The worst timing.

So I have been in class and am only able to ride four times a week or so. Don't usually go out Mondays, but I had to give Maddie a ride to her lesson so I figured I'd check mare over.

And I pulled her out of the field.

And she her eye was swollen. Excellent.

There was a small fleck on her cornea, and Karen said to rinse it with saline and see if it went away. It didn't. Actually, it looked almost like a convex blob... great.

So it's a corneal abrasion, or an abscess, or something lovely like that. The vet was on an emergency call and could not make it tonight, so she will be out first thing in the morning. I am sweating blood. We put some triple antibiotic ointment on it after rinsing it in saline, and then gave her bute and put her in her flymask... ugh. Why do horses pick the most inopportune times to hurt themselves??

As for me, I am gonna be at the barn at six thirty tomorrow morning to check on her before school. My brothers are gonna hate me.

Oh, the drama.

Trainer wars, two engagements, and uproar over the resident wild child buying a four year old. This week has been a bit exciting. Hopefully, said wild child will calm. down. now that she has baby, but I'm not putting any money on it.

Worked some gymnastics the other day.



Look how eager she is. That's the look of eagles right there.



Warming up. Her trot just keeps coming along. Sadly, our canter has, yet again, degenerated into a train wreck. So much for that.

The gymnastic in question. Looks fazed, doesn't she?



Little vertical. Weird spot, again, so ultra chicken wings.



Leaning over her right shoulder. Man, I always do that, and I'm not sure why. *Sigh.*



And that's it for our super-awesome schooling. I'm taking off one stirrup at a time for a little while. Like, one day remove the left, one day remove the right, in hopes of fixing my knee-grippage.

Well.

Today wasn't epic failure, thank goodness. We set up the teeeny tiiiny gymnastic line to see how she'd do. I jump so infrequently because I'm paranoid about her joints, so we have developed the dreaded "OMG JUMPING!" syndrome. *sigh* But at any rate, she settled in to her hum-de-dum self. I was very surprised at how well she took the gymnastics. It was just crossrail-1-vertical-1-teeny oxer, so it wasn't huge and terrifying, but still. It was my first time through a gymnastic since, what, March? and that was on Berks, so I was a tad nervous. As usual, she packed me through it like a champ.

As for me, well, my brothers had the camera, so I can't be too sure, but I felt pretty good. I just have have have to think to push my leg forward in the air and fold down instead of out. I never used to have this problem, but we had a few fences where I felt really spot-on and good. I think it's a matter of consistency.

I guess what I need to do is just start incorporating two or three little fences into our riding every day, that way it isn't a super-awesome-fun big deal.

Anyways, we finished off with a good gallop. She looves to gallop, the little booger, but then again, what horse doesn't? We have a quarter mile grassy stretch that is absolutely perfect, and I can usually tell a difference the next day because her back feels looser. I imagine the gallop is just so nice and extended that it gives them a good stretch or something.

At any rate, there is the summary of today's doings.

I love my horse.

I know, what an original sentiment! The dear pony was so tolerant of my rustiness today. And man, was it bad. It's amazing what a ten-day hiatus can do to your riding. Not to mention pathetic. My lower legs were nasty, to the point that I just dropped my stirrups and then eventually took off the saddle altogether.

And of course, Bunny was perfect, aside from a spook-snort-spin at a horse in a sheet. She really is terrified of horses in sheets. It's hilarious. We got over it once she realized it was just Sis, a mare in her herd. Still, it was a near-death experience.

No, I am just glad she is tolerant. It's days like these that I don't feel worthy of riding, when I feel like a mushy mess and she takes care of me when she has every right to dump me on my butt. We rode with Paige for a bit. She's switched to Bridget Imparato, and it's amazing how her riding has improved. As soon as my unemployed arse finds a job, I will probably alternate between her, Patti, and maybe Sandra Vaughn. She took Chagall, the horse who would refuse a crossrail and gave the barn trainer a concussion, over a 2'9 course without blinking. It's impressive.

Anyways, I ramble, and have almost nothing interesting to say. The Silver Sands photographer still hasn't uploaded the BTB photos, so whatever. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Back from hiatus

Came back from North Carolina today- we left in the oh-so-civilized pre-dawn hours and got home at two. I booked it out to the barn to greet the poneh.

She was being obnoxious when I got her out of the field, so I put her in the round pen for a few minutes and longed her, just to see what I had to work with. She looked perfectly sound and was exuberant enough to throw some snorts and happy bucks.

