Motivated

   I've had a couple of great days with Finn. On Saturday I rode him for about an hour and a half and he was still ready to go-go-go! A far cry from six months ago when I needed a crop, spurs, and a whole lot of leg. On Sunday Michelle rode him and he still had energy to spare. She worked on lots of flat work, lots of over bending and getting him off her leg and more supple and less racing forward. She also set up a crossrail on a 20m circle with 9ft placing poles on either side and jumped that, focusing on the quality of the trot coming into the jump. I think the jump on the circle helped to keep his back up and keep him in the outside rein. He ended up trotting in really nicely with made his jump better, and his canter after the jump way softer. Finn got, and deserved, Monday off.
    Today I was up at 4am to go into work super early. Luckily my schedule is extremely flexible...then I was up at the barn by 8:00, and on Finn at 9:00. Finn spent most of the day in yesterday due to bad weather, and I made barn manager keep him in this AM because I knew I'd be there shortly after she would have turned him out. I decided to put him on the lunge line and was afraid I didn't have much of a brain to deal with. He was a complete maniac on the lunge, bucking, rearing, squealing, coming into the circle, hollering at his buddies outside. Luckily there wasn't anyone else riding in the indoor!! I tacked him up as he pranced and pawed on the crossties, hopped on, and he was an ANGEL. I think I'm starting to realize that his sometimes negative ground behavior pretty much never transfers to how he acts under saddle. He very rarely acts poorly on the ground, but sometimes he gets so distracted that he just completely forgets I'm there. It only ever happens if he hasn't been turned out yet. I'm actually thinking that I'll keep him on 24/7 turnout this summer, as a few other of the geldings in his paddock are out all night. I think he'd really appreciate that, as long as the bugs aren't too bad! He also started day 1 of his 21 days of omeprezole today. I was able to distract him with a carrot, hide the syringe in my pocket, shoot the meds in his mouth, and give him the carrot. It all happened so quick he didn't know what hit him. I didn't realize that the liquid is a bright blue, which has stained his lips a lovely shade.
    After a quick ride, the chiro showed up. When I first met the chiro about 5 or so months ago I really didn't take to her. She is a little rough around the edges, and called my horse parrot mouthed (he is slightly...), and that she wasn't sure if there was anything she could do to help him because she didn't have her Jesus shoes on at the time. Yikes. After a very long adjustment, which helped, she said she didn't know if he would ever be quite right. This was after his paddock injury, recently after we had moved, and I was in a very fragile state about my horse and his capabilities. I vowed never to use her again... Well, 12 weeks later I did end up using her again after Finn started picking up the wrong canter lead. She said he looked so much better, and two days after the adjustment, he was cantering just fine. I am STILL skeptical about chiropractors, but I do think she is helping him. Today, she said he looked fantastic and felt like a completely different horse. She said he was out in his C6 and C7 vertebrae (I think), and after a couple of loud pops, he breathed a big sigh of relief, and rested his head on her shoulder. My husband thinks the chiro is pretty much witchcraft, and I'm just not sure.
    Tomorrow afternoon is Finn's lameness eval and radiographs. Because I have the best farrier ever, he's also driving up in case the vet suggests we do anything different with his shoeing, or if she wants his shoes pulled for radiographs. He's been moving so well lately, but I definitely want to make sure there's nothing going on his hocks/stifles so that he's very comfortable as the work continues to increase, and I can stop being paranoid.
   Finn will get tomorrow off, then I'll be up there Thursday-Saturday, riding depending on possible injections, and then Michelle will be riding him on Sunday. I think hubby and I pretty much have our schedules figured out so that I will be able to make it up to the barn more than twice a week, it will just mean a few early mornings on my part. Not an issue to me, as long as I get to see this cute face: