Refinement

We did some more refining to our still sort of shitty and definitely still weak riding in our lesson yesterday. The main theme was that you gotta be quicker than that...about everything. 

And bonus was Pivo decided to keep up for the vast majority of the ride and save the video afterwards.

In the walk, we warmed up with the leg yield pattern from 1-3. The focus was not letting his neck bend in really any direction, let alone the ten different ways in ten different places it wanted to. That didn't come together until about the hundredth repetition when the walk finally started getting collected and he filled my right rein which in turn made him straight. I also had to ride the 10m circle in a circle shape instead of protecting his sensitive feelings and let it turn into an amoeba shape.

The trot.

Ohhhh the trot.

I know the root of the problem is tension, and the tension is coming from (likely) his recent Lyme flareup, and still just not being as strong as I want him to be. So he gets tense, sometimes he looks uneven again to the left, and he struggles going forward with how tight he gets. 

To the left, MB had us leg yielding towards her and doing a little counter flexion to get him off my right leg (and get over me sitting on his right side), but not worrying about sending him out big and bold. To the right--full send. To the left--just be soft and supple.

The canter was alright--that seems to be his happy place right now. We did brainstorm an excellent test riding trick while working through his anxiousness in the first canter-trot transition in 1-3. At first I thought he was getting worked up over anticipating going back to the canter. You trot at X and then walk at C in this test (except the second time when you do a simple change at X because this test is fucking stupid and has no flow to it). He comes down to the trot fine, but by the time we go to turn in the corner he's having a menty b. 

Turns out it's not anticipating the canter, it's anticipating the change of bend. Just, you know, something I spent ALL WINTER LONG working on perfecting. But that's fine, we can forget that ever happened, Opie. Happy to play into your drama. 

When we figured that out, I just started changing the bend as we cantered up to X so by the time we got to the corner in trot, he was already positioned how he needed to be. That completely solved the issue! He may suck at changes, but he's got a super counter canter lol. 

We ran through 1-3 after that. It was...better than the last lesson. Again, the change of bend got us, this time picking up the trot after the free walk and having to go into the leg yield. The leg yield this direction is usually butter, but he got upset and stuck this time. Also the whole first half of the test was just blah. It took me until the final trot work to develop any real connection or suppleness, and the work was just crappy because of it. Not a test I'd be happy about paying lots of money to get judged. I KNOW the work is in there, even with his current state of ennui. Getting it locked in in one to two laps around the ring before throwing all the movements together is the holdup.

Debriefing afterwards, MB said I was only allowed to sit the trot if I got the trot we ended on going around the ring:

Otherwise, do my best to make him look soft with a more open frame and hope the judge actually judges like it's only First level. Mostly though, I have to figure out how to be quicker to put it all together. Which would help if the horse helped. Which would be helped by curing all his physical ailments with a magic wand. Someone make that happen, please.

Test Riding

Continuing with the never ending theme of not being able to build any momentum, show entries went out, we managed to run through 1-3 two whole times, and then once again everything has come to a grinding halt.

For once (knock on wood! x100), the horse isn't lame! So that's a small win. He is, however, ungodly feral. Add on your choice of insane heat and/or nauseating smoke in the air, and things are feeling rather stagnant over here.

"hi, i see dead people and live people and every
molecule in existence and they all bother me."

We did our first run-through of 1-3 in our lesson two weeks ago. The lesson didn't start well (spoiler: or end well). He decided he couldn't turn left, and the fact that I would ask him to do so was incredibly insulting. We went on a smallish figure eight at the walk until he got it and then proceeded to try in the trot. This did not happen. We eventually just gave up and moved into the canter at large. He ended up being fine for the canter, and he was marginally better in the trot afterwards so we moved on to doing the test.

I hadn't actually made the time to learn learn this test at that point. I felt like I sort of knew it enough to skate through it with MB calling out as I went, but that was quickly proven false. And for the record, what a stupid fucking test. It has zero flow to it and the transitions are random as hell. This was getting me flustered that I couldn't remember it, and Opie was already having a menty b so he was more than happy to join me in complete meltdown mode.

We got through the whole test, but it was horrendous. There were stops and starts galore, much leaping, and little steering. Oh, and crying. There were definitely multiple crying breaks. Discussing with MB when we were done, she agreed he was being a bit of a bully and he does get better when you call him out on it. But it was also hot as hell and I was not in a good head space. It's tough for me when Opie turns into such a twat over such simple things I know he knows. Objectively I know he still has a ton of strength and fitness and coordination to regain, but he CAN turn left for fucks sake.

Also the heat does me no good and I was legit having a meltdown over the fact that I've lost weight to the point that my boots no longer fit me and they were flapping against my leg and distracting me and I don't have the money for new boots because all the money goes towards this ungrateful animal's vet bills. 

