More of the Same

Scarlet is still doing great. He is his total normal self, jigging in the cold and really wanting to go eat a ton of grass. So whatever it was seems to have been temporary. I’m not questioning it. Him being as sound as he is capable of right now is very helpful for my sanity.

Ezio has still had an unfortunately inconsistent spring. March did not bring much less rain with it. So our riding has been inconsistent still. We’ve had a couple of good moments though. He’s shown a better ability to come back to riding sanity shortly after the arenas opened post rain.

I’ve hopped on him at least two times after the rain but post longing days and felt that he had too much underneath me for a good ride. But he has also been able to hold himself together for a 20 minute walk ride. Being able to hold himself together is definitely a big step forward for him. I’m pretty proud of that.

We’ve also been able to work through feelings when he does have them. Being able to come back from a tantrum is great progress. He isn’t fully losing his brain.

We’ve been doing a fair amount of trot transitions to the left each ride with a lot of extra loose rein walking for more relaxation. He’s really picking it up and leaning into the relaxing. I’m hoping to move us to just loose rein walking as a “break” between trot sets as I don’t want to always have to have a long walk break to regain his chill between. The right trot is still a work in progress. I’ve only been asking him to do one small trot circle being very overbent. He can’t throw his neck or shoulder around when we’re on such a small circle with the bend. I do plan on either doing more transitions or making the circle bigger but I never felt like pushing him in the short spots of riding we had between rain.

Then I unfortunately got very sick around mid march. Which meant I couldn’t ride. I was trying to make my lungs end up on the outside of my body so I stayed away from the barn for several days. When I was able to get back out, it was for a very piss and vinegar filled longe and then he also got longed by my trainer the next day because he was very excited. The theme continued for most of that week.

I did have one nice ride on him last Friday where we needed to use the front arena instead of the back one. I had gotten a folding step stool so that I could mount from there since he wasn’t comfortable standing near the fence in that arena. I was still coughing pretty badly so I took my time with ground work and getting up and off the stool. I wanted him to be super chill before I tried anything. We did get there and had a nice relaxed 5 minutes before he noticed the ditch near the arena eat a horse. That took another 5 minutes of small circles and blowing before he mostly relaxed to where I could hop off without if feeling like I was bailing. More ground work followed and he mostly got himself under control. I was pretty proud of him that day.

Which made my Saturday lesson all the more frustrating. I had planned on riding so I went out early to longe, just in case. I was still coughing after all. Longed him for 30 minutes before the start of my lesson rolled around. He was an ass. A complete, utter asshole. He was running away from me on the longe, turning his ass in and trying to run off to the outside. I even stuck his butt in the corner and did something like a 3m circle with the fence on two sides and he still tried to run off. I eventually handed him off to my trainer and she worked with him for another half an hour. He was trying all the same stuff with her. She blocked him and kept blocking him. It’s unusual for him to hold so hard to a bad idea but he really held onto it that day. It took over an hour total of working with him before he started to make good decisions.

I don’t love having to be so loud with him like we did on Saturday but he brought it upon himself. Nothing we were asking was hard. He wouldn’t even walk a circle around us. That’s kinda the lowest level of ask there. But I’m glad I decided to longe because I do not want to know what that would have been like under saddle.

I’ll be heading to Japan in two weeks so I’m likely not to get much riding in between then and now due to yet more rain. A barn friend will be taking care of Scarlet while I’m gone. And Ezio is going to get bootcamp while I’m gone! I’m very excited for him.

Scarlet Scare

I started writing this about a week after this first started happening so I don’t know what the end of this post is going to bring. The date today is 2/17. I will say now that we’ve hit the end, everything is fine! But read on to see what happened.

We had nearly a week straight of rain. It was a lot of rain too. So the ground was super slick and I didn’t want to walk Scarlet as I was worried about him keeping his balance. The days immediately after, he seemed to be doing pretty well. We were able to walk a lot more than I thought we would. That was on a weekend. Then Monday he was a bit stiff. I figured he was just excited with the sun and moving around his pen more. Maybe being silly and working himself too hard. Then Tuesday he just… couldn’t walk. He didn’t want to walk at all.

