This morning I took Dan out for a ride. It still nice and cool and breezy!! I groomed him and went to pick his feet and noticed that now, not only was his right hind shoe loose, it was missing all the nails on the medial side. Ugh. But it was still sticking... probably because of the toe clip. So... I coflexed it on and tacked up. And texted Patrick. Luckily he said he could come this afternoon/evening. Yay.
We headed up to the arena and Funny followed us. I was able to get Dan in and swing the gate shut before she could follow us but it didn't quite shut. Dan understood the assignment and before I could ask, her turned around and shut it with his nose. SMART BOY!
We did a long walk warm up and worked on our lateral work. He still felt a little bit like he was throwing his right barrel at me. Then we picked up the trot. I was waiting for it. But he felt pretty darn sound. Yay!! Still throwing his barrel at me a bit going right and wanting to counterflex a hair but he didn't argue too bad with me when I asked him to yield that barrel. Then we went left. And.... there it is. The hiccup/hitch. Sigh. It wasn't terrible, but... there. Almost head bobbing. Sigh. We went back to walk... then tried trotting again. If I post on the wrong diagonal, I don't feel it, but I can still see it in his head carriage. Darn. Well poo.
I got off and we did a tiny bit of pillar work and then I tried to get some video of him lunging in case I wanted to send it to Dr. Barrow. And, while I got video, I also got another video of his "trick". Dingdong! He can't feel too bad!
Anyways... we headed back to the trailer. I decided that instead of panicking and calling Dr. Barrow for rads and a lameness exam... I would just breathe. I would let Patrick come and tack the shoe back on because... he was sound immediately after being shod. And then he first went slightly lame when I noticed it was loose. And then he was so happy to be jumping that he was sound for that. And today was still subtle but the shoe was definitely looser. Unfortunately I probably can't ride tomorrow as it's going to be a 7pm getting home time at best. But maybe I can at least lunge him in the round pen and check. And apparently I had already signed up for a Kelly lesson on Thursday, but at least it was dressage with him. And we get to use the covered, so.. yay!
So then Patrick came tonight. I honestly had such a good lesson on Lyric that I forgot he was coming and went for a short hack. (I didn't have a time, but.. I knew at the end of the day). He did text me with a 15 minute warning and luckily at that point I had remembered and just loaded Lyric up to head home. But he still beat me. By like 10 minutes. Luckily Dan was in the barn waiting on dinner and let Patrick catch him. And him and Mike had chatted. But he was done with Dan by the time I got there. He did say that not only was he missing those nails.. one of the nails at the toe had broken off! So he suspected that it might be why he was lame. Especially since it was first noticed when the shoe got loose. So.. yay! Fingers crossed! Praying to God that's all it was. But... seriously though... how does a horse "break a nail"? Ha ha.. That sounds funny. Patrick needs sturdier nails. Ha! He did say Dan was good though... albeit grumpy with pinned ears. Yeah....... that's Dan.
So.. we shall see!
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