Day 150

No word from the vet. We'll call tomorrow when they're back in office.

We just brushed up Brie and let her out in one of the small pastures with a little bit of grass while we rode today. She seemed happy as a clam and was even napping when I went out to go get her. I rinsed her off after I brought her in, fly sprayed her and bleached her feet before putting her back in her stall with a carrot (or five).

While my mom warmed up Nina today, I worked with Harry some more. I really do need to strengthen my core. I never was able to stay committed to a workout before, but now that I see how it's affecting my riding, I really do need to start and stick with it! It's getting hard for me to remain in posture and Harry feels it, jolts forward which throws me further off balance and then we have to start all over again! After my mom let my brother take over Nina, she worked with me and my darn hands! It was hard for me to not focus on Harry's speed and just focus on my hands and his headset, but by the end of the day, his head looked beautiful and the gait was following. I worked some transitions in a circle again like yesterday since he was pacing on the rail, walked him, then handed him over to my mom, who took him for a reward ride outside.

Next week I have to really nail transitions, because the weekend after that we head to Michigan for another show.

Here's a funny story. We were pulling into the driveway to the stable today and this dog was chasing a car behind us then saw our car and headed over by us. She had no collar on, so we put her in our trunk and drove down the street to look for where she lived. We ended up finding her house because a neighbor recognized her, so we tried to leave her there but she followed our car back to the stable. Meanwhile, Ray is riding on the street and sees us coming with this dog chasing our car and tries to ignore it and go in the driveway, but as soon as the dog sees him, she goes after his horse! I think she nipped the horse in the heels, so the horse spun around and when she did, Ray took off after the dog down the street! It was the funniest thing! I wish we would've gotten it on video!

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 =]