Trial and error

Individual turnout was a total FAIL! While he seemed to be okay in the beginning, after a few days he went crazy. Barn manager thinks the mares on one side of his paddock were feeding his (already inflated) ego. He didn't have the large amount of space to torture his buds all day run and frolic, and I'm pretty sure he spent a week standing around. Then we had two days of ice/snow/hail, and he spent them inside. THEN my trainer went to go work with him which led to this:

He looks horrible, stiff, and miserable here. My first thought was oh my god, call the vet, inject everything. But, my trainer, ever the voice of reason tried to work him through it. After about 30min on the lunge he did settle, although all of his gaits still looked very stiff, especially through his hind end. She hopped on him after he settled down, trotted off, switching directions often. He was stiff and crooked. After about 15 minutes he did drop his nose and stretch a bit.

Me and trainer decided to keep him working throughout the week and hopefully loosen up those muscles. We are hoping his stiffness is due to standing in the individual, the insanely cold weather, and being in his stall for two days. We also cut his grain a bit, as he's looking a little plump ( and acting a little high). She rode him Sunday (he was great), I rode him Monday (he was great and so quiet and well behaved), she rode him Tuesday (he did buck when she pushed him into a bigger trot, but mostly well behaved). Today he had off-- it was 8 degrees today. Tomorrow and Friday she is riding, and then I have a lesson on Saturday.

On Saturday I am also have a chiropractor out for an adjustment and laser therapy. I have been kind of meh about chiropractors lately, but I am willing to try again before calling the vet to suggest injections (stifles? SI's again? hocks?). Another horse at my barn recently had chiro and laser therapy from this guy and she literally moves like a different horse. If the bucking and general bad attitude don't go away soon then I'll absolutely be calling the vet AGAIN to discuss what could be going on. It's been so frikken cold here lately, even in the indoor, and I'm sure Finn is not enjoying it at all. At the same time I want him to move to keep his joints loose, even if he's not working hard.

Pony love

Farrier update and saddle search

On Saturday our new farrier came out to work on Finn. I couldn't have been more impressed! First she watched him move in both directions for quite a while on the lunge, then explained what she hoped to achieve in working with him. First and foremost was to get him comfortable. I told her I didn't think he was super comfortable, and that he's been tripping and bracing a bit-- like he's been protecting his front feet. She pulled his fronts and let me see the bruising on his heels, and a bit of a seedy toe on his right front. His toes were so long, at not even 4 weeks out since our last farrier worked on him. She ended up trimming him up a bunch, and putting steel center fit shoes on him, like these, with a hard plastic natural  balance frog pad underneath, magic cushion extreme underneath that, as well as sole support impression material to protect his heels. She looked at his hinds and said they really don't need to be done quite yet, and **gasp** she said he had such great hinds that we can most likely pull them for the winter. Finn also LOVED her, which says a lot. She was very gentle with him, and he was the most patient I've ever seen him. The part that sold me though was lunging him after she had worked on him. He moved like a totally different horse: tracking up, head low, using his back, totally extended, and gorgeous!!! In the nearly two years I've had him I've never seen him move so comfortably.

Right front, before and after. The whole angle of his leg has changed!

After the farrier came I gave him Sunday off. On Monday the chiropractor was scheduled to come. I rode him in the morning and worked on cavaletti and trotting poles. He was moving so well he felt like a different horse. Chiropractor worked on him-- he was out throughout different parts of his back, as per usual, especially his left SI/hip area. Chiro recommended a long walk after her treatment and because it was such a nice day out I decided to hand walk him down the trail. I've never done that with him before and he was awesome. I only had my tall boots, but next time I want to do that I think I'll bring hiking clothes and we can both get a workout in. Finn can tend to get a little spooky on the trail alone and I think hand walking may help him to be able to go out alone without being so spooky.

I've also started looking for a dressage saddle for Finn. I had an awesome Niedersuss that I sold a while ago because there was no hope of it ever fitting Finn. I want a deeper seat, more comfortable saddle for trail rides and our dressage lessons. I tried a bunch of saddles at the local consignment tack store and wasn't really impressed with any. Then my dressage trainer told me she was selling her Windsor Greenline dressage saddle. She left it up at the barn tonight and I'm welcome to ride in it all week and in my lesson this upcoming Saturday as a trial. I'm really hoping it's comfortable and fits Finn. It's a great price for a higher end saddle. 

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: