He Cracks me up!

 New Years Eve

While I rode Lyric he was twirling the hose. Pretty much the entire ride

Later did some pillar work with him in the arena. and then played a hair in the pasture. He's goofy

Taking it easy

 Well... Christmas day was rainy and icky all day. That's okay because I expected it and I planned on spending the day with Mike. We had a nice day. I started feeling a hair sick though... And while the weather wasn't quite as bad as it was predicted.. it still rained all day. Even if it was more of that misting rain where it wasn't actually raining, but the air was so wet, it might as well have been. So, no worries. We had planned on taking the day off. However... the day after Christmas... was supposed to be dry. But it was not! The weather channel kept changing it's mind and it was wrong pretty much all day. It pretty much rained again all day on and off. And again, it was that misting rain... but then some legit rain. Which, ended up being okay too because I definitely had the flu. I felt feverish and chilled... my eyeballs were burning up. I was not hungry at all. My head was killing me. So I basically just sat on the couch all day. I didn't even feel well enough to do anything... like organize the house... or even listen to a podcost or do any learning. I could barely even play on facebook.... I just... laid there all day staring at the wall or pretending to sleep. So I was kind of glad that the weather was pretty miserable because at least I didn't feel like I was missing out. And it was a good thing I did. I went to bed and slept about 10 hours that night and about 10 hours Christmas night and was able to work on Wednesday. I ended up doing 9 horses, which is a full day. But God gave me strength and the dayquil worked well. I got home and fed ponies and made dinner and then crashed again. 

 

But today I felt pretty good! I didn't even have to take dayquil or tylenol. Just felt like I have a cold now. So yay! I even rode all 3 ponies! Sleeping 10 hours helps for sure though. ;) I got everyone fed and ran to the bank. I ordered Dan's new bemer, which sadly won't arrive til March. Doh! Oh well. Then I checked in with Kelli. The arena's at Ashland still weren't open yet, so we finally decided to just go and hack. Fortunately they opened the jump arena as we were getting ready to leave so we met up and did a little flat work first. 

 

Dan was still lame. It's subtle.. and he works out of it but then if he sits again, it's more obvious again. It's definitely tracking left more. However, he does not want to turn on the forehand the direction that he has to step under with his right hind... and when we try to half pass left at the trot, he's much less willing to go lateral. So Kelli wondered if it's his right hind??? She said he looked like he was standing with his right hind stretched out a little. Could be. Sigh. He was able to canter both ways nicely and going to the left we got a beautiful canter but he kept falling out of it when it got super nice. He didn't swap this time, but just broke to the trot. So... okay, I hear you buddy. Marvin was not feeling great either so Kelli got off pretty quickly. Given that and the fact that Dan still felt off, I didn't do much either and we headed for a trail ride. We ended up going up to the backside of the XC field and up the hill into the woods, then down "Sideways". Except then I forgot that we either had to cross the creek or use the bridge by raccoon loop and.. that bridge is still out. So.. poor Kelli had to cross the creek on foot. I offered to pony Marvin across so she could maybe stay dry and it almost worked but she hit a soft spot and got a wet foot. Whoops. But Dan was good and ponied Marvin across happily. I'm not so sure Marvin was happy. Ha ha. But he was good. After that Kelli got back on and we headed back in. 

So a nice relaxing chill day. Tomorrow he gets his feet done and we'll also x-ray them to check his angles and hopefully fix his lameness. I'm assuming he's due for his hock injections, but we shall see. Fingers crossed it's something simple. 

 

He's been on the CBG a few days now and... maybe it's helping. He's not quite as snuggly maybe as he was on the gabapentin, but.. maybe. Although it's hard to say if that's due to the gabapentin or the change in the amount of treats he's getting to reward his good behavior??? Either way... we'll give it a bit longer to see. 

Fitness Fun on Christmas eve

Man I love this horse. 

I sort of had some goals in mind.. things I want to start getting better at doing vs just thinking I'll do them. But, as usual, stuff happens. But I did them anyways. 

My not so concrete but kind of goals for 2024 for Dan are: 

• More fitness hacks with attention to more cardio and hills
• Get over my fear of big tables by jumping big tables every time I'm out in the XC field in a jump saddle. I figured I could jump the novice ones until those are smooth and out of stride and at a good pace. Then get braver and jump the training level ones... and then some of the prelim ones. 
• Get over the chevron/skinny jump fear. Which means I either need to borrow Lexi's jump, or build my own version of it.. and start jumping skinny but wide rampy things. 
• Jump more triple bars

And in reality, this means I probably need to dressage less and jump more. So I'll need to figure out some sort of riding plan to get this all accomplished because I also have goals for the gals and for myself and for my family life, so... yeah. But anyways.. I digress. I decided to make today a fitness day. Even though I was still suspicious that Dan might still be a hair off. 

We headed to Ashland and were by ourselves, which.. is ideal for fitness stuff. We started out heading up to the stadium ring as there were a few people XC schooling, although we did get to the arena by going around the small lake and then up the hill in XC to stadium. I trotted him around the arena for a few and... sadly, yep, still a bit assymetrical. Sigh.. Much improved from yesterday though. And in the field he felt sound. 

 Hacked... did some fitness

still a teeny bit assymetrical in the trot in the arena starting out, but much improved from yesterday. Sound in the field.

jumped some tables and coops in xc field. Even took a flyer to the raised ski ramp jump!! Good boy. Then went back to arena and did the grid. even trotted in. Had to stretch at the end, but good boy.

Man I love him. He's trying and wants to play

Then home and trotted off to roll. Kind of hot out. 

Went to get Lyric and the three amigos made faces.

christmas ball - dan's not impressed. he wants cookies. But at least he's being snuggly!

started the CBG today... may still be a bit drunk from gabapentin from yesterday am???

Trying so hard