So. Totally thriving. 

We had one more ride-through last Monday where we did a light warmup and then I went into the test with the mindset of, "We are going to do each movement correctly no matter how many times we have to repeat it." This approach would not work for a lot of horses. It works great for Opie. Here is the movement, black and white this is how it is going to be done, and when you do it we move on. It took probably thirty minutes to get through the entire test, but we left each movement feeling REALLY good about each one. 

Then it got hot as balls, and then smoky as balls, and he had off for the rest of the week. 

We did a light walk ride Friday to make sure the leg yield sections were crisp and clean, and a few laps of going in and out of stretchy trot. Sunday I wanted to ride the test again, but we ended up getting stuck in the halt. 

This isn't the first time he's pulled this particular move. We'll halt, and he'll get himself so contorted or locked up that he truly can't physically walk forward out of it. And he knows that so he starts panicking. Then we're just stuck in the halt with the only way out being launching himself into a rear or flinging himself sideways which neither of us enjoys so he starts panicking more. It's a delightful cycle that usually ends with him trying to sit down like a dog until I get off and lead him out of it. WHY he does this, I could not tell you. Welcome to Opie's brain. 

not a lot going on behind that side eye

Once I dismounted, proved to him he could simply walk in a straight line after halting, and got back on, we went into the test. It was actually pretty alright to start. The fucking jigging in the walk is going to make me brain him as the walk is one of the spots he's always able to pick up big scores. He always anticipates the return to the canter much earlier than he needs to which is going to take some creative test riding to hide. His simple transition at X is a stunner though! But then we couldn't finish because he couldn't turn left again.

On top of everything, throughout that ride and our ride yesterday, he was crazy spooky the whole time. Spooking at people, farm equipment, traffic, you name it. This horse is only ever spooky when he's having a Lyme flareup so fiiiiiinee, Opie. I'll just add that to your never-ending tab. Conveniently another boarder had the vet coming this morning and I was able to have them draw blood for a Lyme titer while they were here. What even is money at this point? Opie be spending it like it makes itself.  

He got a walk ride in the double today to hopefully reinforce that walk--NOT JIGGING--is a thing. We'll see if it sunk it during tomorrow's ride.

Look At This Horse

He's out here doing stuff!

Like warming up with no head bob:

Cantering to the left better than the right because we like to change our strong direction on the daily:

He did struggle quite a bit with the right lead on Sunday:

He hadn't been ridden in over a week because of the heat, so he was feeling lit for his first ride back. This mostly came out in the walk--aka the jiggity jig. I try to redirect to something else instead of just picking a fight about continuing in a straight line and still not walking. This means we do a lot of TOH which, over the winter, he finally got the hang of not pivoting or crossing over behind:

He's still braced because he was lit but look at those little hind feeties doing their job properly.

We also ran through our first full length test start to finish since...August of last year? I'm still aiming for a show at the end of the month doing First, but we all know how planning and horses goes lolol. Regardless, 1-1 is a super friendly little test so we started with that one.

As soon as Opie turned up the CL he was like, "Awwwyisss." He was still a little tightly wound at this point, and he was all-in to channeling it into doing a dressage test because THAT IS HIS JOB AND HE LOVES A JOB FULL SEND BITCHES.

As soon as we whipped through the corner, I could feel him waiting to see what test we were doing. "Are we zooming across the diagonal? No, she says go straight. This must be the one we go into SI in for then. Wait, why is she still saying just go straight?!"

Dude was ready to throw down a Third Level test and all I wanted was a little tritty trotty down the long side so we could make a little loop-di-doo and head back the way we'd come to do it again. His stretchy circle sucked, but he didn't completely take over and zip away so that went better than I thought. His walk immediately wanted to be a jig so I got quite rude with him and made him halt before heading into our "free walk". 

Everything was messy and zoomy and barely under control, but you know what? We both had fun doing the thing again. There's a lot of cleaning up to do that really only comes from test riding, and I am A-OK with that. 

We ran through it again on Monday and while still too quick--especially through the transitions--it was a lot cleaner. This morning we did 90% walking. In and out of the free walk approximately ten million times without anticipating. Then we did a real stretchy trot with his little nose poked out and dragging on the ground. If we can keep those two things tomorrow we'll be in business!

I did end up ordering more meds to have on hand. Those should be here tomorrow, and his follow up vet appointment is Friday. He was pretty trippy the whole ride Sunday. The footing wasn't the best so it could be that--and he's felt fine since then--but I definitely want to have meds on hand to nip any flare-ups in the bud so he doesn't get the chance to get bad again. Fingers crossed!

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.