I forced him out of his stall and walked a little bit, thinking maybe he was just super stiff and would walk out of it. He was not. We made it back to our stall but it was hard. Something was wrong with his right fore. His back legs, specifically the right side, have been mostly where the neuro issues show up. I ended up going back twice that day, once at lunch and once at dinner. I gave him another dose of equiox at lunch so that he had a double dose for the day in an effort to help him.

I was very worried to get to the barn on Wednesday because I was worried that he wouldn’t have laid down or he wouldn’t be able to get up. Luckily, he was up when I got there and he had marks on his side from laying down. It’s been wet from the rain so everything sticks to the horses. I gave him another double dose and then forced him to do a little walking so I could see him walk. It was really obvious that he didn’t want to be walking at all. The lack of improvement really worried me.

Thursday he’d still shown signs of laying down and got another double dose. I made him walk again and he seemed to be moving a bit better. I’m not sure if that was true or me wanting it to be true. I was able to get him to lift his feet to clean them but he wobbled a bunch. I had a breakdown that day when I got home from the barn. Scarlet getting worse is every fear and nightmare come to life. I know I’m going to lose him at some point but I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready though. I also know exactly what it’s like to lose him so I know where that will bring me.

Friday we made it to a spot to graze that’s relatively close to his stall and he got another double dose. He still was walking in a way that looked like his legs were wobbling too much. He’s not picking up his right fore. He’s kind of swinging it along with him. It feels like his neuro problems have gotten worse.

Saturday he was worse than Friday and down to a single dose. He didn’t want to walk at all on Sunday. He’s a very compliant horse and he was resisting my pull on the lead and tossing his head rapidly. I didn’t make him go very far, just turned and headed back to his stall. Once we got back, I had a breakdown in the stall and emailed my vet. I asked her how long I could safely give him a double dose of equiox or if there was something else I could try to give him a last chance.

Scarlet needs to be able to lay down, get back up and walk in order for me to consider him having a good quality of life. He can do the lay down. He’s eating and drinking. But he’s not walking. So it feels like an end here. I’m losing options and hope. At this point, I’m waiting to hear back from my vet. I also made his stall as comfortable as possible with extra shavings. I also went and got a ton of treats for him.

I had Monday the 19th off of work. So I fed Scarlet his meds and then went to ride Ezio without doing anything else. Ezio needs more mental attention than I’d be able to give if I had to deal with Scarlet and my thoughts before him. That meant I ended up back at Scarlet’s barn about two hours after his meds. The vet asked for a video of how he was walking so I forced him out of his stall and made him walk a bit while I filmed

https://youtu.be/alsW8Adk9y8

I gave him a bunch of treats for the effort and a near full groom. I didn’t finish his tail because I hadn’t done it in forever and by the time I got 75% of the way to untangling it, my hand was hurting from all the effort. Then I was just waiting to hear back from my vet.

I didn’t make Scarlet walk the next day. He wasn’t even wanting to walk around his stall to get treats. I was contemplating giving him his meds and then trying to let it take affect before I walked him but I didn’t have the time to give it more than 30 minutes and that didn’t seem to be long enough. Later that day I got a response from the vet. She said the issue was the left fore when I thought it was the right fore. She thinks it’s likely an abscess and suggested I treat it with an epsom salt poultice. If I couldn’t manage to wrap his whole hoof, I should make sure to wrap his heel bulb and coronet band with the poultice.

The next couple of days I tried to wrap his hoof. I did okay the first day with just the heel bulb/coronet band one. It stayed on, at least. But when I first tried the whole hoof, it did not stay on. I only tried to make him walk a time or two just to check how he was doing.

Over the weekend of the 24-25, I managed to soak his hoof for 15ish minutes one day. I had to go back to the house for more hot water as he immediately spilled it the first time I tried to soak. I did succeed for the second time and then I fully wrapped his hoof. It went successfully that time. I also remembered that I had some bute at the other barn and I gave it to him instead of the equiox one day. I gave it to him and then came back a couple of hours later to walk him and videoed it.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Pdh85kGFnYo?feature=share

He walked nearly normally, which made me feel better about the possibility of an abscess. I’d been not allowing myself to hope for that too much. If it hadn’t been, I would have been even more devastated if it turned out to be neuro based. I still don’t have confirmation at this point, but the vet’s opinion plus his reaction to an actual pain med makes me think it is more likely. But I still don’t have a burst abscess. I’m waiting to hear back from the farrier to hopefully get him out to trim Scarlet’s hoof. He’s on 10 weeks of growth so there’s plenty to take off. And with bute, I believe he can be safely trimmed. So I’m just hoping to see a burst abscess soon.

