took it easy on him to ease him back into it, especially since before the injections he was barely doing anything thanks to his back soreness.

fortunately he's got a body worker with all the toys

I've done three rides on him since then, one of which lasted all of seven minutes to assess soundness. 

The second was thirty minutes with ninety percent of the work focused on getting him travelling straight. 

He's the most crooked horse on the planet on a good day, and he reverts to full gumby, drunk sailor when he's been off the Straight or Else regime. You know the metaphor where you stick your finger in a hole in the dam to plug a leak and another leak immediately shoots out, forever and ever? That's Opie's body. You corral one wayward section and a different one slips out of your grasp, forever and ever. If this horse has taught me nothing else, it's how important being straight is. 

pivo and i continue to fight every time i use it. one day i will
figure its bitch ass out.

like, why can it be normal on this side of the ring but not on the
other side (the pic above this) when it's parked directly at X?

On Friday we did ride number three, this time in the double. The poor double last got used for the two seconds I pulled it out to take Opie's year end pics, and it was covered in dust and feeling very neglected. It proved its worth for the ride though, as allll the straightness issues I dealt with in the previous ride, especially in the right lead canter, immediately went away. I'm sure some of that is that this horse is very well schooled at this point in his life so things come back quicker, but ugh. The double. It is a good friend of Opie's. It's rarely the right choice for him at shows, I've discovered, as he gets so tense in the ring one ounce of pressure on the curb is his excuse to blow up, but it is SUCH a good schooling tool for us. 

We worked on our SI and HI, trying to remember all the points of contact from our last lesson with LB. His bounce per ounce is back with his go go juice on board, and the trot was especially lovely. 

We also worked hard on the walk-canter transitions, trying to get the feeling of the pi/pa without actually doing the pi/pa (obvi not really throwing down pi/pa here folks, it's the feeling of super collected sitting and bouncing to load the hind end and launch into the canter. Such an amazing tool we picked up for him over the winter.). This is hard for Opie because getting him lit while keeping the lid on is a fine line. I tried to redirect and do some turns on the haunches when he got too up and down anticipating, because the outside leg going on asks for the canter, but also asks him to turn so him having to take a second to see which I was asking for was a good distraction to bring him back to planet earth. 

And then the death plague hit our house and Hubby and I spent all weekend comatose on the couch in between hacking our lungs up. Hopefully this week gets us back into a more normal schedule. Our lesson is this Thursday so maybe I'll attempt to fight with the stupid pivo again to get some footage for a blog post. 

Or it might be the day I finally mow the stupid thing down in rage. Stay tuned!

Grand Champion of the vet

Opie had his spring vet appointment on Monday, and we crossed all the spring crossables off the list.

• He did, in fact, need his teeth floated again.
• Dr A (our usual vet; I had added Opie on to someone else's appointment last month because they do a dental discount every February and I wanted to split the barn call) stuck her hand in his mouth and immediately felt a couple spots that weren't smooth, and once she had the speculum in, she basically ended up doing a full float.
• He has a little bit of a parrot mouth that causes his bite to not line up perfectly, and she said that especially was the likely culprit for the sideways head chewing -- not going ham on the last float (or as ham as possible without grinding his teeth to useless smooth stubs) was pinching his cheek folds. 
• Opie notices and feels everythingggg, so doing the bare minimum simply does not work on him. Again, it was single digits when the last vet came so none of her battery powered lights worked and she was using her phone's flashlight, but at that point maybe call it quits and reschedule?

no cow cuds since this float fortunately

• She agreed his back was likely sore from the hocks needing to get done, and it is feeling better to palpation now.
• He actually trotted super sound in hand, and then she flexed him, and we stuck him on the longe, and he went lame in the RH.
• "I don't mind seeing that at all. Now I feel like we're doing these injections for something!"

snoozing off his elephant sized sleepy dosage.
he metabolizes sedatives sooo fast.

• I stuck him on the longe for two seconds yesterday to see what the progress was, and he blessedly looked the best he ever has at this point after injections.
• Admittedly the bar is very low. He was still lame.
• But in a shuffle-y, poke along way, not in a Dead Fucking Lame way. 
• This is huge improvement from past years!
• He might react less dramatically to biologics than he does to the steroids we inject him with, but I've heard more "I didn't see any improvement afterwards" stories about Prostride etc than I've heard success stories, and quite frankly I don't have the money to gamble that it would make a difference for him and not still give him a slow recovery time. So we wait out the two-ish weeks it usually takes for him to come back to feeling his best again, and we get eleven months of really, really good results afterwards.
• And like I said, he's never looked this good this soon so maybe all the strength I've packed onto him in the past year is helping him recover faster. Fingers crossed. 

doing important modeling work in the meantime

In other news, over the weekend we finally got to attend our rescheduled year end awards banquet. Opie was Horse of the Year at Third Level, and was also the Third Level champion in the schooling show division. (Based solely on being the only person doing Third at schooling shows. A bonus for trying to get more ring time to relax the rage monster.)

He may cost lots of money, and we're already going on weeks of not doing a real ride, but at least he brings home giant ribbons!