And then I took her out to hose her.

And her hock was huge.

And I just about had a panic attack while I dialed the barn manager.

Her right hind leg, from gaskin to midway down her cannon, was ballooned up, and at the large hock joint, she had a scrape.

I have learned not to ignore small injuries. (Oh thanks, Berky ;)) My paranoid mommy senses were in overdrive, thinking "SEPTIC SEPTIC SEPTIC AAAAAAAGHHHH!" Karen didn't pick up, so I called the vet and left a message with the answering service, grabbed a bandage and a thin gel ice pack, and wrapped her up. Took temperatures, poked, prodded, and hosed until the vet called back.

Texted Dr. Merrick photos, and, of course, she said she probably just smacked it. (Sure enough, the swelling moved around her leg. Just the fluids settling from gravity.) Give her bute, ice it, and then wrap it with SSD, and she'd be fine.

Two hours later, it was half its previous size.

Gotta love false alarms.

Oh, the pain.

So I gave up and decided to tie my stirrups to the girth, and tied they shall stay. Yes, it is kind of cheating, but hopefully a few weeks schooling with them like that will create muscle memory or something. I opted for a few loops of yarn, that way I have to at least be aware of where my leg is, or else they will break. *Sigh* back to kindergarten :)

At any rate, I definitely felt some pain. I am so used to gripping with my upper thigh that this was NOT pleasant. At any rate, hopefully I'll see some improvement when coupled with the daily no-stirrups.



Now I just need to cram a crop behind my elbows and I'll be set! :P I have have HAVE to remember to open up my shoulders. My whole upper body collapses in on itself, and it's just bad.



Here I am jumping up her neck! Yay!! Ugh. But I figured I'd take a baseline now and compare it down the road. Actually, I wanted to *jump-jump* a little today to work on my position, hence the rolled out groundlines. As you can see, she TOTALLY took it seriously.



Again with the collapsed shoulders. Oh, well. It will all come with time, patience, and possibly duct tape, I figure.

I PROMISE I will have pictures eventually.

That said, gave the baby yesterday off for being such a good girl, and had her have a massage with Pat. Went back to business as usual today.

Set up two canter poles down the long side, spaced two strides apart. My evil(!) plan here is to teach her that obstacles are a heads-up kind of thing. Started by walking her over the pole and halting her with two feet on either side. If she walked too far forward, we backed up until our front feet were on one side and our back feet were on the other. Then she got wither scritchies and walked to the second pole. Wash, rinse, repeat.

After a few reps, started trotting them. First time, same halt-over-pole deal. Second time, we trotted through, third time, halted, trotted second pole, and halted. Basically variations on either rein, but using the pole as an external half-halt.

Progressed to canter. And of course, we had the looope. Since we had an extra gear to fiddle with, (lope and canter-canter), we started by halting square over the pole, doing a walk- lope, and then loping through the second. The next time through, we cantered through both poles. Walk break, wither scritchies, and then we worked on extending and compressing our strides.

We actually fit four lope strides between the canter poles, which kind of scares me a little. We attempted taking it as a one-stride a couple times as well, which was not particularly comfortable. Two for working canter and three for looope seemed to be the magic number. Of course, we had variations to continue in the pole-as-a-heads-up tangent, but you get the idea. Hopefully, our courses will be smoother if we work on this a little bit.

No plans for jumping this week, unless hell freezes over or we are magically awesome and whisked to some fanceh show.Totally random, but Friday is my birthday, and we are either going to Princess Place (not what you think it is) or farting around an informal local hunter pace, trailer registration permitting. Gotta love being a horse person. You know it's sad when tins of SWAT and the prospect of strenuous activity in formal clothes make you giddy.

Show, part deux

I ended up sleeping through my alarm, which made things a little interesting. Ended up forgoing braiding because I would miss my first class if I attempted.

Our first class wasn't so hot, just because our warm up lasted all of two seconds. We didn't have any major issues- she was speedy in the canter, which was enough to knock us out of placings. Much of it was my fault, since I'm sure I was collapsing my upper body.

Second class (Modified Hunter U/S) was much better, but very large. She behaved herself even when we got boxed in against the rail.

Lastly, Working HUS was awesome. Huge class, yet again, but we nailed everything and finished third. I'm so proud of my little mare. Photos to come eventually.

The rest of the girls did pretty well- our barn finished third overall, not that any of us were paying too much attention to the points board. We lost to Brass Head and Will o' Wisp, just like every year, hahaha.