midwinter update
Well, I’ve not posted in two months but I can’t say anyone reading this has missed much. We had a HUGE setback in December for about 2-3 weeks. What I thought was him being cooped up due to bad weather, and getting stiff, has turned out to be something entirely different.
Sid got very stiff longitudinally. In fact, he would often start out *okay* (not great) but get worse as the ride went on. There were a couple of rides where he felt like riding a giraffe – a barely broke giraffe. I was super discouraged. My instructor was in Germany at the time but it was for the better – he was so bad, I don’t think a lesson would have caused much headway.
He started getting better, and we moved on. But then one day, I had a GREAT ride to start that again went downhill as we went on – and then he threw his head and started wringing his tail. Ok. I got off, figuring he hurt somewhere. After all, I was in the process of contacting a chiropractor to come out and give him a look-over. I assumed all that stall time got him out of whack.
I unbuckled his caveson. He had had a big scab on the lower part of his upper jowl. I had blown that off totally, dropping his caveson one hole lower to keep it from bothering him. But this scab had grown HUGE. It stuck way out and was half peeled off and oozing. My poor boy!
On a whim I removed the caveson and got on him with just a headstall, bit and reins. We picked up a forward trot around the arena and my boy got soft, round and flexible like he hadn’t been in weeks.
From then on it’s been a steady climb back. He’s again ‘filling the reins’ with a nice steady soft contact and although with the cold weather he’s still a spook-monkey, he is giving me some great work.
Following will be a couple of posts about our current training ‘projects’. All of which are occuring, as I type, without a caveson. Once his scab is gone, he’s got a nice, padded FRENCH caveson with a sheepskin channel on the underside – for now at least – waiting for him. I don’t know if the caveson caused the sore (pinching) or if he got it roughhousing with the boys outside, but I’m not taking any chances.
