Today was another ultrasound recheck. Good gravy, the rechecks are going to end up costing me more than the surgery itself. But I guess it makes sense... although... frustrating as he's not got a lesion... but I'm just whining... cause these dang horses are costing me so much money! Thank goodness for Mike.
I managed to ride Lyric before our appointment and when we went up the arena Dan followed us, and then proceeded to roll in the damp from the rain red clay. Doh! Both sides... of course. So... I brushed him... and as I told the clinic... "I tried... but Dan tried harder". He was still fairly orange. Oops. Oh well. Not where we were ultrasounding so all good. ;)
His suspensories looked good. He said that the right one looked better than the left this time, which was good as last time the right was a bit edematous. So yay! We're cleared to canter. We laughed about how people always ask how long they can canter. Me included previously. Turns out... 5 minutes of cantering is a darn long time! Ask me and Dan how we know! (Flashback to the muscle tear and cantering at Hitchcock woods). He said that I can keep doing lateral work at the trot and start adding in some collection and getting him to sit and load the hind end. Add in the canter work, but.. no jumping yet. He wants another ultrasound in a month before we start cantering. Ooof... I gotta get your book written Dan... You is expensive!
So then I asked him about his neck rads and if he had talked to Travis and he said they had talked a couple of times and kept getting distracted but he'd try to talk to him again about it. And then I asked him about Lyric, so... the tech offered to hold him while I pulled up her rads. And then Dan was being... well, Dan, so... she tried to put him in a stall.. and that didn't work.. so then she offered to take him outside to pee... and they disappeared for a good 15 minutes. I'm guessing he was dragging her around. Then she came back and he backed up into the wall and wouldn't walk forward. She called him weird. Ha! She's not wrong!
So then we headed to Ashland to go do our "legal" canters. ;) I met Allissa there because her pony was so painful at his girth and she wanted me to look at him and was willing to drive from Athens to meet me there. I was later than I expected.. Oops! But she was so sweet and grateful. I left Dan on the trailer just because he's better behaved and... the weather was looking a little suspicious. I worked on her horse and hopefully made him better! But by the time I was done, which wasn't but 15 minutes or so, it was getting scary. Lots of thunder and some lightning and the wind picked up. So we loaded him up and we both headed home. Darnit! It poured on us til about halfway home and then it cleared up.
So... I unloaded him and went inside... and checked the weather. It kept saying it was supposed to start raining any minute.... radar showed rain... but the skies didn't look too bad. I debated what to do.. hop on him? Hop on Funny? Argh.. I finally just decided to hop on Dan. It was probably a better choice if the weather picked up and then I wouldn't have to worry about Funny being feral and if she was... was it pain, ulcers, hormonal, or weather... and I figured I could throw the bareback pad on Dan and be on in 10 minutes vs having to tack Funny up and get her all tacked up and then have it start raining. So that's what I did. Plus, he was already brushed. So I ran the soft brush over him real quick, threw on the bareback pad and bridle and my helmet and hopped on. Mike came out so he let us in the pasture gate and we walked up to the arena.
We did a little warm up work with some turn on the haunches and turn on the forehands... which were quite nice! Then we did some trot work... we did some lateral work and some figure 8 serpentines with 10 meter half circles. We did some trot to walk to trot and some trot to halt to trot. We did a little bit of half pass but not a ton because... Kelli is right.. I do need to work on more bend through his body vs just going through the motions. Then we did some canters. They are feeling better too! And today, I think his right lead was his better lead. Interesting! We played a little with walk to canter and tried some canter to walks. He was so game. He did pick up the left lead instead of the right a few times but then got the right lead when I paid attention. And the right lead felt better once he got it. We managed to ride about 30 minutes and only had a few sprinkles on us. But it was looking worse so we headed back in. I untacked him and then it started to drizzle the teeniest bit. I felt bad as I didn't even bother hosing him off, because... it's gonna rain. Then I felt extra bad because he had butt foam! Sorry bud... I'll scratch your cheeks later!
Mike and I headed to Lawrenceville to pick up some motorcycle pants for him and get dinner, so I fed the ponies when we got home. And on the way to Lawrenceville it poured, so.. good timing! 
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