We trotted!

 Today was a glorious day!! It's FALL!!! False Fall.. ha! As next week is supposed to be hot and icky again, but... today was lovely! It was warm and sunny and not humid with a nice little random breeze. 

We met Kelli at Ashland. I almost took Funny too but decided not to. When I was tacking him up, I had originally put him in his jump bridle for ease. But then Kelli mentioned trying the bit she loaned me and I thought I should do it while I had it and if I brought Funny Saturday then I wouldn't be able to tell if it was the bit or her creating any issues if there were issues. (Wow, what a run on sentence!). So I went to switch out his bridles and then Kelli said I should keep everything but the bit the same, so I was trying to switch out the bit and he grabbed his brand new/full treat bag and proceeded to sling it and dump almost all of it out on the ground. DANIEL FLOYD BREAUX!!! Argh. So Kelli helped me pick it up and I managed to eventually get his bit swapped out. Of course when we got to the arena I realized his bit was upside down, so I had to regroup again. Doh!

  

I did a tiny bit of pillar work on the ground, all 3, and then I got on. We mostly just walked and worked on pillar 1. I had confused the tar out of myself with how you do pillar 3, because one girl posted a video of her doing pillar 3 into the inside of the arena in the corner instead of into the outside, so I tried that. Meh... But he's not great at it the other way either. Turns out, she was wrong, but I had convinced myself she wasn't, so.. oh well. We'll go back to the correct way tomorrow or Saturday. Then I ended up doing a few minutes of trot. Like literally 3 minutes. I just wanted to do it. Plus I figured Kelli might be right.... straight lines might be better than small circles, even if I was on him vs off him. So we trotted a few minutes. He still felt slightly loose/weak the first 3 strides and 1 or 2 strides when we changed directions, but he felt good otherwise. Even on a large circle. Kelli also said he looked better than Tuesday... not as draggy although he still wasn't super engaged. 

 

So then we went for a long hack. Dan was good. I did one short trot stint on a straight line in the field behind halfshire. Kelli said he was a little haunches left some but most of the time he was straight. We had a nice long walk through the woods and past the waterfall. We ended up back at the water complex because Dan only wanted a quick sip in the lake and Marvin didn't even want to go in. Of course then they both slurped mouthfuls of the nasty hot scummy water complex water. Gross!! I ended up trotting him a bit in the water complex for fun. Kelli got video. He felt great going to the right but then going to the left, he was drifting out and managed to scramble through the heavy plant growth and then he felt lame! Like head bobbing lame. And he looks it on the video too. Sadness!!! I took him out of the water and onto the grass and he evened out after a bit, so hopefully it was just because he scrambled. I'm trying NOT to worry and remember that he's weak, but... it's getting a little alarming how I have to keep feeling some lameness. But, I guess I will remind myself that post surgery he was also not quite right when I first started lunging him and then it got better. So, fingers crossed and praying hard to God. 

 

I did bemer him before dinner tonight and linimented his stifles after our ride. We also did some isometric stifle stretches, which interestingly, made him lick and chew. I also did some nerve release and fascial work and got some nice big releases on his head. Maybe he does have some chronic headaches? They make me cranky too buddy! Oh, and I started his fennel seeds, which is supposed to help with gut issues and cranky horses, so.. we'll see. It smells good, but it is potent! But he ate his feed happily with it in it, so...  It helps that it's such a small amount. :)