Doing Dressage

Don't mind us, just out here clocking along working on our dressage like a normal riding horse pair.

despite someone's best attempts of getting out of
work, he was still sound missing a hind shoe and
my farrier was out the next morning to put it back on.

We've hit some big milestones like doing a whole ride of stretchy work--twice! We've also started incorporating collection work for the sake of working in collection, not just putting him together as snugly as we can because if we don't he will fall apart and go lame. 

We had our lesson this morning, and it was like an actual real lesson. It wasn't a "can you watch my horse go around and help me mask his weirdness?" lesson. It's been AGESSS since we did normal things!

slightly sus about these developments

I really wanted to work on our trot-walk downward transitions because they were never particularly good to start with, and they've returned to being quite braced and above the bit. We started off with a lovely quiet little trit-trot to warm up with. 

The day before had been one of our stretchy days and I put in a lot of work riding from half halt to half halt to contain the zoomies so we weren't just freewheeling around with his head on the ground but his legs going a million miles an hour. It took some time, but eventually the half halts went from every single stride to every other and on out until he finally got the hint and was able to maintain the rhythm himself. 

He was a Smart Boi and remembered that slow is the way to go starting out. He still struggles to the left pushing into the outside rein on a circle. You can tell that's a big weakness for him right now, but at least he isn't lame on the LF (knock on wood lololol). Once we got our nice slowness and bending established both ways, we took a quick walk break and then went to pick up the trot again to start the transition work. Opie said, "nah we're cantering next yeehaw bitches." Which was false. He got to do some turns on the haunches instead to redirect his tiny brain, and then we picked up our trot again.

managed to get our lesson in before it rained
unlike earlier this week when the weather ruined our walkabout

We did the accordion exercise: in and out of bigger and shorter strides on a great big circle. Ugh, he was SO GOOD for this. MB and I were feeling quite giddy because as he went on, his shoulders unlocked and he started offering his old Opie toe flicks while staying super easy and light to ride (although my abs were absolutely screaming, it was a delight to sit). MB was like, "He's doing dressage again! Real dressage!" Yayyy, Opie!

But then we had to also do the downward transitions. Which turns out if you can establish this amazing quality of gait, you stop your hips and the horse just stops trotting. Total snooze fest. To the left he needed the extra support of the outside rein really being held, but also super boring. Basics forever and always amen. 

At that point I did want to canter, but again we had redirect the tiny brain to distract him from that. This time we did renvers to SI, a reinback, more renevers, now we're just trotting so boring, and ope we're cantering. We started off going right--his stronger direction--and MB told me not to stay in the cute canter, ask for the big jump in the stride. We did the 1-3 canter work with the shallow counter canter loop followed by a 15m circle. Crushed that, tried a lengthening which he nailed but then couldn't come back from it without breaking which was fine. That's a weakness thing, easy peasy to work on.

To the left he wanted to get a little squirrely anticipating again, but he settled enough in the trot that I just asked for the transition and it was fine. Again, definitely still much weaker this direction, but he didn't get tense about anything which was a big win. He was fine for the counter canter, but we had to either keep his hind end straight or his head/nose straight. I let his haunches come in a little bit to keep his RH doing its weird too far under the midline thing, and that kept the front end straight so whatever. Compromise is fine for now. We attempted a lengthened canter, and he opened up about one inch, but he came back quietly one inch too so good boy. 

posture work is boring.
would rather be touching things.

His recheck is scheduled for mid-July, and if we need to treat again no bigs. I'm super impressed and relieved we finally found something that seems to be genuinely getting him on the right track. Hopefully it can continue!

The bar is low...

...BUT!

We may have finally.....solved? (heavy emphasis on the question mark lolz) one of the roots of Opie's problems.

just insert (drug laced) candies plz

Today marks one week of treatment, which means we'll be all wrapped up by the end of the week.

So far it's been relatively smooth sailing. Let's break it down day by day.

(last) Tuesday: It was hot AF so we just did a bareback stroll.

