Day 149

I have some good news and some bad news.

Good news is that Harry and I had a very successful ride today. We worked for about 2 hours! I never get him to myself for that long. I was super happy with his behavior at the start -- he walked! He's usually like a little freight train and just goes goes goes, but he was very relaxed at the start. We walked around and flexed for a while in the indoor then ventured to the outdoor where his attention started to get away from me, but was still pretty good. We kept our walking.

Then we traversed through the inside of the indoor and went out back in the huge pasture. That's where he lost his attention to me, instead too freaked out about everything going on outside. He got a little spooky and started spinning and trying to run back to the barn at one point, but we stopped, stood for a while and then headed towards the big hill and went up it, looked around, then went back into the barn.

Then we started to really work. The entire time I was focusing on keeping my hands quiet and properly positioned...I have a really bad habit of having piano hands, because, surprise, I play the piano. It's just natural. But I really focused on that and sitting deep and back today and rather than relaxing he seemed to want to go more and more until I started sitting more forward. Once I was a bit more forward he definitely settled into his gait better. After working on his gait, we started doing a little bit of transition work on the wall where it wasn't too successful, so we did in a circle. When he got transitions down in a circle, I started walking him to cool him down. I dropped my stirrups because my ankles were killing me today for some reason, probably from sickle-ing, and we walked pretty calmly. He was still super hot when I got off so I hand walked him for a good chunk of time before I gave him a nice bath, after which he was still hot, so I walked him some more until he was completely cool before I put him in his stall.

Now for the not so good news. The vet came out for Brie today. If you don't remember, she's been having some lameness in her back right leg for a while now. It kept going and coming, but even though we had her on stall rest for a while, she was still kind of limping when I rode her last week. Now, the vet came out and looked at her lunge (she was limping), gave her a full exam, noted a bit of warmth in her leg, and took lots of X-Rays. He said that seemingly at best she has arthritis and we can manage that with steroids. It's either in her hock or her stifle, and he kind of said that if it's in the stifle, it's not too good.

He basically told us that her show career is over. Depending on what's actually wrong with her, we'll know whether we can still ride her or not. If this is all from kicking her stall, I'm going to be so mad! I just hope she's okay. At first I was sad because I have to stop trying to do dressage and jumping with her now, and then I was sad because I wouldn't be able to really fulfill the goal of this blog: to blog until I won a 1st place in a class of at least 10.

But then, I realized that all of that has lost its value. As long as she's okay and healthy, even if she can't be ridden very much, it won't change how much I love her. She means the world to me, she's taught me everything I know about handling horses. She's given me a tough skin for the show ring. She's taught me patience and responsibility. Even if she can't be ridden, it doesn't mean I'll stop showering her with love.

And if she can be ridden, then I'll just have to work out being a great trail horse and I might still have costume classes to look forward to. Who knows -- maybe she'll win Nationals for costume. She's always been a looker =]