Riding Recap

Yesterday and today I had two amazing rides on Gus. Lesson day was yesterday and for the first time in a month, heck since before then even, Gus was really really good.

I started with lunge work, as per our usual, but I made the decision to NOT canter on the lunge. Typically when I ask for the canter on the lunge, we get the whole BFB ordeal. NOT worth it ... I just don't want to stress out that soft tissue injury. We had NICE lunge work yesterday and again today. I did a lot of walk work to start with before I even asked for a trot. Once I asked for the trot, I had a nice, gorgeous, floaty trot. LOVED it.

Once the undersaddle work started, the objective was a nice, slow jog trot. Gus was offering a nice, big trot but like B stated, if Gus starts trucking too fast, he falls on this forehand and that defeats the whole purpose of everything. So slow and steady it is.

The whole lesson was spent on getting Gus moving straight, relative to each movement. Basically, we spent the entire lesson on serpentines - sometimes the loops were true bend, others were on the counter-bend. Whatever the exercise was supposed to do, I think it worked. Gus had a lot more suspension ... more then he's ever had before. I just loved the trot we had. Today, wasn't as nice ... but still nice enough trot work.

Canter. Boy was that interesting. Yesterday was much better then today, but still difficult both days. The canter work consisted of basically just canter the second track down the long sides working on being as straight.as.humanely/equinely.possible. Much more difficult then one would think.

But all in all, two very nice rides these last two days.

On another note, J still hasn't been out to reset Gus's shoes. Looks like it'll be next week sometime before he's able to make it out again. Gus's shoes are holding, but barely. I just hope we don't loose any hoof if they come off prematurely.

ETA: Here's some photos taken on the 5th, post ride. It was a BEAUTIFUL sunset. Wish I had my "real" camera with to capture some nicer images, but these work well enough - just don't do Gus or the sunset justice.

Gus modeling some ice boots. He's stylin'.

Today is game day.

Well, after having two nice, light, hacking sessions with Gus since last Wednesday, today we'll see where his soundness truly lies. Our first ride back after the latest break was on Saturday morning, followed by another ride later on Monday. Both times it was just a nice, easy [mainly walking] ride outside in the fresh air. Gus was on his best behavior and it was a very enjoyable ride. However ...

I have not lunged Gus or worked with him in the indoor since last Wednesday. I didn't want to stress the front legs by pounding him into the ground on trot circles (or worse yet, him behaving like a lunatic doing the BFB movements) so it's truly hard to distinguish how sound Gus really is. Outside, he felt fairly even or in his case, consistently uneven aka stiff. The few times I did ask for the trot, we had nice steps but it's really hard to be sure what I was feeling was real, as the ground is currently hard as rocks and uneven itself.

So, plan for tonight is to warm up with some light lunging ... HOPEFULLY Gus won't be an idiot. If he is, well time will be cut super short. I'm hoping that we (B and I) can work on some exercises to increase Gus's flexibility and suppleness. I guess we'll see what happens when it happens.

Forgot to mention, but after the last two rides and even last Wednesday, after every workout session, I've been cold-hosing and then ice booting Gus's LF leg. Not sure if it helps a lot, but makes me feel like I'm doing something for him. After about 10-20 minutes of the ice boot (couldn't tell you how long exactly cause I'm usually running around doing other things while he's chilling in the cross-ties), the leg is nice and tight and COLD. Secretly, I think Gus really enjoys it. Funny boy.

On to more pressing news, Gus still has not has his shoes reset. Really stinks but I guess J is out with a really bad back [injury?]. We're all hoping he gets well very fast. I guess he's got over 200 clients and well, we're all frantic to get our horses hooves trimmed again. Thankfully, the shoes are holding well enough and with the ground being rock-hard, I believe that's benefiting Gus ... as long as he's not having to try and stomp flies away. Hoping the new shoes come within the next week or two.

Then, on to even BETTER news. Gringo is moving back to B's as of November 1st. I'm SO EXCITED. And even stranger yet, so is the MIL. Yippee! Reason why Gringo is moving back is because I truly would like to get him started under saddle and there is absolutely no way I'll get that accomplished with him living out at their place, the in-laws, that is. We're losing daylight as I type and with my work schedule and the barn(s) in relation to work and home, it just makes a lot more sense to have him at B's for the winter. The plan, therefore, is to keep him at B's over the winter and go from there. I truly hope he stays sound enough for light work ... so, please cross your fingers!

More news to come. Eventually. When I'm not so dang tired and stuck at work. :-)

*crosses fingers*

Well, when I was out on Wednesday, Gus was sounder. So, that's definitely a start in the right direction! B cleared Gus (visually) to start work again, although taking it easy.

Plan is to begin with some walk work today and see how that goes. I'd like to do a little lunging before we start working under saddle, but with Gus's tendency to BFB (aka buck, fart, bolt) I don't think I'd like that added stress on his front end ... just not worth it to me. Hopefully the bugs won't be bad at all and we can work outside. We'll see.

Gus was also supposed to have his hooves trimmed and reset yesterday. Not sure if the farrier made it out or not, I guess he wasn't feeling the greatest according to the BM. Hopefully he's feeling better and Gus got his much needed pedicure. I guess I'll find out today when I'm out.

Photos to come.

Update on Gus.

While yesterday was typically "lesson" day, due to Gus's current circumstances I opted to not ride and save myself that little bit of $$ (to go towards a hopefully small vet bill tomorrow). B was just finishing up a lesson last night and wanted to see how Gus went on the lunge line. Needless to say, he's still very much over but *thankfully* only on the left fore - unless both of us are seeing wrong.