On 2/28, I got Scarlet out to test walk him again. He was only on equiox again so there was no pain medication involved and I wanted to see how he walked. He was… fine?! He walked just fine. A tiny more hobble than normal but other than that he was completely fine. No burst abscess still. Nothing.

Eating grass like he’s not responsible for several breakdowns over the last two weeks.

We did a short five minute walk and he got to graze a bunch. I was so confused. I thought that it was an abscess but maybe it was a stone bruise instead? Something that would have healed itself up without showing anything externally. The next day he was still walking fine and we did the same five minute walk. I’d gotten on the schedule for a farrier for Friday as I was hoping that a farrier might be able to find the other end of the abscess that wasn’t.

He was fine for the farrier and she didn’t find anything in his hooves. She noted that his left ankle was a bit thicker and thought that that might have been the cause. I had noticed that his ankle was hot and slightly squishy when I was soaking his foot. I’m ashamed to admit that when this first came on, I didn’t check him all over carefully to see if there was something else wrong. I just panicked.

So I may never truly know what caused this. But he’s fine now. And I can stop panicking and breathe again. We aren’t supposed to have as much rain in the near future so hopefully he will stay good and we can just keep going along like we normally do.

Update post

January was a personally busy month. My company ran a reading challenge fundraiser and I got sucked in wholeheartedly. I thought it would be fairly easy. But the first week, someone had read 500 pages more than me and I’d read nearly 1000 in 4 days. So I turned on the turbo and tried to hold onto second place. I ended up doing so, though I lost to 1st by nearly 5000 pages and won over 3rd by 3000 pages. But that required me to read nearly 39 whole books and basically just work, sleep, animal care and read.

So no updates from me for a while due to having no free time. I’m proud I did it but I will never do that again. Its a special form of torture to read a book and then have to read another one immediately after and go go go. It was difficult. I’ve never felt like I don’t want to read before and I definitely ended the month not wanting to read.

During January, we still struggled to the right. We had lots of longing due to the rain and I ended up doing very small longe circles to the right and had more success at stopping him from pulling away. So I translated that thought through to riding. I’d been over bending him to the right, which worked somewhat but I also think he was using his floaty left shoulder to dive outward. It’s a lot harder to float the shoulder or not bend in a small circle and it looks to be working.

My plan with that is to walk a lot to the right but mostly trot to the left right now. I’ll keep doing the small right circles, riding them fairly defensively until the habit of trying to run out had been overwritten somewhat. Then we will work our way up to larger circles and more trotting.

February I decided that I won’t be doing training since we were starting the first 10 days of Feb likely not having the arenas open. We had nearly a full week of rain to start the month and it was a lot. So the arenas needed time to dry off. I’ve basically written off improving during Feb. All I want is to maintain as well as possible. He’s actually been doing better than I expected. He needs some long ass longes right after we get any arena use back. Usually two days, because the first day is mostly walk and explosions, no actual productive work. But after that, he might need another longe, he might not. It depends on the day.

Recently, he has been doing very well on holding himself together for riding. This last Thursday was his birthday and my first ride on him after the rain. He’d had two days of longing and one trainer ride. So I thought he was good. And he kept himself together but I felt something weird in him. There was just a bit of energy and it felt like his neck and his butt were riding high and I was riding low. I only did a bit of trot because he got a bit worked up. But I was very proud of him for keeping it together. Because I got off him and was planning on longing but managed to get the arena to myself so I let him off to run. And run he did. He ran so hard he slid over sideways when he tried to turn. He ran himself hard up and down the fence line after so I wasn’t too worried about him hurting himself. But given he had all that run and bucks in there, the fact that he didn’t do that under saddle made me very proud.

I’m mostly just waiting for consistency of riding to come back before doing much but I’m pretty pleased with how he is reacting with all this time off. I don’t have to start back from zero and he’s much better than some of the older horses at the barn. Once we get consistency back, I’ll be very happy to work more.

Back at it

Of course getting word press to accept a gif was absolutely impossible. -_-

So it’s been half a year since I’ve updated. Obviously, I’m not going to write a play by play for those whole six months. I do have notes on every ride with Ezio because I’ve been keeping a log of rides and interactions so that I can compare and see the progress myself. But I’m not going to go into all of that. I am going to give a little summary of each month since I last updated and then I’m going to do my best to get back to posting regularly again. So here we go!

