Mort Update

We did a lameness exam last Tuesday. Mort had some slight pain in his hocks and right stifle. The vet thought that our culprit was most likely the stifle due to the way he was moving. We blocked it and he trotted sound on the lunge. She thought we should inject it and see if it fixed our issues. She thinks/hopes the hock issues were being caused by the stifle being sore. Mort's joint injection was Friday morning. He had the weekend off and we'll do a couple walk rides this week before starting to get back to normal this weekend. Hopefully the injection did the trick and he'll be back to his normal old self. I'm nervous but cautiously optimistic. I spent the weekend being a braider, reader, and overall helper at the dressage show at Rio with friends. The weather went from awful to nice and back to awful several times over three days. There were definitely times I was almost glad that I wasn't showing. But it was a fun weekend overall. Everyone improved throughout the weekend and put in some solid rides. Here's to Mort being sound for the next one!

Bad News

Well, last night was very disappointing. Mort was lame. This obviously means we're not going to the show next weekend. But more importantly, it means we're probably dealing with something more serious than a stone bruise. They don't generally get better and then worse again. I'm still hoping for something simple in the hoof, but my mind is wandering to the soft tissue possibilities. Of course, it could still be joint as well. I sent the vet a text yesterday evening to set-up a lameness exam.

Goal Check-in

Checking in on my goals now that we're halfway through the year. Riding-Related: Show 2nd Level This could go either way but I'm putting it out there for the universe to know about it I semi-seriously considered showing 2nd at the show in June, but Mort's lameness nixed that. I do think if we keep on track that we'll definitely be there for the fall shows. Establish half-pass in trot and canter Within this is haunches-in in trot and canter as well I have not worked on this enough, though it's getting more consistent at the walk Be able to pick Mort up from a loose rein walk and have him "there" for me We were doing super with this! Lately it's been mediocre because I think I'm trying too hard. Still a work in progress. Develop Mort's medium/extended trot and canter This is coming along nicely. Develop a more relaxed "back-up" I need to do this more. He's always surprised by the first try, but then remembers what I'm asking for and does OK Establish a walking turn-on-haunches We've played with some really big ones, but I want to actually tackle them under the eye of my instructor Develop a more even seat Forever a work in progress Have more control over which seat bone carries more weight AKA: don't allow Mort's body to dictate my seat as much Getting more aware, but will probably always be a work in progress Develop more consistent hands AKA: an even feel of his mouth on both sides, not allowing one hand to become lazy Getting better, but will probably always be a work in progress Get better about the release of aids so that Mort can become lighter off of them All these rider goals are going to continue to be works in progress, but as long as I'm working on them that's what counts Don't allow myself to get frustrated I'm definitely a lot better about this than I was last year. Have my instructor out for 6 (or more) lessons She's been out for three and I'll have her out when Mort is sound again as I had to cancel a lesson for this week. I've also taken a lesson with another instructor. Attend 2 clinics Ideally as a rider, but auditor will also be acceptable This one has been rough. I was signed up for one, but it got cancelled. I was invited to another but it's the same weekend as the show (and now Mort's lame anyway). It's still on the list of things to do. Attend 2 shows Zero so far. The hope was June, September, and November--now maybe just September and November or I'll look for another schooling show. Horse-Related: Get Mort consistent about loading with a ramp I want Mort to calmly walk onto all three trailers that I have access This has happened! I haven't actually taken him anywhere, but he'll happily load on every trailer right now. Get our property horse ready Still a work in progress, but we've got 1.75 stalls built and most of the run-in. We've done major repairs to the old barn and purchased all/most of the fencing. Non Horse-Related: Run 2 half-marathons Ran my first one this past weekend! Run 6-8 miles/day 3-4 times/week This isn't happening, but I am at least running 3-4 days/week. I do have a new workout schedule for June-August. My body needs me to change things up and not just do long runs. Lose 5lbs And learn how to maintain that weight Well I'm certainly good at maintaining, but I haven't gotten those last 5lbs yet. I'm hoping the change in my exercise routine will help this. Work hard on getting our house built and working on our property Working hard on this all the time. My life is a tad stressful right now, that's for sure. We're supposed to break ground next week. Plant a small vegetable garden It's planted. It may not grow a single veggie, but there are some plants and they're alive for now.