Wednesday: I wanted to do our regularly scheduled lesson with MB the next day to get her eyes on him, so I figured I better put a saddle on him for the first time in about three weeks to see what we were working with. It was a mess. The footing was a little sloppy from rain, and he just could not settle. He couldn't soften, he couldn't focus, he still felt lame LF starting out on top of feeling tight and whacky behind. I was not feeling particularly optimistic.

Thursday: I went forth with the lesson anyway because MB isn't going to judge if he came out still looking Not Good. Plus she's very good at methodically talking me through unlocking Opie's crazy and coming out the other side with whether or not he can't or he just won't. 

had to do sitting trot to the left to control the zoomies

He did blessedly feel better right off the bat. We did a ton of stretchy walk where he felt a bit trippy up front, but he hasn't been able to stretch down without being dead fucking lame in ages so that was a massive win. Into the trot where we focused on keeping the rhythm slow. He still felt a little weird behind, but nothing notable with the LF which was another huge win. 

He had one big trip up front in the trot where we went sprawling for about three strides before he managed to right himself, but he went back to work for a few more minutes to wrap things up without issue.

right before he ate shit

Friday: Day off.

Saturday: We did our first canter! He couldn't turn right. At all. In any gait. But overall felt sound and relatively normal.

Sunday: I longed him in just his halter. He looked....herky jerky is the best way to describe it. Like his legs just weren't bending like normal horse legs? Question mark? I don't know, it was weird. He also looked like he had no control over his lower lip the whole time. It was swinging in the breeze like there was no connection between it and the rest of his face. Was he sleepy or relaxed? Those aren't really Opie things.

Monday: I finally succeeded in slowing down the trot. He's been zooming around probably looking good from the ground, but it's been half a centimeter from tipping to the point of no control. I'd rather have him slower and feeling more relaxed than blasting around looking powerful and about to fall down. Again. 

(this) Tuesday: We warmed up by running through the trot work from 1-3, but in the walk. The trot was in control from the start! We had a couple discussions about picking up the canter without being feral. The right lead canter was good--we could turn today! The left was a lot of being very angry that I wouldn't get off his right side (where I'm allowed to sit, so sorry), but once he snorted out all his rage over that injustice, it felt fine too. And then we finished with stretchy trot! Which has been sooooooo long in coming!

I'm hoping that we can go about our lives and rebuild strength yet again. And then maybe we can plan things? Knowing this horse probably not lol.

An Answer

Alrighty, we have a lot of catching up to do!

finally wore him down on the cuddle front, AND
managed to sneakily get it on camera

The new vet (Dr H) came out to take his turn at Opie. I messaged Hubby's cousin (Dr H's assistant) the day before to confirm they'd gotten all the imaging from my main vet (Dr A, keep up here) and the novel that I'd sent them on the history from this past year. She replied, "Yep, we're going over his xrays again right now!"

Which immediately made all my hopes plummet. I was like, here we go again. How interesting that we don't see anything either. We haven't been able to come up with any new ideas. Get a bone scan. Why didn't you do this or that. It's just his shitty hind end, you're going to have to wait it out. 

Of course neither of them actually said that, but I was all aboard the spiral out of control train. Legit already having a hopelessness meltdown. Between all the shit with Bobby and then all this shit in the past year with Opie, my brain is officially tapped out on getting answers from vets.

looking so good for being so useless

The next morning they came out, and I once again ran through a quick (lol) list of the things we've tried and treated. Dr H palpated all his parts and pieces in the aisle and said he felt absolutely nothing of concern. Great. He said he'd looked at all the imaging and everything was super boring--he hadn't even brought his xray machine because there wasn't a single thing that popped out that he would want to investigate further. Greatttt.

So we brought him into the ring where he watched him walk around a couple laps, did the tail pull neuro test, and then had him go out on the lunge.

Guys he looked SO BAD. SO FUCKING BAD. I started crying. It was the worst he's looked this whole time.