Scarlet is doing fine. He’s been stable for a while now which is great for me. We go for walks nearly every day and he enjoys being groomed with his scratchy places being his favorite. I still wish that he could have fully healed but I’m happy he seems to be comfortable and happy the way he is right now.

For Ezio, in June he developed issues with bridling. He had been being a bit of a butt for a while about bridling but nothing terrible. One day, he just straight up refused to bridle. So I kept at it until he did and then rode him while skipping a work meeting because that wasn’t going to stand. Those issues continued for the whole month and it was just him, no issues with his mouth according to the vets. During riding, he had some issues with turning to the right. He just resists randomly so we did a lot of small circles and serpentines that month. We also played with a light connection to the bit at the trot along with doing some sitting trot.

In July we made good progress at the sitting trot. We were able to do a full figure eight while sitting without him getting tense by the end of the month. We also added some baby lateral work and continued to work on his connection at the trot. Once he gets it, he really settles in to feeling my hands on his mouth. I think he is more secure there but he has to realize its good before he accepts it. He had an odd soreness at the trot later in the month that we think was likely from being silly in his stall. Trainer J also got a short boot camp with him due to me being out of town at the end of the month.

In August, he still had the same bridling issues. He also started snapping his mouth around at me when I tried to bridle him so we had a discussion about that. He didn’t hold onto that habit for very long. The right turn issues came up every ride, even for Trainer J so we are still working on that. I gave up the battle to bridle and started giving him a treat after he got the bridle on. I no longer wanted to die on that hill. After we got the treat thing going, the rides started off much better since we weren’t fighting before I even got on. Our focus on rides continued to be relaxing and listening to me during the rides. We also started doing a few rides in the front arena this month.

In September, we had our first in the rain ride. He was good for me but he had such unhappy ears the whole short ride. I worked more on the right turn and his shoulder drift this month. The bridling issues were mostly gone though he had some up and down this month. But overall, it took less time. I also had some important mental shifts. 1- I can do this. I’ve ridden him through fits and reluctance, both before and after we started training. 2- I need to not fear pushing him. Being soft on him isn’t going to help anyone. 3- I’ve been leaning on Jennifer for improvement rather than doing it myself. I need to do work outside of lessons, not just riding for maintenance outside of lessons. He got another mini boot camp at the end of this month due to me being out of town.

In October, it felt like we made some good progress. I had good connection to the bit and we started working on spirals. He’s quite good at the lateral work. We still had issues with his right turn but that’s an ongoing issue. I paid someone at the barn to help me give him a modified trace clip since he gets so hairy super early in the season. He also doesn’t tie still so I needed a few extra hands. He was good for it and it was great since it was still hot in Oct. We tried one canter transition before I had to go out of town again (so tired of leaving home) and we didn’t get it but he didn’t lose his mind. Trainer J rode while I was gone. Then at the end of the month we had a ride where he lost his mind and threw a fit to the point of half rearing. After that ride, everything broke. We could barely walk around in a contained manner and trotting was out of the question.

November was a bad month. Trotting was completely broken. He would get tense and up any time we tried to transition. When he tried, he’d hop in place and just not trot. It got into my head. He was riding just fine for Trainer J. But I couldn’t get past it. I think he had fun getting in my head at first and then he got worried that no one was in charge or relaxed. Trainer J took us both back to the absolute basics of riding around extremely relaxed. She wanted me to keep his head below his withers if he was at all tense during a ride.

We had a new saddle fitter come out to the barn. She’d done a couple of horses at the end of Oct and I’d seen them completely change how they were moving so I signed up to get her opinion. He’s a very narrow backed horse apparently and the saddle we had been using was too wide. With her direction, we went back to my older jumping saddle that is wide as well but fit well enough with some shims. It felt so strange to go back to a jumping saddle after most of a year in a dressage saddle. That on top of the riding issues meant we had a few tentative rides until I got settled in. I think that the saddle contributed to his right turn issues as those have been so much less since the change.

