Progress at last !

Progress at last, but not with the horses, with Allan. He rang the hospital to which he should have been referred to thirteeen days ago. They had no knowledge of his referral, which means it is either lost, again, or that it was sent very recently and not yet arrived,  or has not yet been sent. Considering that the consultant said that he would make sure it was sent on the Wednesday following our Tuesday meeting, this is absolutely inexcusable.

BUT, the hospital could not be better. They asked about the details, said the delay was unacceptable, have already scheduled a meeting with one of the two surgeons who will operate and completely took over responsibility for chasing up his file. At last. Someone who cares. We feel like a weight has been lifted off our shoulders. The op should now take place in mid-late May, and not a day too soon. As each day goes by he has less breath and has to walk shorter distances at a slower pace. We are still on four miles, but we used to do five and a half on the hills, and now we are on the flat and taking a break half way around. It's not fun to see a great big strong man slowly fade away like this :-(

I'm going to rest Jazz today, because I want him full of beans tomorrow, when he does his first Medium dressage test (Jo Graham would roll her eyes in disbelief, I'm sure :-)   I hacked him on Saturday and he was very flat on Sunday and lacking energy compared with his normal self. I'm planning to take Ace out for a hack on the fields for the first time. He's not a spooky horse, so we should be OK and it will be lovely in this blazing sunshine. I'll update later to say how it went.

C


Update:  Ace out on open fields.


I have got to know Ace now and although the napping is a little concerning, I also know that he bucks or kicks once and only once. And that he is easy to turn to stop him heading for home if he does throw a tantrum. Lastly, I now know that he is a quiet fretter when things worry him, and I can tell the signs when he is getting overwrought and back off what is causing it. So I took him up the field opposite the house and headed for a flat-ish bit on the top. I don't think he can ever have been on a piece of lumpy ground in his life, he was working very hard to keep his balance.  I love this ground for teaching horses self-carriage and I will be doing more of it with him, particularly because I think he is a horse who will be terribly bored by constant schooling, unlike Jazz who was quite happy to do the same old thing every day.

I put Ace on a very big circle on the top but it soon became apparent that being in sight of home was a bad idea, particularly on the side of a hill where a bad nap could see us tumbling head over heels down a serious slope to home. I did not feel safe enough to have the confidence he needs to feel from me, so I moved to a place that was less flat, but not in sight of home, and where I had a decent length of field to get him under control before he came to any serious drops.

On the right left, he would walk and trot circles. On the right rein he would not complete the trot circles, but napped towards home where the bend should have taken him away from the path home.

Now I have a conundrum. If he is only napping, why does he only do it on the right rein and not the left? If his stomach is still bothering him, why is  he no longer girthy, and why does he only do it when he is pointing towards home and I am trying to turn him away?

I am not happy about the continued napping, it does not seem to me to fit with what I know of his character (and it frightens me - one buck is easy enough to sit but you have no idea when he does the one whether he is suddenly going to learn how to throw several in a row!)  On the other hand, it fits exactly with how you might expect a newly broken 4 year old who is fit and well fed and on spring grass - all three at once for the first time in his life - to act. In fact, compared to many, one single buck occasionally is probably on the mild end!

I have put him on a full treatment dose of omeprazole in addition to the Settelex, to see if that makes any difference. If it does not, and if schooling does not sort this out within a week or so, then I will be looking for outside help to identify any body issues that might be causing this. I can't see any, and he has no problem lunging right. (He also appears to have no problem trotting right once I have made it clear that bucking is not going to stop me from repeating my request and giving him a big kick with my boots, which really does suggest that this is behavioural, especially as he stopped bucking once I sat the trot circle instead of rising.) So if it's a body issue it is caused by my weight in the saddle and I am trying not to think about kissing spines or hock/stifle joint issues that might give rise to one-sided pain - far too soon to worry myself about that. Won't stop me though, that's how I'm made :-)

On the good side, he hacked out nicely except for the right rein circles and was very controllable. He has a lovely mouth and he let me help him balance going up and down some fairly severe hills. He is very unspooky, let me get on easily from a broken down stone wall and was generally a very good boy. More hacking will do him a lot of good, I think, and me too, especially if this incredible weather continues..

C