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.