As for riding, it took most of the month to recover. I started longing him before rides and riding with spurs for an extra aid. The longing was mostly for me as I’d developed very high anxiety after the issues and needed a checklist to help me along. We finally had a good transition on the 17th and slowly continued to improve at the trot to getting multiple transitions and good circles and even some figure 8s. There’s still tension in the trot but its happening now.

December has been better. Ezio started to greet me at the gate again so our relationship has gotten better. I didn’t even realize he’d stopped doing that until he did it again. I think he reacted to the tension and anxiety between the two of us. So he’s enjoying coming out again. We’ve had consistent rides with relaxed and connected walking without much effort on my part and some reasonable trotting. Then they started fixing the fence in the back arena two weeks ago. We haven’t mastered riding in any of the other arenas so I tried to ride through it. He wasn’t worried about it at first but as the days went on, he started getting more focused. Moving boards and sawing kicked it over his tolerance levels. And they’re replacing the whole fence a part at a time. So this is going to go on for another two months. Trainer J and I have agreed that we’re just going to make the front arena work. At the minimum, I think I can get the same walk rides we’ve been doing in the back arena and possibly trotting so it will be the same or better.

So the end of this year has not been good riding wise. It’s frustrating because we were doing great for a while and then it all fell apart. We’ve somewhat recovered but I don’t feel like I’m in a distinctly different place than a year ago. Which isn’t fair because he is a much different horse. We have recovery strats. He can spook and not lose it for the rest of the ride. He’s SO MUCH SAFER on the ground than he used to be. I’ve had many instances where he has a spook or a scoot on the ground and he has chosen the option of not trampling me. I’m also a better rider than I was a year ago.

I can’t change the past. I don’t have a time machine. So sitting around worrying about what we didn’t accomplish isn’t going to change anything. All I can do is focus on the future. And hopefully I will be better about coming on here to share with you all.

Footnote: Look at the difference I found while looking for pics for this blog. These are May 2022 to May 2023. O_O

• 

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WTF HORSE!

Memorial day meant a day off of work and more riding time. It was nice to have the extra time that day to spend time working on the bridling. Ezio decided to not bridle in the crosstie area so we went to the arena to deal with it. He accepted it better in the arena. I’d noticed that he is better when I hold the bridle up with my left hand and lay the bit on his mouth. He will then open his mouth and put the bit in himself.

He was kind of a turd muffin during the ride. Not bad for him but more of a normal horse bad ride feeling. It was a bit frustrating but I was able to let it roll off. I FINALLY got a decent look in his mouth. I noticed that his bottom outside baby teeth were falling out/coming in. That could be an indicator as to why he didn’t like bridling. His left side baby tooth had fallen out but the right side still have both baby and adult tooth.

The next day was the vet visit. And… wow. Did it not go in any right way.

The vet was there in the afternoon so I did a normal morning turnout and then went out to pull him out of his stall when the vet was there. I expected more people since it was clinic style but 2pm was apparently not a popular time. (Thank you BO for texting me that there was no one in line.) The vet was taking a call so I just waited with Ezio on the halter. He was browsing the ground and standing pretty nicely. Then the vet came over and reached his hand out.

I don’t know if Ezio just wasn’t paying attention or what but he. Freaked. Out. He spooked so hard. He’s never spooked this hard. He backed up and, unfortunately, we were in the middle of the cross ties. But its not crossties. They’re just a bunch of tie bars. So there’s a circle of tie bars. Ezio backed into one, jumped forward, missed me and pinged off another one. He basically ran in circles bumping off of tie bars until I managed to get him to stop and backed him out of the area.

He didn’t run over me and he didn’t murder the vet. So two very good things. But he was shaking scared when I got him to stop. It was a very odd reaction for him. The vet even asked if he sees okay. I’ve had him for over a year. I think I would have noticed if he had vision problems. He did a quick vision test (hand moving toward eye) and then stuck his hands up in his mouth. Other than the spook/panic attack, Ezio handled the vet checking him very well. He said that his teeth look fine. The baby tooth wasn’t loose so he didn’t think that would be a problem unless we banged him really hard in the mouth. So no need to do anything with his teeth.

But of course, we wouldn’t get off from that freakout with nothing.

This is about the size of my palm, quite large

Oh look, another fat leg.

Yup. That’s a large but superficial scratch on his leg and a huge puffy right hind. To be fair, I’m not sure the leg scratch is from that. I didn’t see either of these until the next day. The leg is 100% from him banging around.