Lame af LF, stumbling and tripping and weird uncoordinated movement in both hind legs. We wrapped that up in a hurry and had him do the tiny circle neuro test. He was okay to the left. To the right, his RH kept going waayyy underneath himself with a hip drop that made him look like he was about to fall over.

Obviously at this point Dr H declared him neuro. In fact he thought he'd probably been neuro this whole time, he's just also had other things going on that we were chasing instead. He said Dr A and I did all the right things in the right order--no doubt his SI did need treating, and continuing to do the work I was doing was a good thing because if you don't watch him move he looks great--but the neuro was kind of skipped over. 

Dr H works with a different lab than the clinic Dr A works for so I had different options than just Marquis. A blog reader sent me info about this place awhile ago (thank you!!) that I had kept bookmarked, but honestly the website is super sketch and I didn't explore any further. It's a little different than the standard EPM testing, and they do their own compounded treatment.

We got his results back Monday and not surprisingly he came back positive for all the things--which most horses are going to test positive to exposure, but combined with how badly he's been doing it seems like a solid assumption that this is what we're dealing with. We got the black market (aka not FDA approved so they're not thousands of dollars) meds ordered and when those get here we'll will start the 10 days treatment. He'll have a follow appointment six weeks after that, and we'll likely do another round of treatment. 

In the meantime, in an effort to keep his muscle building and brain work going, he's been doing work on the longe line. He actually looks completely fine when he's in the vienna reins. The first couple steps are lame, but when you make him get to work and start moving out, there's nothing exciting to see at all. 

going right without falling over!

It's hit or miss how bad he is when he's not rigged up. He always stumbles behind, but some days that's all he does and otherwise walks and trots around looking sound. Other days he's so neuro he can't coordinate what his legs are doing. He's had days where he can't turn right unless I'm leading him by the head on his right side and basically showing him where each step goes. He had a day walking ground poles where you could see him come up to them and just straight up buffer. Like he knew the goal was to get to the other side but he couldn't get his brain to figure out how to make his legs do that.

It's depressing and it sucks, and I hate it for him because every time he sees me he's like, "Yay what's todays activity let's go do things!"

he was so excited to get to be in the ring at the same
time as his favorite riding bro

I think he's also probably developed some chronic compensation. Him picking up the trot lame and then transitioning quickly to soundness feels more like a habit now. He's also been getting ridden and worked with either me or the vienna reins holding him up/together, so he's going to have to get strong and coordinated in a lower frame again as well. And, of course, is EPM going to be the final answer in this chronicle? The LF could be explained by it, but it could still be something else we haven't figured out yet. 

Hopefully this will wrap this shit up. We're all over it at this point.

Dressage from the ground

Over the weekend, we had a mini clinic at the barn that we all participated in, and that we all were humbled by. One of the boarders has approximately one million world champion titles to her name in showmanship and is an active judge, and she offered to teach us all some in-hand skills.

Obviously I was all aboard. My horse might not be able to trot around under saddle soundly (more on that later), but surely we were going to nail standing still! I am also--not to brag--quite qualified at trotting my horse out for people as he sees the vet about once a week lolol.

Spolier alert: we knew nothing.

trying to hide alllll the conformation flaws

The biggest takeaway I got was how similar it was our under-saddle work. It was basically in-hand dressage. Horse is gumby in the neck and you don't have him pointed in a straight line? When he halts his haunches swing out and he's crooked AF. Don't come into your halt with enough impulsion? No chance of halting square. Transitions jerky because your horse isn't paying attention/on the aids? Judges are going to mark down for that. 

Gah it was so interesting! Every flaw she pointed out, I was like, "Yes! He does that u/s too!"

just like in dressage there are 100 ways to eliminate yourself without
even realizing you've done it

There's a breed show at the end of July where they have Amateur Handler classes that we're trying to manifest our attendance at, so we covered both how to mask Opie looking like a crooked wiener dog and how to show him off on the triangle.

