Well done, Butterball

Pony pants had his recheck ultrasound on Monday. On ultrasound, the lesion is healed, hooray! So we're back to aqua pacing and trotting under saddle. But according to histology studies, these injuries take a FULL YEAR to heal completely. Fun stuff ya'll, but still, I'm so happy he's doing as well as he possibly could. 

Don't mind the poo colored water, he had to go! 

He'll have another check at the end of August, just prior to insurance coverage for this injury expiring, then we'll start with canter. His vet did say I could canter "a few strides in straight lines". But that's kinda tricky, y'know? The canter is our weakest gait by far. So will it be beneficial to be able to pick up the canter then need to immediately trot again? Who knows, we've got some time to play with it. 

A Different Kind of Pond

Sadly this drought has drastically limited our fitness opportunities. While we can ride out for miles from home, which Leah pointed out is a privilege in itself for sure, the ground is too hard for me to feel safe doing a lot of trotting or cantering. I'm still protective of pony's feet and am trying not to find the line where he gets bruised (and this was true before I pulled his shoes as well). Meanwhile, diesel prices mean that a weekly haul to Sweet Dixie isn't ideal either. I started to look at water options, but nearby poor Dinner pond is completely dry. There is another lake quite close to there, but there's a lot of vegetation. When DH ad I checked it out the other night there was a gator gliding quietly around. I am pretty positive a gator wouldn't attack a pony, but that's pretty positive, not 100% positive. After some mulling, I figured that while I'm happy to swim in lakes and ponds in Florida, I could never forgive myself if Butterball got mauled. 

But I poked around and found another door! I contacted the veterinary/rehab clinic that is right around the corner from my house and the farm, and they do in fact offer aquatredding. Butterball has been to aquatred a few times, part of a package deal I had leftover from rehabbing Ben. But that clinic is even further away than Sweet Dixie, so it was great to find this location less than ten minutes away. 

Butterball had his first session (of 16, but no one tell him that) on Friday. The staff greeted us and let him poke around in the area where the treadmill was. Like before, I asked if we could try him without sedation since he's a pretty chill dude with pretty low motivation levels. They were totally game to see if we could get him used to the whole thing without drugs, but their vet was there just in case he did need something. 

I immediately liked the tech who led his session, she had that calm demeanor that animals are just drawn to and Butterball was no exception. She walked him through the treadmill a few times before okaying closing him in. Once he was closed in, they started the belt. He just took a second to get used to that. I very much appreciated the veterinarian supervising the whole session. She watched him from the front and side, making sure his walk was staying 4 beat and that he was straight on the belt. She recommended turning up the speed at one point because he would get close to the front then pause and slide back, going a bit faster prevented that. As she said, he should march, that's his job. 

He was pleased to have FOUR people fawning over him and paying attention to him and didn't mind the treadmill moving. Then they added water. He immediately stuck his face down into it, but was most DISPLEASED to find that it was salt water. Sorry buddy. 

But after that little disappointment with accompanying faces, he was just a star. We're going again on Wednesday and they'll add a bit more water, eventually working up to it being about at his elbows. I'm excited to have this as our latest fitness tool! 

Week 1

As noted by our appearance at the POP show, we launched right in to doing the thing our first week together. I also scheduled him for some aquatredding since I had leftover sessions from when Ben went. He was great about it. They asked about sedating him, but given that when he got 0.2cc of dorm for his foot rads for his PPE he was soooooo sleepy he let the cross ties hold him up for a solid thirty minutes, I asked if they could try without. They walked him through a few times and then started the belt moving a bit, then stopped that and added some water. He was such a good dude for the whole thing. 

I've also been letting him ride in the "box stall" version of the trailer like the princess he is 

Heading on in

Good lad! 

On technically day 8 of being his person, we headed to the Local Champions Tour. We signed up for one round at 0.8 and one round at 0.9. I had wised up since my trip with Ben and while I looked at their projected schedule, I decided to arrive at the scheduled end of the 0.8m section. I worked late the night before so wanted every minute of sleep I could get. It worked out and we arrived just as they were finishing the 0.7m. I wandered around, scoping out the course, and BB munched grass. 

While the warm up ring was every bit as chaotic as it was when Ben and I went, I felt more confident and settled on BB. He also is just a doll about traffic and gives no shits about approaching other horses. We focused on going forward in two point after landing and then sitting and rocking that forward power back onto his hocks through the corner and on approach to the fence. It mostly worked well and our 0.8m round was pretty smooth with just one rail when I got... casual to a fence. JT told me to ride him like a big powerful horse not let him slip into a pony feel. 

There were a bunch in the 0.8m class and then a drag break, so he got his bridle off and ate more grass. 

#spoiled

We geared back up for the 0.9m class by popping a sizeable oxer in warm up. It came up perfectly both times, and we headed on in. The round went... Okay. JT said I was riding much better than at the POP show, but I just kept missing. He wasn't bothered by it much but I couldn't see a distance to save my life. The line that went the best was a one stride then a forward six to an oxer. Since I had concrete advice (ride forward on the inside turn) we did the one stride and then did a lovely forward six to the oxer. We ended up with just one rail down, but a ton to smooth out on my part. This is part of the reason why he is living at JT's for this month - plenty of lessons. 

The next day we went for an hour hack with a friend around the back field. The next day we tacked up with that same friend and headed to Sweet Dixie again for some galloping/slogging up hills. It was a bit tricky to find the driest areas because they were not necessarily the higher ground. But we sorted that out mostly. 

All ready to go. So cute. 

We did 20 minutes of trot and then 3x3 minutes canter, incorporating the large hill into each canter set at least once. The two horses made a GREAT pairing. My friend's horse is a TB who can be a bit firey and BB sometimes needs encouragement to keep going up the hill. So they complemented each other quite well and we had a great time getting some fitness work in. 

All in all a delightful first ten days with him. He is such a pleasant dude to do all the things with <3