Luckily, he was 0% lame on the leg at the walk. Nice over striding and even strides on both legs. I did give him some bute and hand walked him that day (Wednesday) as I wanted to be sure that he recovered. I do believe that he is one of those horses that puffs up from the slightest problems. I did cancel the farrier that was supposed to arrive the next day as it was pretty puffy and he’s already bad with the farrier.

Thursday I longed him to see if he was lame at the trot. He doesn’t move out well on the longe line but his strides were even and he didn’t seem to have any problems. He was on the longe at the walk and the trot for about 10 minutes and then I hand walked him for another 10 minutes. His leg was much less swollen after moving around but I gave him some more bute. Probably didn’t need the bute but it made me feel better so it wouldn’t hurt him to have it for a couple of days.

Given that he wasn’t lame at the walk and trot, I gave Trainer J the green light to ride him on Friday. I trust her to stop working if he feels off. I did check him early that morning and gave him a last dose of bute. His leg was very much less swollen that morning so I felt pretty good about it.

Saturday was my riding lesson and while his leg looked good, I think he’s body sore from all the banging about. He had major issues with turning during the ride. It felt like how he was before we got chiro started. So even though he just recently got it, I ended up scheduling him for the next week to get him re-adjusted. He also didn’t want to trot going to the right. I thought it might be due to his leg being puffy still so I didn’t force the issue. It wasn’t a great lesson. Sunday I tried the front arena but he was still to tense. We did some ground work and then did an easy walk ride in the back arena.

I’m glad he didn’t end up lame from his freak out. It was so unusual. I didn’t even put gloves on to hold his lead since I figured he would be just fine and drugged up if we ended up doing more. Luckily I just had a sore arm from holding onto him. Luckily he didn’t end up hurting himself worse. And I’m just going to have to deal with the minor heart attacks that happen whenever he so much as scratches himself now. Puffy legs incoming.

Never Bridle

Ezio decided he doesn’t bridle this week. At all.

It was a horrible day for him to decide this wasn’t going to happen. It was a Tuesday morning before work, so one of the days where I have the least amount of time. He had been being a bit bad about bridling for about a month but it was mostly just moving his mouth away for a minute. This time, he turned into a giraffe and turned his head away from me. He yanked my back a few times as he lifted his head while my hand was over his ears.

It ended up being a half an hour long fight that ended up transitioning to the arena since I needed space and a fence to deal with him. I finally got him bridled up and it was about 10 minutes before my first meeting of the day was going to start. I couldn’t just not work Ezio that day. He NEEDED to be worked because he couldn’t be allowed to throw a fit over bridling and then get out of it. So I messaged my team that I was going to be missing the meeting and rode him for about 20 minutes.

I honestly can’t recall the details of the ride. I even have notes on rides and there’s nothing about the ride part of this day. I was nearly at tears fighting him over the bridle. It was an incredibly difficult day. We’d gone from me thinking about improving the trot work to prep him for cantering and then I couldn’t get the flipping bridle on my horse. I had moments of wondering if I was ever going to be able to form a partnership with Ezio. Should I just sell him? Should I put him in full time training? I spiraled for the whole day. And I may have blown up my trainers phone.

I’d settled myself somewhat over the course of the day and found a bridling video from a youtube horse trainer I like and so I went out on Wed with a firm plan in my mind. I stripped down my bridle so it was only crown piece, brow band and bit. No reins, no nose band. Minimal parts to work with. Then I went out to the arena and we practiced the exercises from the bridling video. It took about 10 minutes before I could put the bridle on over his halter. I then let him wander for about 10 minutes before we did it two more times and then I called it good.

I don’t see any brat horses here. Nope, not me!

Trainer J rode on Thursday and she told me that she had the same issues with him. She ended up putting the bridle on about 8-10 times before she rode him.

Of course I considered if he was in pain as that was a huge overreaction when he’d been mostly fine before. He’d had chiro recently. Just the week before I think. And my vet had looked at his teeth when she did his vaccines but said that he was good without a float. I tried to look at his teeth a bit myself to see if I noticed anything. But he’s very difficult to look at his mouth since he likes to snap at your hand and try to put your fingers between his teeth.

