Forward

So after a pretty crappy jump school, I am still so confused.  Uno's back was good. He warmed up well.  We kept the ride short.  And the wheels still fell off. Uno jumped every jump, but the flat part was a hot mess.  However, this has lead to a revelation - he was behind the leg.

A very simple little course.

Which should be elementary, but Uno is deceptively hot and quick.  Once I got him forward the rest of the ride may have been questionable, but his back smoothed out and we stopped drifting through the turns.  He also stopped bucking.

Short, choppy, and tense

My eye was trash and he kept trying to run back to the barn, but there were some nice moments and he jumped everything in great form.  His lower back/ hips were a little sensitive post ride, so he got rubbed down with Back on Track arnica liniment.  Monday his back was good, even to be curried.

Much softer through the back.

I was going to ride yesterday, but a quick 10-minute breathing test turned into a 90-minute doctor's visit.  They tried treating me with a nebulizer, which always makes me shake.  So I skipped riding, put the horse out on the grass and laid in the hammock.

Today he is going to trail ride a few miles.  If all is good we will trot - if he is tense we will walk.  Our usual pattern before the weather shut down the idea of trail riding at all was to trot out 2 ish miles then walk back. Depending on the footing that may be what we do today, or we may just walk.

As you can see he is MUCH happier out of the ring.  This is from when we could canter on the right lead at all in the ring.

I just have the feeling that if we could get him to soften and poke his nose out a tool around like a hunter, his back problems will good away.  I honestly think that the problem comes in because he gets SO tight and tense in his back that he makes himself sore.

We usually spend multiple days a week out here... but the weather ruined most of our trails for so long.

We have a tentative vet appointment for the 2nd week of April - the big time vet I want to look at him is almost 2 hours away, but make a few runs to big barns by us each month.  We missed his visit to the dressage barn this week, but have added our names to his next trip down here.

I just want him to be happy goober!