What’s Been Going On

As you all may have noticed not a lot of stuff being posted at ye old Fat Buckskin lately. There are several contributing factors so going to update you all some so you know I am not just being rude! 🙂

Ollie

Ollie ended up being diagnosed with Cushings this month (started testing in January). Early stages and just a liquid medicine but omg not having to get up every two hours to take him out at night is lovely. He seems to be doing well on the meds too! Whew. He is a cute stinker no matter!

Weather

It has been cold and rainy and icy except when it is not. Weirdest damn weather. It is almost 70 today will be back in 40s during the day by Thursday with you guessed right, rain tomorrow.

Speaking of Weather

I did something to my knee last week in the ice storm. Don’t remember actually hurting it but it was bad enough this weekend to go to Urgent Care. It is a bit better now but def flares up at night. If it does not actively improve off to Ortho I go. This past weekend I had to grab my leg to lift it in the car, bed, you name it. NOT fun. And it hurt to bend and straighten out both. SO odd. Meanwhile because I could not bend my leg at all I skipped riding Remus this week. It hurt to think about trying to get on my horse so I added a training ride to his week. Which is the second ride and the best idea ever!

Remus Training Rides

Why so good? Because Karen the person riding him is a gem. And she writes up the notes in Remus’s folder to just the best extent to make sense and look back on. The price of that training ride is nothing compared to the take away I get (and Remus gets from it) I am thinking of utilizing Karen a few times a month to just keep Remus going as we enter into CONVENTION HELL MONTH.

Training notes from Karen:

ACTIVITY: 45 minutes- under saddle with a focus on stretching through spine while maintaining hind end engagement. No leaning on the forehand

OUTCOME: Walk, trot , canter both directions. Right stifle clicking audible during walk. Remus tends to extend his head long and low while leaving his hind end way out behind him. This produces short choppy strides because he is on the forehand. By the end of the ride Remus was moving forward, loose in the shoulders and his back rounded (he grew 2 hands):)

INTERVENTIONS: I used a good 15 minutes walk warm up with frequent circles leg yields, turn on the forehand. I then progressed to transitions; walk halt, halt to working walk, halt to trot-no rein to minimal aid transitions- backed up 5 strides and immediate trot. 20 meter circles while maintaining forward momentum. Once I felt the trot become forward and loose I began 15 -10 meter circles and serpentines while keeping the tempo throughout the turns. When we were able to do this, i then asked for the canter- NO bucking or hesitation noted- picked up correct lead both directions.

RECOMMENDATIONS: long warm up. Get him loose and off the forehand. When asking for the canter “No leaning forward” Remus needs our help in keeping him off the forehand if  we lean forward it is very hard for him to engage his backend. If he does not have a good working trot, it is challenging for him to obtain the transition. ( don’t let him run into it- half halt to rock him back then push-) Michele knows this but some of the student may not understand the why.

How amazing is that?? I love this.

Convention is Nigh!

And finally my life is nuts because it is February and convention is in February. Work is intense. Life is not much better, I feel I sit in front of this computer to work 12 hours a day (and do some days). Mark is traveling. And so on and so on.

Anyway, hope to ride this weekend and maybe just maybe get some blog content that is worth reading. Happy Tuesday!