Lameness Update

Mort stayed very slightly lame all last week. He didn't have heat or swelling in his legs, nor did he respond to any poking and prodding that I tried. He was sound at the walk. He was sound at the trot tracking right. He had a tiny head bob tracking left. I gave him some time off with the intention to hop on Sunday to decide what to do. I had a fresh pair of eyes on him when he moved and to look over his legs. He was still slightly lame. She looked him over and thought that our best guess was a stone bruise. That made sense with his lack of other signs and it was certainly not a bad prognosis so I liked it. I talked to the other ladies at the barn. I talked to my mom. I thought about it long and hard. I decided to hold off on calling the vet. I figured if it was a stone bruise, waiting another week would fix it and I wouldn't spend any money unnecessarily. If it was something more serious, our walk rides and lots of days off probably wouldn't cause something more serious to get any worse. I hopped on yesterday for our easy ride. I have been doing 10-15 minutes of walking on the buckle, then trotting on the buckle to look for a head bob. Since I've been seeing it tracking left, we go back to walk and that's about it. Yesterday I didn't see a head bob. I did loose rein walk and trot a couple times and still couldn't see it. He felt forward and about the same as he normally does at the beginning of our rides. I decided to risk asking for more. I picked him up a little bit and continued on with our warm-up. I did some circles and changes of direction. I asked for connection. I did some canter each direction. I did small circles. I did some light lengthening. I did some leg yield. Throughout all of this, I would drop him back down to a loose rein trot and look for that head bob, but I kept not finding it. He felt forward and game to do a lot more than what I asked. We walked in the field and came back to the arena for more loose rein trot--still nothing. Of course, last night I was alone so there was no one else to confirm (or deny) that what I was seeing and feeling was real. I know Mort pretty well after our four years together. He doesn't always move like a "normal" horse right away, but he feels great after we get over the hump of how he carries himself. But, I was worried that I got used to him feeling 80% sound last week, so maybe last night he was 95% sound and it felt good in comparison. I was also worried that I was justifying him being sound because I want him to be, but maybe he was more abnormal than usual even though he felt great at the end. All of us horse-moms get a little paranoid when our horses aren't quite themselves, right? The barn owner got home as I was untacking, so I decided to throw Mort on the lunge line so we could both watch him go from the ground. I sent him out tracking left and asked for trot. He gave me his crappy little shuffle trot and it didn't look good at all. I figured that I had just ridden a lame horse and couldn't notice. But instead of letting those first few strides dictate it, I asked for a bigger trot. His head got steady and he looked sound. I trotted him around on the lunge for several minutes and he kept his more forward trot and looked fine. So now we're in a sort of limbo. The show's entries officially closed yesterday but I can pay $20 and late enter. I didn't feel quite confident enough to enter him last night before the deadline, though I did shoot the show secretary an email giving her the scoop. Basically, I'm going to wait until Thursday to decide. There will be people at the barn to watch us go on Thursday. If they think he's sound and I feel like he's sound, I'll enter the show and hope that it's not already full. If he's worse than he was before our ride, then it's probably more than a stone bruise and we may need some diagnostics. Here's to hoping that he's fully recovered and we can show.

Lame

Welp, Mort was lame last night. I noticed that he had the tiniest amount of stocking up in his legs when I was grooming. It was so slight that someone who didn't look at his legs every day wouldn't have noticed. I wasn't overly worried. He's still adjusting to being inside during the day and it was barely there. We walked on a loose rein and he felt a touch slow, but I figured it was just because we were walking next to another horse as the barn owner and I chatted. Eventually we moved off into a loose rein trot and there was a head bob. He didn't feel super lame but since he was on a loose rein, it was noticeable. It was definitely the type of lameness that I could have hidden if I had picked him up. Obviously I didn't pick him up to do that though. Instead I double checked with the barn owner that she was seeing it too and she was. So I went back to walk. I figured that we'd do a lot more walking and I'd supple him up a bit to see if that helped. After a good deal of walking, I tried trotting again. It was definitely better and basically not there at all tracking right, but it was still there tracking left. So I did a little more walking and called it quits. I paid even more attention to his legs when I was grooming again. The stockiness was gone and I couldn't feel any heat. I'm only about 60% worried at this point. He had gone out with his friend for the first time all weekend (because his friend was away at a show) the night before, so they might have played hard. He might have had some soreness from working harder the day before. I certainly don't think I pushed him too hard and he felt great through that whole ride, but you never know. It might also be time to look into injections for those front fetlocks. It might also be a career-ending suspensory injury because of those front fetlocks. I'm 75% sure it's one of the first two because he got better with more work AND he played with his friend a bit after our ride last night in turnout. He doesn't hurt too badly. I'm 20% thinking that it's just time for injections. There were one or two instances this winter where I maybe thought I might have felt an off step so I've been paying extra attention. I'm 5% thinking that he's broken forever because I wouldn't be a horse owner if a part of my brain didn't go to worst-case scenario. He'll get today off and I'll see how he's feeling Wednesday. If everything is back to normal, we'll have a few easy rides and get back on track. If he's still lame, well, then we'll have to dig further.