• He's cow hocked so the wider I could get him to stand behind the straighter he looked. However, we had to work within his comfort level because that's not a normal/natural position for him. I do think this will help strengthen him though. And she suggested working on him straddling two poles laid side by side since he's already mastered the single pole.
• 
  

• 

  a good boi for trying to be a wide boi
  
  

  
  
• In showmanship, you work off squaring them up off of wherever the RH lands because that's the leg you'll pivot off of. Opie's RH likes to land well underneath him (tying into whatever the fuck is going on back there), so that already wasn't going to work. Fortunately we're not aiming for showmanship rules so we had more leniency in standing him up.
• Don't hug the cones--the cones are lava! Even a sound horse is going to take a "lame" looking step or two if you whip them around the cones. Opie has no wiggle room there so big, sweeping turns with the cones as a general guide. 
• The right hand is always the leading hand up by the bit.
• Once the judge passes the girth line, then you can move around to follow them. Don't block their line of sight.
• Position yourself so you're facing the point of your horse's shoulder. Give them room, don't crowd into them. 
• To get smoother forward transitions, push the right hand forward and the horse should immediately move off. No tugging them forward! The downward from trot to walk should be a FORWARD transition, don't just quit. Into the halt, plant your right foot and stop. The horse stops with you. If they don't, they come back to where you've stopped, don't get dragged forward with them. 

getting him stood up correctly made it look like we shortened his
back by about 4 vertebrae which was needed when you're a limo

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, and honestly I could have been out there for another hour gobbling up everything she was saying. 10/10 recommended cross training experience, especially with someone who is so educated.

"hello, standing normal is hard plz give candies"

In other news, Riding Opie has continued to be consistent in his inconsistencies. Wednesday the LH was a little sticky right off the bat, but some lateral work at the walk loosened everything up and he was sound at the trot afterwards. Thursday we had a full lesson that he felt great in the whole ride. Friday my friend rode him and he was lame-ish LF. Saturday he was lame LF. Today he was lame LH.

No idea what the trigger is or the cause. Hopefully Friday's vet appointment brings something new to the table.

Joke's On Me

This is what I get for putting things out into the universe. Nothing good ever comes from it.

both of us in the throes of a menty b

On Saturday Opie had his saddle fitting appointment. You know, now that he was sound and being ridden more than one ride every month.

He was obviously super lame for it.

We snuck in enough trot work to check the saddle after she gave it a fluff and evened everything out--which he was, for once, easy to please over--but the LF was gimping away.

I gave him Sunday off, and then tacked him up Monday with the mindset that if he was lame again I'd give in and just go ahead and call the new vet. He was frustratingly not lame. I wouldn't say he was 100%, but he felt alright enough that I continued to waffle over if I should continue waiting it out or not.

they're getting switched over to their grass field
and everyone is feeling the spring crazies

Fortunately (I guess lolol), after doing a lovely walk warmup this morning, as soon as I picked up the trot he was Dead Fucking Lame. So lame! LF? Sure. LH? Certainly! 

So I got off and called the next vet in the queue. I debated about who I wanted to come out. Between the racetrack, eventing/hunt country, and our proximity to Cornell we're actually pretty lucky when it comes to availability. What I'm most anxious about is bringing in someone new that won't listen to what I say. Like yes, his hind end is shit, and yes it can be looked at to be improved, but for the love of fucking god someone figure out this fucking LF.

I ended up settling on the track vet. For one, they're looking at a million lame thoroughbreds a day. I know they've seen some shit. But also Hubby's cousin works for their office so I knew I could trauma dump on her over the phone and get some insider trading by way of stealing a cancellation appointment for next Friday when they're booking out all the way into mid-June. 

some days he is clean, some days MB sends me video
of him being jet black 5mins after he's been turned out
with his tail bag hanging in shreds.

I'm not going to lie. I'm super frustrated. Actually I'm feeling rather pissed. It's been a YEAR. I have done everything we can think of and we've come up with absolutely nothing. The tech at my current vet was reading down the CVS receipt length list of imaging to send over to the new vet to look at and we were both giggling in a "holy shit wtf" sort of way. How have we done so much and this horse is still broken?!

