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.

Taking the Wins

In an incredibly brief but delightful turn of events, Opie came out feeling better quicker in our ride on Friday, and then on Monday he was sound from step one!

good boy!

But then I went out to collect him from his field after doing barn chores this morning and walked by a shoe with a full pad attached. Now Opie is in fact not the only horse in his field with full pads so I had the tiniest ounce of hope it belonged to his bro Boston, but let's be so for real.

"still a good boy?"
no, you are a very bad dog.

As far as not being able to ride, honestly it didn't lower morale much. It more annoyed me that my perfectly laid out plan for Science was derailed. Because he felt so sound with zero help yesterday, I didn't give him any bute with his breakfast this morning for the first time since Thursday to see if it was a contributing factor into why he was going better. 

That would have given me today's ride without bute, tomorrow he was going to have off, Thursday was another lesson, and then the vet is coming Friday for his final injection. I could have had all this lovely data laid out for her.

But no.

his normal horse posture while at rest is returning!

I do have some video from last Friday to share after Pivo finally decided to get on my side.

This was at the end of our twenty minute ride. He did come out NQR LF, but clearly improved by the end. The ride before his right lead canter was awful; this ride his left lead felt quite sticky--and looking at the video I wished I'd taken the chance to send him forward out of it, but instead I just quit--but his right lead felt suuuuper.

I struggled a lot in this ride with finding the balance between letting him travel forward and wanting to keep him creeping because I was afraid he was going to rush past his balance point and feel lame again. My next ride on him ended up being in the indoor because of a storm, and I think the smaller space helped back him off with less input from me, and the rhythm was much better.

We did a lot of walking in that ride, working on changing the bend from right to left without tension or trying to rip my right rein away. We finished with a canter both ways that felt amazinggggg. So strong, so uphill, so forward. He was like, "Trust me, I got this." But he actually did for once!

He gets his shoe back on Thursday afternoon. If he's sound, we'll squeeze in a lesson Friday morning before the vet comes. He's back on bute until then, but he's getting turned out with a naked foot in the meantime. The footing is perfect at the moment, and everyone keeps telling me to just chuck him out barefoot and ignore him for a year anyway.

Ugh. Still salty about everyone and everything. Trust my crazy, I'm not done bringing this horse back from the dead yet. 

A Wee Update

I was waiting to write an update until I had some under saddle media to share, but.

Pivo.

tracked me great, too.
we'll just never see the footage.

Oh, Pivo. Still a debate on which will come first: me punting it into the garbage can, or it finally working in all the ways it's supposed to. 

So you'll just have to take my word on things, and hopefully I'll be able to drag Hubby out on Sunday for another attempt.

First some good news! The hock injections helped so much. As I suspected they would. He felt delightfully sound last weekend--about a week out from them. 

not good at posing

Unfortunately, he then came back out lame LF. The mother fucking LF where this whole shit show began a year ago.

I had a little cry about it (actually several little cries) because I feel like I deserved it, and then I came up with a new plan. Again.

We're going to do a bute trial for a week (again), the vet comes back out next Friday to inject the final spot in his right hock she wasn't able to do last time, we're going to let that cycle through, and if he's not 100% sound after that I'm going to bring a different vet practice in for a fresh set of eyes.

his injured chestnut ended up falling off on its
own and has healed uneventfully.
small wins!

I rode with MB yesterday and she agreed he was definitely off LF and not hind end any longer, and I was able to ride him to looking sound-er. Still lame, but less lame. We decided to go ahead with our lesson this morning because she thought based off of seeing that she could help me get him looking even better.

And she did! In fact, at the end of the lesson we were trotting left focusing on getting his neck pushed out without him getting too low and zooming off, and MB suddenly exclaimed, "Wait! I forgot he even came out looking weird because he looks normal now."

The focus was on getting him packaged up right off the bat because there was no point in warming up in a Training level frame if he was uneven in it. Put him together where he's more comfortable and do the warmup there, and then he can get let out at the end of the ride if he's feeling better.

He felt completely normal to the right at the trot, he needed the help to the left to get there--but we did get there! We did one lap of canter each way just to see what it looked like, and it was terrible to the right (RH), but fine to the left. 

MB still thought it looked like high up RH based on the canter, but obviously LF tracking left in the trot. We did inject the right stifle in 2023 when we first did his hocks, but it didn't make a noticeable difference so we never tried it again. I don't think that explains the LF though.

All things to bring to a new vet (my current vet is aware I'm looking for a second opinion and fully supports an outside consult, she's just as stumped as the rest of us), and hopefully we have everything else squared away enough that I can be like, "LOOK AT THE LF NOT ALL THE OTHER WEIRD ASS SHIT THIS HORSE DOES."

loves a good mud nap

While I'm glad we're able to mechanically force him into soundness, we played this game last year as well. And over the winter. I can help him look better, but clearly he's not actually getting better. We need to wrap this up and get to the root cause of it because I am overrrrr it. I can do rehab til the cows come home, but mentally I need a reason why I'm doing the rehab in the first place, and if this rehab is going to end with a sound, usable horse.