Studdly

Do you all remember when Tracy came out and did the myofascial release on Ashke’s gelding scars? During that session, she acknowledged how unhappy and enraged and betrayed he was at the gelding. And then she told him that he could still act on the best parts of stallion behavior. 

I think he missed the “best parts” of that sentence and heard “You should act like a stallion”. 

I have been hearing stories about him rearing, striking, and putting his feet through the fence trying to get to the mare next to him. I have seen him acting like a dodo-head whenever he feels his “herd” is leaving him. As personable as he is, he doesn’t need to tangle with the fence. 

When we got back from our vacation, I rode on Saturday to get him warmed up and moving again. On Sunday, we did a lesson, where he felt amazing and we just kept saying “canter leg yields? No prob. Let’s do canter half-pass” until his SI fell out. I felt it and Amanda saw it. We tried another exercise and he locked up again, so we stopped and waited to talk to the chiro. On Monday night, he was full of himself and there was no one else at the barn, so I groomed him and hand walked him to get grass. He was moving just fine. Sometime between Monday night and Tuesday at noon, Ashke managed to hurt his neck. 

It was bad enough that he did not want the chiro to touch him and ended up running backwards down the aisle. She said his SI was out, but went right back in. The underside of his neck, however, was exceedingly sore. Not skeletal sore, but muscle sore. My guess is, he hung himself up in the fence between he and a mare. She used accupuncture on the muscle, but he was still swollen and a bit sore on Saturday, the next time he was worked. He felt a touch sore, but seemed to work out of it and I didn’t do a whole lot. Mostly we worked on some canter and a lot of lateral work.

Today, he was pretty sore to start, but warmed up out of it again. Amanda watched him very carefully while we rode. We did a lot of lateral work at the trot and then again at the canter. He even gave me an unasked for flying change. (Both Amanda and I are very excited about putting changes on him this winter). Again, Amanda was careful with the exercises she was having us do, to ensure we weren’t stressing his chest. We worked on every corner being a square corner, spiral circles at the canter, riding one handed in the canter-walk serpentine, and lots of lateral work. It was very exacting work on my part, (although it was awesome to hear Amanda’s mom say “her elbows have gotten so quiet and he is doing so much better.”)  I had sweat dripping off my chin onto the saddle by the time we were done.

He got rinsed and rubbed with Sore No More. Tomorrow, I will do a road ride with Manuel and Mexicano and just let him move easily without asking much. Wednesday, another lesson then an appointment with the chiro on Thursday and hock injections on Friday. After that, he should be ready for our last two shows.

Out with the Arab-Friesian cross mare, Kat

And we were worried about how we would catch them