Upon further digging once back in the cross-ties, it looks like Gus may have sprung (or tried to in this case, since he wasn't successful) that LF shoe, which is causing some discomfort. Perhaps he has a rock/gravel/sand/debris wedged between the sole and the shoe? Honestly, with Gus, who really knows?

Slightly sprung LF shoe - gaping present towards the heel area.

Another view ... doesn't show how bad the gap really is. The shoe should be literally flush with the sole.

Another view of the whole hoof - well, side shot anyways.

So, plan still stands to have the vet out to look at Gus tomorrow. I'm really hoping that it was just a sprung shoe and some slightly pulled ligaments/tendons ... but knowing Gus like I do, that really won't be the case.

Here's a crappy, unedited video from last night ... it's short and sweet and sorta shows the odd movement of Gus. I would have liked to get another video, but B interrupted me while I was filming and I forgot to reshoot so you'll have to make do with what I managed to grab.

Updates to follow soon once I've heard back from the vet. Appointment is set for 11am tomorrow.

On to Gringo news - the poor boy has been sorely neglected by me for the past month or so. I feel horrible but life hasn't allowed me to really get out to see him - even Gus has "suffered" due to my crappy schedule as of late. Plan is to get out there tomorrow morning before work. I'd like to get some photos ... so we'll see if that's doable.

An Update.

Well, the news wasn't good. Gus is scheduled to be seen by Dr. N on Friday. She's already got a visit scheduled out at the barn, so Gus is just tacking onto her books.

Here's what B had to say Monday evening:

I wish I had good news-but I don't.  If anything he looks a bit worse.  It also seems to be puffy at the top of the fetlock, and I think a it of heat in there?

Uggh! I could scream, however I don't think that'll help anything. So I'll refrain - for now. I did manage to upload the photos of Gus's "injury" the other night, so the following photos are from a week ago (August 8th).

Look at the far right side of his coronet band ...

View from the back ... the puncture wounds are on the left side now.

Close up. There are three areas, I believe. The upper left "slit", the dark reddish-brown circular area, an then another spot directly below that circular area ... that area was squishy and slightly warm.

This shows a better photo of that third site ... just below and to the left of the circular site (almost centered in the photo).

Scratches? Center at base of heel bulbs and also on back of pastern?

I had forgotten to mention (because I forgot) but I had noticed last Wednesday that Gus was back to landing on the outside of the LF and rolling the hoof forward and to the right. Not landing heel-toe. Uggh. I plan on getting out the barn tonight and seeing for myself how he looks ... weather and time permitting, I'll be taking new photos and perhaps some video, if he's still landing awkwardly.

Not again.

Well last Wednesday was lesson time again. And it came and went - in not such a good way. I had gone out to the pasture to bring Gus in for our lesson and noticed when he was walking on the concrete that his hoof beats weren't regular. Granted he's just shod up front, but the echo sounded off. He even looked off. So, I quickly picked out his hooves (which were PACKED with dirt and other debris) and walked him up and down the aisle. He looked better or so I thought...

We managed to get into the arena with no issues but it became apparent when I went to lunge him that he was off. It was hard to tell at first, but B thought it was left fore ... that's kinda what I thought as well. And well, he was "sound on down" or well, as the saying actually goes "down on sound" - so looked okay on the right fore.

Doing a little bit of digging around, it looked like he had nicked himself on his left fore coronet band (outside). Not sure how he did it, but ironically enough two years ago this past May, he had the EXACT same injury, same hoof and all. That was the beginning of the end though (see all of 2010's blog posts from May through January 2011) so I'm hoping he was just ultra sensitive to that injury.

On the right front, by the heel bulbs, he had some scratches (the infection, not superficial marks) so who knows if that is causing issues or not. He's never been that sensitive to scratches before, but with Gus you never know.

Photos to come and an update to follow. B was supposed to lunge Gus today for me as I am not able to make it out until Wednesday.

Wednesday's Recap

Well, as usual, I haven't been riding as much as of late. Mainly due to the extreme heat we've been dealing with here in MN but also because life has just gotten in the way.

I did end up working with Gringo on Monday (I think it was Monday anyways). He still looks to be slightly off in the front. I'm assuming the LF but I'm having a hard time telling for sure. He was being a really good boy though and I think, despite the fact that he's being worked with very irregularly, he's come a long ways since this spring. He truly does like to have a "job". Maybe one day we can do more then just w/t on the end of a long rope... One can only hope, right?

Wednesday morning I had a lesson. First one in about two weeks (first ride in about that same period of time as well) and Gus was a good boy. After the usual warmup lunging, we started our undersaddle work with serpentines, primarily three-loop. Instead of changing the bend on the center line, sometimes we kept the original bend the whole serpentine, while other times I started off with a counterbend, so that the middle loop was in true bend. The goal with this exercise was to (I think) get Gus moving more back to front and FLEXING and BENDING throughout his whole body ... not just faking it (and he's good at that).

Our canter work consisted of 20m circles at ABCE and a smaller 10-15m circle immediately proceeding the larger circle (still at that "major" letter). We then changed up the exercise a bit and worked on lengthening and collecting the canter stride on the circles ... 20m = lengthen, 10ishm = collect and long sides = working. The goal was to try to improve the quality of the canter and Gus's stamina. B really liked Gus's canter work on Wednesday, and I did as well. It's still quite funny how Gus will be just fine one minute and 30 seconds later, he's finished. Done. Exhausted.

I was really pleased with the lesson again. I had this whole week off work and well, haven't done much of anything (and still am not planning on doing much of anything) but my goal for the next few weeks is to go out and ride as much outside as I can (weather permitting) to try to improve Gus's stamina. Lots of long/low trot and canter work ... maybe some hills/cavalletti too. We'll see.