Bringing Up Baby!
Rode today. Hot!! Dan's fuzzy and a little cranky
bribed with treats when tacking up. hacked up to arena and did lots of walk. then had a good ride. no tongue... much less chomping. good boy. Nice sit to the canter. Got improvements on canter to walks to canters. didn't ride very long but had fun. had some good mediums but started to get a little bit runny so quit.
hacked to the lake. chased off geese and the heron. dan didn't care.
good boy!
vet appt tues
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!
Oh how I love him so!
We both needed a gallop and a good XC school. And he delivered! We couldn't really gallop as we were given special permission to crash the XC course while UGA was there. I'm "cool kid" people. and I didn't want to interfere/bother them, but we did.
then had a great school.
prelim roll top in and out of water, prelim angled coffin, training angled bank up to cabin
work on landing gear... and flowing the energy to the fence. and keeping him in front of my leg and on my aids. Yes ma'am, not... okay, I'll go in a few seconds.
Good boy
did some hills while we waited/warmed up
Evidence again that Daniel might as well be a 5 year old boy....
I didn't even get the good stuff in the video. Everytime I would put the phone up he would stop and just give me that look... hee hee.... I adore him so much!
He makes me smile!
Hauled to Ashland
short warm up hack, then dressage, then hack
dressage: started great. used rowel spurs. very forward today. but also a bit spooky. even on warm up hack. got a little too on the muscle, but took spurs off and it got better. canter to walks still hard but getting a little closer again. played with lovely trot half passes. medium trots sucked today. worked on centerline salutes and NOT lengthening. canter serpentines good.
then hacked. Spiderwebs! but had fun. needed that! did some hills
