Mini Ride Recaps

Thursday’s ride was an experiment.  Since we struggled so much on Tuesday with getting that fun, forward driving from behind feeling that was going to be a focus Thursday.  I wanted to see if he really didn’t want to go forward or we had something else going on (mainly I was thinking about his soundness at this point).  I jumped on and pushed him out in the walk immediately.  I got a couple of angry tail swishes, but he did lengthen his stride.  We had pretty much the same responses in both trot and canter. 

So why did we (and why do we on a regular basis) struggle so much with forward on Tuesday?  Well he’s happy to go forward, but when we’re tracking left I have some serious problems with getting him supple and moving off of my leg.  I lose the outside shoulder and he becomes dull to my aids.  My response is to half-halt, but I don’t push him forward enough again after that.  Moral of the story is that it’s a training problem and not a pain problem.

Tracking right he does really well with being forward and lateral, so that’s good.  I just need to work more on him tracking left—really get that inside leg to outside hand feeling.  Get him quicker off my aids for turning that outside shoulder.  Get that left hind to really push AND go underneath him.  All of this with my stupid left hand who wants to hold Mort up every stride. 

Friday Mort had a little swelling and heat on the inside of his left hind pastern.  He was sound, but I gave him the day off.  I also was going to a tack auction with a few folks from the barn, so it was moderately ok with me.  Saturday the swelling was down a touch, but there was still a little bit of heat.  I hopped on him and felt maybe one or two bobbles tracking left so we took it easy and wandered around in the field.  I lunged him Sunday so that I could watch how he went.  He looked 100% sound, but still had that touch of heat on the inside (no swelling at least).  Monday he had off because by the time the vet looked at him it was 6:00 and I wanted to get home to cook dinner and relax.

It's hung on a bit more than I expected.  He seems sound, but I’ll re-assess this evening and maybe cold hose if it’s still there.  My plan is to just take it easy until all of the heat is gone.  Annoying horse.