Knocking on Second's Door

Folks, Mort and I made up for our poor ride on Thursday with an awesome ride yesterday. I'd been wanting to hit a couple of second level items all last week, but it never worked out due to weather and the lesson. We got a couple of easy rides in instead of what I wanted. Easy rides aren't the worst for him mentally though, so whatever. If we have a couple rides where it's basically a glorified warm-up we're no worse off for it. (This doesn't really include the lesson and him getting away with being lazy for a whole ride.) We started off as we always do with several laps on the long rein. I stopped him from my seat a couple times. He is improving with these but he's still not perfect. He yielded off both of my legs well. We moved into trot on the loose rein. He thought about being lazy for a bit but worked out of it. I did some walk/trot transitions. We did some big changes of direction. I started to pick him up and do some smaller circles. I did a couple canter transitions. He was working into connection and we were starting to rock-and-roll. I decided to jump right in after a short walk break. I picked him up and asked for a walk/canter transition. He stepped right up, only a little off balance and against the hand. I told him what a good boy he was and we cantered a circle. I asked for a canter/walk and he only had a small moment of thinking trot before dropping to walk for me. I asked for another and it was just about perfect for where we are now. He stayed connected and stepped right into it for me. He got much praise. I should have stopped with that, but I am the worst and didn't. I asked for another and he ugly trotted. I brought him back down to walk and he was tense, so I did some figure eights and such at the walk to get his topline back. Once I had him back I asked for another and got one that was prompt but similar to the first. I still told him what a good boy he was and did call it quits on that one. I just did two the other direction and they were both decent, if a bit unbalanced and stiff. I then worked on a couple canter/trot/canter on the other lead and he was good. I need to remember to actually ride those few strides of trot and not just sit and pray for it to work out. After some canter work he got another walk break. By this point Mort and I were really clicking. He was jazzed and ready to go but still listening to half-halts and moving off my leg. I played with a couple of really good (for him) medium trots across the diagonal. I didn't even have to push and ask, I just allowed him to take me. It was a ton of fun, especially considering how much he's struggled with these in the past. I wanted to touch on the shoulder-in, across the arena, shoulder-in from 2-1. Mort killed it. It was easy and basically seamless. I (thankfully) learned my lesson with the canter transitions earlier and only asked for it once. At this point, I was running of out things to work on from 2-1. So, I decided to work on my sitting trot for more than just a few moments. Holy poop I am out of shape. I think Mort could theoretically get through 2-1 but I'm not sure I could at this point. We'll see how the next week goes. I'm heavily leaning toward just showing him first, but there is a 10% chance I might try second. I doubt it. We did some trot/halt/trot transitions that he also nailed. We ended the ride with more walk work. I do have to give credit to the instructor from last week with my head tilt. I'm definitely thinking about it not tilting right for now and it is helping. This was the best ride that Mort and I have had in a long while and it's not like we've been short on good rides lately. I can really feel second level and I'm happy that my boy is back in shape and we're ready to start stepping it all up again.

