Bodywork with Betsy

 So.... I made poor Mike come home a day early from the beach so I could do the Bodywork With Betsy clinic. She's one of the girls who works with Celeste and does the pillar work. So yay! And honestly, we were pretty beached out at this point. :) And we missed the animals. Although it did suck coming back to reality. But it was good to be back home too. I missed the stars and the quiet and peacefulness. 

I said hi to all the critters and fixed the water troughs and got them all cleaned and fresh with new valves. Then I went and got Dan from camp. He did great and seemed happy. I'm so glad Aubrey was able to take him. When we got home, of course, him and Fleck played wild stallion and were being naughty over Funny. Dan ended up snagging his left hind on the broken board and held it up for 2 minutes. Seriously horse?!?! Enough already with the injuries!! The good news is no big scrapes or bumps and he seemed fine after a minute or two. Although it's hard to tell if he's sound because luckily he's only walked or done two little bucky squirts. So... hopefully he's sound. Between the missing shoe, the puffy fat right front, and now the left hind smack and the right hind surgery.... I'll be lucky if he comes out of this pasture sound! So..come on Dan.. get it together!

Anyways... I was a little worried to take him away after bringing him back since him and Fleck were dueling, but... oh well. I didn't get up super early but we managed to get to the farm the clinic was at by 10:30 I think. Dan got a large round pen style stall in the shade, so he was a happy camper. He settled in and just chilled. He was quiet most of the day. Although he apparently did try to open the gate so they had to tie him in and a friend went to see him and he tried to eat her phone. Ha ha. 

Anyways, he was the last of the day. I watched the others and it was cool stuff and helpful. By the time it was our turn I was getting a migraine though, but luckily not too bad. I grabbed him and he was his usual busy self... walking around and being a nosy pest. Betsy looked at him and immediately zoned in on his feet. Basically he's got "clown shoes" on and his toe is too long and too far in front of him. His heel angle doesn't match his toe angle and she thinks that is a HUGE part of the problem. She noticed he's getting a little roached too and said she felt like a big part of that was the long toe. She said his pasterns were short and sized for a 14.2 hand horse not a 17 hand horse, but that his feet were for a 17 hand horse, so... it was too much. She was sweet and took photos and drew some angles and lines for me to show to Freddie. And, looking at those, he's not too far off, but... I agree.. he looks like he has the broken back axis and I feel like his feet are too far out in front of him. She said that this was all contributing to his posture and tight psoas and weak sling. She suggested only doing pillar 1 and not doing the rock back yet because until we fix his feet, we're just pushing him back into the dysfunctional hind end. Sigh. She worked with him a little bit but not a bunch. He was so distracted and nosy and bulldozer-y. She said it was likely because he wasn't aware of his where his feet were. So, we didn't really do any pillar work. I did a little while she was talking, and got a few good yawns and releases. She did give me some good advice on the whole "relationship to contact" and him pulling/yanking on the lead rope. She told me to get a flag (ideally the extendable one from amazon) and carry that all the time. Hold the lead rope like it was reins, because when I have my pinky towards him, it gives me more stability and strength. And if he's polite and walks, I can go with him. But if he pulls... rather than pulling back, flap that flag around him! Not beating him, but flapping it as a distraction so he stops pulling and focuses on me. And if he pulls hard, flap hard. If he pulls less hard, flap less hard. That way he learns to soften to contact without me having to "yell" harder. Cool! We'll try that. And we've got a session with Meg coming up in July to work on just this too, so I can be practicing in the meantime. 

So yeah.. it was helpful, but also a little depressing. I was hoping that we'd get to work on the pillars... maybe even do some nerve release stuff. And I was sort of thinking his neck was looking better despite the fact that we didn't do anything this last month, but not really. And it was a gut punch to be told that his feet were awful and ruining him. Especially because I've been thinking they were a problem for a bit, and Rana told me the same thing awhile back... and I just haven't done anything about it. Partly because life... partly because UGA told me they were perfect... partly because I hate confrontation and Freddie is good at what he does and I trust him...  I was a little overwhelmed and sweet Gail came up to me and told me she saw me struggling and not to worry and gave me a hug. She almost made me cry. Oh, it's so nice to have such sweet friends. 

But the good news.. the silver lining.... BY GOLLY I'M FOCUSING ON THAT SILVER LINING!  God is working all of this together in good timing. I mean.. I know I've been needing to work on my patience. And clearly I was not doing in hand pillars and had started doing them under saddle, so... perhaps this "forced" time off is the only way God knew I'd do it. And now I've got no excuse to get his feet figured out. And hopefully I can get Freddie to fix them and not have to find a new farrier. I'm being impatient because I was hoping to spend this month doing pillar work and then next month I can start lunging, but now if I can't really do pillar work until I get his feet fixed, that puts me 10 days behind "schedule" (Freddie can't come til the 30th). But I suppose I can still do pillar one and work on relationship to contact. And then once Freddie comes, we can start pillar 2 and 3, which he probably shouldn't be doing until then anyways. Sigh. I'm trying to be patient... but it's so hard!