Flatlined

One small step upward, one long plateau in front of us. Fortunately, there's nothing better than a NY winter to do absolutely nothing but grind it out. 

Opie got all last week off to chill (as much as Opie ever chills), and then I popped him on the longe over the weekend to see if there was any noticeable improvement. Besides warring with himself over manners vs rumpus time, he looked super sound w/t!

would like to do the bolting but knows we don't pull on the longe

settled for much striking just so i knew he was crazyyy

much prancing as well tho

That was obviously encouraging; as well as him rocketing off the hind legs, no sign of the LF lameness any longer either. On Monday and Tuesday I got back on him for two fifteen minute rides. The first one was exactly what I was looking for--he was launching me out of the saddle and begging me to let him do more work. 

The second ride, I turned him out with no sheet on because we had one day of no rain and it was supposed to warm up into the sixties. However, it was still in the 40s in the morning and he has a horrible time with being cold after Lyme, so he started off the ride super tight. MB watched him trot after I was like, "Omfggggg, he's back to being lame!" and assured me he just looked like winter Opie that hadn't had his pre-ride BOT time. Once he got some more trotting in, his stride evened out and he felt normal again. 

So important note to self, even in the fall, if it's chilly and he isn't already dressed in his jammies, he needs to marinate in them for awhile first. 

post-ride red light while refusing to eat because that
was also a thing this week i think i've finally sorted out

Wednesday, I popped him on the longe quick. He rolled/knuckled over his LH ankle at the trot once, and then when he picked up the canter going left he was fine for the first few strides and then non-weight bearing in the LH. Which was certainly alarming to say the least, and he did the exact same thing the weekend before I took him down to the clinic. The vet had no insights. One of my friends thought his stifle might have locked for a few strides, but I'm super familiar with locking stifles and it didn't look like that to me, and he immediately went back to normal dropping into the trot. MB thought SI still, and he's weak AF, and maybe we just don't look at the canter for at least a month--which was my thought as well, so we're just going to pretend it never happened until we get a lot more muscle on this thing.

It did, of course, lead me even further down the SI rabbit hole (as well as: the start of DSLD, he's severed his extensor tendon, his pelvic symphysis is damaged to the point he'll never be a riding horse again, etc etc). That wasn't a fun journey let me tell you lolol 0/10 recommend.

In the "horses are the worst" universe, MB actually dealt with a very similar situation with her Arabx last winter. Weird traveling hind end lameness with random unrelated front end lameness, none of it really showing up on imaging, and never getting an actual answer for what was going on. She spent the winter doing the most slow and boring rehab with him, and he came out the summer looking the best this horse has ever looked in his life. 

So MB is my inspiration in this. If I can keep this horse alive for the winter, there might be hope he can return to being a useful member of society next year after all.

every day he is determined to be retired at 12.
yesterday was a fat hock from a bunch of scrapes.

I did lesson yesterday for a very exciting 20 minutes. MB gave me a ton of low-key lateral/flexion exercises to do at the walk, and at the trot she held my hand and told me we did not need to do a traditional warm up with this horse. We're going to have to think outside the box and work with whatever he's giving in that moment, and whatever he responds well to. He's SOOO out of shape on top of compensating for being lame for months, it's going to take a hot minute before we even think about doing normal horse things.

Fingers crossed none of us lose our minds (or our soundness) in the next couple of months!