Friday was a ride day for me and I had plenty of time so I was set to have it take as long as needed to get his bridle on. I was willing to even just ride with his halter if need be. But it went fairly well. I think it took about five minutes to get the bridle on without the halter. He was very good while riding. We even had another horse in the arena for a bit. Ezio was pretty interested in saying hi but wasn’t tense at all. The trotting went well too.

On our lesson on Saturday, Trainer J and I had planned on doing a bridling lesson but with my exercises, I was able to get the bridle on and get out to the arena right as our lesson started. The lesson went really well. There was a fun moment where I sat the trot for a few beats before the downward transition and he gave me a little hop like he was going to do the canter transition. I hope that when we end up doing it, he doesn’t get tense.

I discussed all the bridling issues with Trainer J during the lesson and while we both think that it’s likely attitude rather than pain, we figured we should get it checked just in case. There was a vet scheduled to stop by the barn for a few clinic days so I added Ezio to the schedule.

Small Improvements

My rides during this next week on the weekdays were pretty relaxed. Changing my focus to riding his energy definitely helped. I was able to do short and productive walk-trot rides. I have really been trying to focus on getting Ezio to work harder at the trot. He connects very nicely to the bridle while walking now. But during the trot, he still floats above the bit. Sometimes that’s by keeping his head in the air and sometimes that’s by ducking it against his chest. But its a process thing so I decided to talk to Trainer J during our next lesson to see what she would suggest for encouraging him to reach for the bit.

That Saturday, Ezio got ready quickly for our lesson so I was able to do more groundwork before it started. He generally does the groundwork well enough but I’ve recently tried to ensure that it’s prompt off my aid and correct. He’d love to be a C student all the time but on easy stuff, I think he needs to really work. It also gets him more focused on me before I hop on.

He warmed up pretty well. I didn’t have to circle him much to remind him to relax. We got to the trot and I talked to my trainer about the floating issue. She said she’d noticed that as well and said with an adult, fully trained horse, she would just push them into the bridle. But right now, that’s too much pressure for Ezio. So she wants me to emulate the feel of that but without fully asking. So lightly asking and praising for the correct actions.

I tried that a bit. I think it will take some time to really get the feel of it. Ezio was also tense at the trot that day so I couldn’t really get the feeling down. It was about 7 weeks from our last chiro and we had the chiro scheduled for after our ride. My trainer and I talked about it and planned for how I would ride if the chiro didn’t help the tenseness.

Once of the rare times he wanders across the arena from me during turnout.

He did very well for the chiro but he had lots of places he needed to be adjusted. Its lovely to watch him realize what is happening after that first adjustment and relax into it. His hips needed a lot of adjustment this time along with his lower back. He definitely worried about the lower back adjustments but he leaned into the hip one and I could see a difference in his hip height afterward.

Sunday, I wanted to have an easy workout for him. We’ve only been riding in the back arena since we started training. I want to try to get him used to the other arenas so we aren’t restricted to just one area. We tried on Sunday to go do groundwork and a walk ride in the front arena. But we ended up just doing groundwork. Ezio had just had a new neighbor move in less than 24 hours prior and there were a lot of people moving around. His other neighbor also left the arena just as we walked in so it wasn’t the best setup. We had a few explosions but we did manage to do some groundwork. I called it a day after that. It’s going to be more of a process than I would have liked to get him used to that arena again. But I’ll just have to keep working at it.

Morning Rides

The second week of May was a different sort of frustrating. We’d had two weeks of boot camp and a week of decent riding when the arenas were open after that. And then Ezio was frustrating again in the morning. I ride before work because that’s when I have time. And that’s when I’ve always ridden him. Our lessons are later in the morning, usually around 11ish. But all the other days we ride prior to 9am.

I rode Ezio on Monday morning and he had absolutely zero focus. I had to do so many small circles trying to get him to focus on me that morning. It was very frustrating. I don’t have much more than 20 minutes in the morning usually to ride. It’s not ideal, especially when he isn’t being great. I don’t usually have time to fully work through whatever it is. I did not that day.

Handsome butthead

I spoke to my trainer about it and asked her if she could possibly ride him early one morning since she would be riding him multiple times that week due to me being out of town. I wanted to see if it was me riding or the time of day. She did manage to get an early ride in on him and he was unfocused with her as well. She said that she had a horse that wasn’t able to focus before 10 am when it was younger so it could be that with Ezio. I was at least relieved that it wasn’t him trying to mess with me only.

