2022 Wrap Up

January: Yoshi started this month with a new diagnosis of left proximal suspensory desmitis. While I was told to keep him in light work through this, I gave him 30 days off for my own mental health. During this time he did have a corneal ulcer so we got to add eye medications to the list of experiences. Through JT's connections, I acquired an adorable lease horse, Ben! 

February: Yoshi got his hocks injected (even though he really, really didn't want to). I gradually started him back to work and figured out how to balance two horses. Ben and I got to know each other better and planned out a March BN for our first event together. I also listed Yoshi for sale, disclosing his loooong medical history. 

March: Yoshi found himself a new home with a woman who loves him and totally understands thoroughbreds. We're FB friends and I enjoy her photo updates of Yosh, he found himself a great person. Ben and I did our first show together and continued to spend the rest of the month getting to know each other. 

April: Ben and I moved back up to Novice and after a beautiful dressage test and acceptable stadium round, kinda fell apart on cross country. He came to me having done A LOT of novice events, but with a spotty XC record. I wallowed in a bit of guilt for adding to it, then JT and I got to work. At the end of the month, I decided to buy him out of his lease.

May: Unfortunately Ben rewarded me for buying him with TWO MONTHS of abscess hell. I contemplated kayaking and mountain biking as two other possible outlets for all the free time and money I was going to have when I gave up horses. While all signs pointed to the lameness being JUST an abscess, we couldn't rule out collateral ligament issues completely. 

June: We continued our abscess saga. Due to concern over collateral ligament injury we also did about two weeks of stall rest, during which Ben BOUNCED on my arm with his front foot while hand "walking". So I switched to tack walking, but even on trazodone or dorm, he wasn't particularly safe to walk. I threw him back outside, hoping I wasn't making the wrong decision. I was rewarded with THE MOST EXCITING CASEOUS MATERIAL EVER in a hoof boot one day! In spite of the emotional difficulty of May and June, it was interesting learning things about my new horse - how does he handle stall rest, what was he like for veterinary work. I knew from his sarcoid treatments that he was phenomenal for vet work, but it was interesting to see how stall rest went. To be fair he handled it well for the first week, but after that things kinda fell apart mentally. 

July: Ben moved to the GY's since we finally waved farewell to his abscess and the questions of whether or not something more was going on. He also got a course of gastrogard which helped check his brain back in after it kinda checked out on stall rest. 

He also started his development as a trail horse with some hacks around the GY's neighborhood

August: First and most important, Ben volunteered as an acupuncture demo horse  and LOVED the whole experience. He continued to endear himself to me as just the most pleasant horse to be around. He won the students and instructor over in the same way, smiling at everyone and enjoying the spotlight on him. We were also back in full work at this point. We did a novice CT at Majestic Oaks, too hot for all three phases at once, but the CT went very well. Then we schooled at Majestic, our first cross country school since April, and he was SUPER. We started adding in training cross country fences. We did attempt a move up to 1.0m at a jumper schooling show that did NOT go well and got JT and I brainstorming about our move up to training. I had shared with her that my stretch goal was to go to AECs at training in 2023 and she took me seriously. 

September: This month we enacted the plan in which Ben learned how to be a training horse with JT. 

And he looked so good doing it! Back to Sweet Dixie to jump the 1.0m with JT - not breathing the first round, but finally taking a breath the second round

He's just so handsome

Schooling some before his training level debut 

September was also the month that my heart cat had TWO surgeries to place a subcutaneous ureteral bypass device (and then revise the placement) for a ureteral stone

Given my emotional feels with my cat in September, it was a relief to hand Ben's reins over to JT for a bit. I was still riding him at home, but she competed him twice - Majestic schooling show at Training and the Sweet Dixie South schooling show with two rounds at 1.0m. 

October: Ben had his recognized training level debut this month with JT at the Ocala Fall HT with a 2nd place finish overall and champion training level TIP award. He was still screaming a bit in cross country, so we played with a bit change. She took him out again at Majestic for just a XC round to trial that bit change and said he was the most pleasant and just galloped around easily. He and I geared up for our training level debut at the POP show later in October, but our stadium fell apart when he had sore feet. Somehow the same combination of leather pad, dental molding, and shoe that he had been very happy in ended up getting sand under the toes making him quite sore. We regrouped and scratched POP and dropped to Novice at the Rocking Horse HT. 

November: We had a GREAT show at Rocking Horse - finishing on our dressage score - 3rd out of 19. He cantered around stadium beautifully and felt confident and forward on cross country. We went back to Majestic for another jumper show at the end of the month and did two 1.0m rounds, each with two rails, but we jumped the dang jumps! 

December: December confirmed Ben as a training level horse - we started with a confident outing at Rocking Horse with a 29.4 in dressage, one rail in stadium, and a clear cross country round. Good enough to put us in 5th for his second recognized training HT and my first ever. Stadium definitely still needed the most work - we put three strides in a two stride line, but cross country felt AWESOME! 

Ben also got to be an acupuncture demo horse again and got stellar reviews from the instructor. Then we headed back out for the POP show at training level. Stadium continued to be a challenge with two rails and a whole two strides in a one stride line. Cross Country he felt solid though. AND we got to do the whole thing with reindeer antlers on, what a way to finish the year! 

Didn't finish the year fixing my hands though... 

Cutest lil reindeer through the water