Hopefully a fresh set of eyes will bring in some new ideas. Obviously I scratched our show at the end of the month, and while that's not the end of the world the situation as a whole is making me feeling resentful over my horse's continued useless existence. Objectively I know it's not his fault, but it is like, throw me a fucking bone here dude. 

Fingers crossed for next week! 

Nonlinear

In typical Opie fashion, we can't do things normally or easily. 

He was like, "I'm sound!"

But then, "I'm not sound!"

But also, "But not not sound enough to call a vet!"

While still being all, "You should definitely go home and cry after riding me lolol."

a perfect angel, has no idea what i'm talking about

Because really what else is there to do besides continuing to plug away--the whole fail forward thing--with my vet's blessing my plan was to just put it to him. Either break permanently already or let's fucking move on with our lives here, sir. 

Fortunately all his stupid body parts seem to finally have recalibrated and we're (for the moment at least) clocking along in regular work. 

With his return to First level at the end of the month, we've been working on all the things we have to hit in those tests. This includes coming back from a lengthened canter without flinging our head in the air or refusing to slow down in the slightest, shallow counter-canter loops without anticipating changes, leg yields without flinging ourselves sideways so fast that we've reached the other side of the ring in three strides, and most importantly all the speedy transitions that come from actual test riding.

i put him back in his fresh off the track opie setup.
he goes delightfully in a full cheek and figure 8
because apparently he's still a feral 4yo.

After the initial excitement over staring down the diagonal in the canter, the canter work has actually been the easiest to school. We've done a lot of the shallow serpentine work with MB over the years already, so he's familiar with doing that movement. He got told he was the smartest, bestest boy in the whole world a few times for quietly coming back to the trot at X instead of leaping through the air, and now he takes great pride in that transition. 

Where we're still getting a little spicy is moving out of the walk. We've been doing a lot of free walk to medium walk and back again to try to convince him that we don't always pick up the canter as soon as we're done with the free walk. But also at some point we do have to pick the canter back up again, grossly at First it's out of the trot so then we also have to sneak that transition in. There's lots to overthink when you're a tiny brained Opie Horse, and honestly First level has to be my least favorite to ride. 

The last couple of rides, I've really been working on the quality of the gaits themselves. Now that he's feeling stronger and sounder, I feel comfortable holding him to a little higher standard. Which is good because when he gets tense and distracted I can't even steer this thing let alone sit comfortably on him. 99% of the time the answer is renvers. So we do a lot of renvers. The other 1% of the time is just riding out his tantrum until he gets over it and magically remembers how to horse. 

how he looks when i insist my right seat bone
can be on his right back

I'm excited to have so much homework to do finally. While spending the winter walking my horse was great and all (it wasn't that great), I do selfishly actually enjoy riding and showing and fucking doing things. 

Now here's a little Opie story to leave you all with so you can appreciate his level of drama on a daily basis.

drama llama on alert

I brought Opie in for his PEMF appointment Tuesday afternoon. He met me at the gate like usual and I chucked him in his stall for a quick groom while we waited our turn. I started cleaning out my trunk when I was done with that, and as always his stall door was wide open because he's too dumb to leave it. He kept acting like he wanted to lie down and just like he was the sleepiest horse in the whole world. The bodyworker finally came over to our side of the barn and once he was in the crossties he used them to hold his head and neck up.

He was being sleepy but normal to start, and then he started shifting all over which eventually led to trying to throw himself on the ground. Now normally I would have been like, "Oh no this horse is colicking let me take care of that!" But it was Opie so I was like, you might be colicking.....but there's just as big of a chance that you're having a total toddler tantrum about wanting to take a nap and being inconvenienced by getting body work instead. 

He eventually got so insistent about wanting to lay down that we had to stop PEMF and put him in his stall where he cycled between throwing himself down and parking out. UGH OK FINE YOU MIGHT BE COLICY. I got on the phone with the vet while I brought the rest of the barn in (timed his drama perfectly to when I needed to do barn chores), and they said to give him some bananmine and if he hadn't improved in 45 minutes they'd send someone our way. 