I was able to ride that Friday morning before I left for the weekend. I changed my focus while riding to managing his tension rather than his attention in the morning. It led to a better ride. It’s not ideal as I need him to be focused on me during the rides. But its more productive to have a ride where we’re working together rather than fighting each other. So I’ll be doing that in the morning for a while. On the days I have more time, I’ll be working on the attention as well as him remaining relaxed.

Bday and Saddle Trial

I wanted to get a ride in on my birthday. It was unfortunately a weekday so I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to ride. But I really wanted one. I got on and the guys at the barn just so happened to be weed wacking the ditch along the edge of the property. They were doing it near the arena we ride in. So I walked Ezio over to the edge of the arena so he could see them. He wasn’t focused on them at first as he was looking for a cookie from me. Then they moved and he spooked a bit as he saw them. But then he just settled in so I figured he was fine.

And he was. Until they stopped trimming and came up to refill the gas. Then they were HORSE MURDERING MONSTERS! He lost his absolute marbles. People have stood there before. Many people. But that was apparently not good that day. I ended up working him through it by doing small figure 8s on the far side of the arena. They were very small, very tense and I had his reins uber short. But we eventually got through it and did a small little bit of trotting at the end just to wrap things up. It wasn’t the ride I had wanted but I was very pleased with him for getting through it and regaining his brain.

We had a bunch of rain in a very short period of time that closed the arenas for a couple of days that week. I also found a local saddle I wanted to try out on Ezio. I brought it out on the weekend and was intending on trying to ride in it. But when I put it on him, I couldn’t even get two fingers under the gullet. So it did not fit at all. We had a very good ride with my trainer’s saddle. Lots of trotting with transitions, across the diagonals and figure 8s.

Our lesson that weekend was also very good. We did a lot of trotting and my trainer and I are in agreement that he’s at a place where we can start asking more at the trot in order to prep him for cantering and harder work.

I am not on board for harder work mom!

Some Scarlet Talk

Ezio is naturally easier to talk about on this blog because there’s new and interesting (sometimes terrible sometimes good) things to talk about with him. While Scarlet is basically in a holding pattern. He’s generally doing well and we just do the same thing pretty much every day. But he deserves some love on this blog from time to time.

While the flowering trees aren’t great for me (bee allergy), they make some great backgrounds for pictures.

He’s been doing well enough on his walks. I generally walk from 10-20 minutes depending on the amount of time I have. He really loves his scratches during grooming. Especially around the groin area. He rocks back and forth to try to spread his legs enough for me to get in all the cracks. I find it both funny and concerning. Funny because he’s just SO INTO IT. Concerning because he does NOT have the balance to be lifting a leg to give me better access. Please do not balance on a single hind leg.

He got his teeth done at the end of April. It always gives me a heart attack when that happens. It needs to happen but I don’t love it. He’s never been a good dental patient. He doesn’t stand still so they can’t use the stand. He’s not stable enough balance wise for us to feel like we can put him in the crossties. So he gets done in his stall. And that gives him plenty of room to back up. While drugged. With a neurological condition. He’s never fallen over. Nor, if I’m being honest, come close to it while moving. But I always panic as I see him lean waaaay too far. But he gets done and my vet does her best to keep him safe while keeping herself safe. I wish I had stocks and a sling to stick him in for it though.

Recently I’d been worrying that Scarlet wasn’t getting his equiox every day. He usually gets it by me just placing it on his feed. He eats generally pretty easily but he has a lot of food falling out of his mouth when eating. So I became concerned that he wasn’t actually eating his pill. He’d also been stumbling a bit more and having more trouble rolling over and getting up from his roll. It could have just been progression of his neurological issues but I wanted to try to make sure it wasn’t him not getting his pill.

I decided to make some soft treats to shove his pill into so that he had a better chance of eating it. I’ve been feeding him that for a couple of weeks now and I’m sure that he’s doing better. His movement has gotten smoother and he’s been regaining his feet easier. It was nearly instantaneous so I’m really happy that I decided to do this. The only thing I have to do is to make sure that I make treats when I run out.

Other than that, he’s been doing very good. He gets walks, he gets treats, he gets rolls and scratches. He seems to be a very happy senior horse. So we will keep moving and keep giving him his equiox and things will hopefully continue to be good for a long time.

More flowers for my boy.