I have just ridden Jazz for only 15 minutes. In that time he gave me a couple of circuits each of walk, trot with lengthening and canter, a canter right half pass (super) and two canter left half passes and two trot left half passes which were genuine attempts to do the absolute best he could do. Totally different from normal where we fight for half an hour and then he grudgingly consents to try.
So we have one of two situations:
- being forced to comply with a very severe bitting arrangement yesterday has made him knuckle down and get on with working out how to do half pass left. I had the double back on today, so it wasn't the bit.
- being given two sachets of bute last night released a stiffness and/or pain and he was able to do it because of that.
What I am going to do now is leave things exactly as they are and wait for the bute to wear off. If the new ability to half pass left disappears with the bute then I will take him to have his hocks injected. If not, well he won't need it anyway :-)
I have a foot report for Ace for the fetishists out there :-) I have been worried since I got him about his bull-nose back feet, which were taking an age to get right. As you know, I was unhappy with the strength and lack of depth of his back foot heels. I have felt for quite a few months that it was likely that he actually had a negative angle in the back pedal bones. Finally, after eight whole months, his hind heels are beefing up and the bullnose (where the pedal bone has been pressing upwards and outwards against his hoof) are almost gone. He's walking better than he ever has and will now swing in walk under saddle with a massive overtrack.
Meanwhile, the quality of horn now looks spot on in all feet and I haven't had a split for about three weeks now, so it's all looking good now that these feet are all "my own" creation, if I may be so bold as to make that claim :-)
C
Not good pics I'm afraid as I had to grab them off a video and there wasn't enough light either. These are Ace's feet from when I went to view him. Hinds first. He was seriously overdue for shoeing and each foot had about an inch of hoof wall to come off. His hind feet, as you can I hope see, had a pronounced curve on the front of the toe and only a little of than is due to a farrier rasping off his toe. He also has severely underrun heels, much more obvious when you have taken off the height, and when I did take off the height they were terribly weak, much worse than his front ones.
Two case scenarios....either the sudden revelation of "how to half pass" has struck, or, as you suggest, the bute had an effect.
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested in hearing what the conclusions are when the bute runs its course.
HOWEVER, just in case, I may not be online in a day or so as the hurricane is bearing down on us. I do have a WiFi Internet connection, battery operated, but how a long all the charged up batteries will last is uncertain. Never fear if I don't comment. I will catch up ASAP.
I have just seen Jazz walk out of the barn into the field with the longest hind leg stride I can ever remember. I think the hock injections are looking more likely by the minute ....... I shall be watching very closely for a couple of days to see if that shortens up at all, irrespective of what the half pass does.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the weather Jean. we have just heard it is downgraded to a storm force 2 so I hope you escape any serious problems.
C
Possible 3rd case scenario is that the glucosamine, which takes weeks or months to kick in, is also kicking in. More likely to be the bute though.
ReplyDeleteC