By the time I got back over to his stall with drugs (absolutely not in a hurry because I'm sorry Opie but I was not convinced you were in dire straits) he was quietly laying down sleeping. I shoved banamine down his throat, skipped his dinner grain, and within ten minutes he was back on his feet being his usual ragey self.

"where is my dinner and the rest of my pemf sesh?!"

My guess is he had a little bout of gas that he thought he was dying from. However there is still the strong possibility that he really just wanted a nap. He can never be normal about anything.

Upgraded

The vet stopped in last Friday to give Opie his final dose of 'roids in his hocks, and I was very excited to tell her how much his soundness improved. She was like, "Yay, let's see it!" So I confidently put him on the longe after already having a lesson that morning where he felt sound the entire time...

...and he looked awful LOL.

Fortunately I had lots of video, and after we'd looked through that she decided, you know what? Let's just not longe him then. He's fine. We talked LF more, and she still felt it was compensatory from the RH which I don't necessarily agree with. But if it rears its stupid mystery head again I'll bring a different vet in. We also discussed possibly needing to do his hocks every six months instead of annually, and she was on board with that as long as we tried something besides the steroids since--if he does need to get them done already again by the fall--they're losing their efficacy.  Fine by me, I think that's a super valid point. 

tall bro, round bro, midget bad bro

He's definitely feeling locked and loaded and ready to return to the world of the working. He's been upgraded from a general nuisance to a certified menace, and all I hear from my barn mates is how much running and rearing he's doing at all times.

After four days off, I finally got back on him this morning. It was like riding a stick of dynamite. He was in one of his "look how many different ways my body bends" moods, with his back locked and his nose to his chest and his little legs like sewing machines. 

Me: Opie, please just go in a straight line down the rail.

Opie: Best I can do is:

MB always makes us slow down and be very deliberate about our aids, we did a lot of big looping serpentines with our changes of bend coming through the halt. Track left with left bend, halt on the CL, get right flexion, walk on into right bend, etc. 

This was a disaster. Two things make Opie super duper angry. Changing the bend from R to L, and me not allowing him to knock me off his right side.

I thought, let's take a break from the first thing that makes him angry and play with the second thing instead. We actually had a nice little breakthrough in our lesson Friday where he knew I wanted him to canter right, but I wasn't letting him pick it up because he was flinging himself around trying to bait me into either picking a fight with him or giving up on deleting my right seat bone. Sadly for him, I was in zen ninja mode and just waited his dramatic ass out until his whole body softened, and then ope now we're cantering so lovely good boy you're so smart. 

With that lesson still fresh, I continued to keep my right seat plugged in until eventually he got over that and went back to our first insult of being a straight boy that can change directions. 

melted his tiny brain so hard

Eventually he settled the fuck down enough that we could end on a couple of figure eights with lovely changes of bend and all four feet on the ground.

mostly done in walk work, but you can still work 
yourself into a lather if you try hard enough!

Honestly he was annoying as fuck, but in retrospect it was nice to have old Opie back. I mean, sure his soundness comes hand in hand with his insanity, but that means the real work can finally begin again!

And speaking of that, we have (probably going to jinx us in a big way) officially set some goals for the year!

trying to help us sync my headphones with MB's
ceecoach. surprisingly not that helpful.

While we rebuild his strength and collection, and try to actually teach him how to do confirmed lead changes each way so that one day we can still show 4-1, we're going to go back and gather scores like Pokémon for our Bronze with Distinction. For those not into silly USDF awards that cost a lot of money, it's like getting your Bronze all over again but with a minimum of 67% for your scores instead of 60%. I feel fine about that at First, MB thinks we can get them at Second, and hopefully by the time we circle back around to Third we'll just be ready for Fourth instead lol. 

With that in mind, we're planning on only doing three weekends of showing this year because those are the only recognized events in our area. The first one is at the end of May so everyone cross your fingers we can at least be sound until then, and that his brain kinda sorta reenters orbit by then.