Lesson Re-cap

Let's just preface this with the biggest thing that I learned last night: Have more confidence in myself to communicate what my horse needs. The H/J gals at the barn had a big fancy H/J trainer down from Chicago. They have lessoned with her before and really enjoy her "attention to detail". They all had good things to say about her both before and after their lessons. So it's entirely probable that I had a bit of a dud lesson and it's not the trainer's normal. She was nice and did have correct things to say about a lot of things. I want to say that I'm sure she's extremely knowledgeable and clearly is good at her job according to a lot of people. It could have been a fluke or a difference in H/J versus dressage or something else entirely, but I definitely had a disappointing lesson last night. Mort and I did a couple laps of long rein walk, then we stopped to talk about where we were and what I was working on. I told her we were somewhere between first and second and we work on through-ness, and connection, and crookedness, and all of the regular things. She wanted to know if we had any lateral work (that was a red flag since you should definitely have at least some lateral work if you've already shown first as it's vital in training a horse to use its body). I told her we had leg yield and shoulder-in and that we had haunches-in and half-pass at the walk. She sent us back out to do our warm-up. This is where I should have warned her that we had a bit of a long warm-up. I almost did, but for some reason I stopped myself. I think I was worried about coming across bratty. I was paying for her expertise so she should see what we needed and perhaps have a few pointers on the warm-up itself. I'm really bad about doing what an instructor says during a lesson and not having a conversation about it because I don't want to come off as too big for my britches. Anyway, I didn't say anything and we went off to our warm-up. I did another couple laps of long rein walk with a couple halts from my seat. I started in on our long rein trot and big changes of direction. I did one trot/walk/trot transition. I barely started to gather him up for connection and she called us over and asked me to circle and we got to work. Mort was still behind my leg. He wasn't using his hind-end or reaching for contact yet. We hadn't cantered, which is vital in our warm-up because it helps get him going. Overall, I was about five minutes into what is regularly a fifteen minute warm-up. Again, I should have interjected here and asked for those additional 5-10 minutes. If Mort isn't in front of my leg we have nothing. We have the Mort I had this winter who is sticky and grumpy rather than the Mort that I like who is fun and game. Instead, I got on the circle with my barely training level horse who was pokey. I wasn't having to kick him to stay in the trot, but he was underpowered. She talked about my position and that I sat crookedly and tilted my head a bit to the right. Those things are true and things that I work on fixing. She was the first instructor who told me to look at the left shoulder instead of the right rather than just to look up. It did help, but I'm not sure looking down is the right answer. It may help me mentally to fix the right head tilt though, as it at least gets me thinking about it. I tried to throw in some figure eights like I would in our regular warm-up. I tried to do my systems check of yielding him off my legs. She had us stop and explained that his haunches were supposed to follow his front end rather than yield out. It was good that she didn't see me asking for exactly that and she wasn't wrong that we wouldn't want to do that on a regular circle. But again, not ideal that I didn't stand up for myself and tell her that I had asked for it. At this point, I figured out that she wasn't sure I knew a whole lot. This is fair, since I never told her my personal experience. I'm always scared to tell new instructors that I've ridden through fourth level in case I come off as "braggy" or it doesn't look like I ride like someone who has ridden at those levels. We then stuck to the circle which is something Mort isn't a fan of at the beginning of a lesson. He needs those long sides to rev his engine, mixed in with some smaller circles to challenge his balance. Needless to say, I never got the powerful Mort that I know is in there. She worked us bending inside and making sure his haunches didn't swing out. She asked for more connection and a higher connection with my inside rein and a lower and more allowing connection with my outside rein. These aren't bad tips as long as I don't get too uneven. But, I knew that so much of our struggle to even maintain a connection came from Mort just puttering along, so I was frustrated. We did this both directions. We did go over some cavaletti which was fun. Mort has gotten a lot better in the last three years of me not doing them which was a pleasant surprise. I'm guessing it stems from me making him more responsible for taking care of himself the last year. We took a walk break and then finally cantered. She wanted a more forward canter but we were still stuck on a large circle. I did get him a bit more forward in the canter than I could in the trot because he thinks it's more fun. At this point, I could tell that I wasn't riding up to my potential. My hips weren't as open as they should have been, nor were my shoulders back. Unfortunately, neither of those things were commented on. She just wanted me to work on my hands and connection. We went across the diagonal and did a couple of simple changes through trot in the corners. The long sides let me start to finally rev him up. She did call me on not riding the trot strides in the simple changes which was good. Right when we finally started to get a decent canter, she asked us to walk. She made a comment that he was sweaty and could hear him breathing in the canter, so she knew that this work was harder than his regular work. This frustrated me even more because it was so, so much lazier than our regular work. He is a naturally very sweaty horse and is always snorty in the canter. She didn't know either of those things, but bleh. At this point, I had gone on way too long in the lesson to correct her. We had been so lazy for so long that if I called it out I would have sounded like I was just making excuses. We ended the ride with some walk work on contact. She had made a comment earlier in the ride that I was riding against the walk which is something that no one had ever told me before as I usually am good about swinging my elbows with his mouth. So I asked for some clarification on that. We worked on it, and as soon as I stopped thinking about my hands and just focused on getting a good walk she said that I had it right. I'm guessing that we were a bit off because he had been so behind my leg earlier in the lesson and now that he was moving a bit better it worked itself out. So, Mort never really got in front of my leg or moving into contact until the last walk work. I was really frustrated because he hasn't felt like that for a whole ride since our dreaded lesson in March. We're capable of a whole lot more and I hated feeling like he was getting sticky again. There are a lot of emotions attached to that feeling for me. It was frustrating that she never called us out for not being forward. Not once did she say he needed to use his hind-end more. She talked about lowering it, but wanted me to do it via lifting my hands and having good connection. That's part of it, but definitely not the first step. This is where I think there is just a difference in H/J versus dressage. Every dressage instructor I've had gets on us right away for Mort being underpowered. It was embarrassing that I said we were trying to move up to second level and Mort never got past training level work. I don't care that we didn't work on specific lateral work or "tricks" but he never had the connection and thrust and carry that a second level horse should have. It made me look like I didn't know what I was talking about. I almost warned about a longer warm-up at the very beginning, but I didn't. I almost asked for a longer warm-up before getting on the circle, but I didn't. I almost asked to canter earlier while we were on the circle, but I didn't. I almost asked to do some long sides, but I didn't. A lot of this comes back on me. If I had set us up for success, I probably would have been able to get more out of the lesson. But unfortunately, I get to stew about Mort getting almost a whole ride being behind my leg and I get to stew about looking like an idiot who thinks her training level-looking horse is almost ready for second.