July 14, 2006: Avoiding Heatstroke

I might have chosen a cool drink, but Quila went for the sure thing... avoid the heat of Ramona altogether! We were to have shown at Creek Hollow this weekend, but our plans had to be cancelled because Tequila cast herself in her stall. Nothing too serious, I think, but after discussing it with Jürgen, we’ve decided that the intelligent thing to do is to give her the weekend off and just tack walk until he can look at her on Tuesday because she has some swelling in the left hind. The amazing (frustrating) thing is that she managed to do this WHILE she was wearing standing wraps and to an area COVERED by the wraps! What the @(*&#? Now that’s one determined mare. (The temperatures on the COAST this weekend are projected to be 95 to 100º; I can only imagine what it will be like in Ramona). Of course, if she’d asked, I could have told her that they were using their indoor arena with misters going as the warm-up this show, and that the outdoor arena was for the rides,which were scheduled to be completed by 10:30 am. But she didn’t ask.

This enforced time off puts the kibosh (I think I spelled that right) on any hopes I had (I don’t think Quila particularly cared) for qualifying for the CDS Championships. There simply aren’t enough judges to ride for between now and the qualifying deadline, what with traveling to Lexington, VA to do the “Mom thing” for Susan and going to WEG. Oh, well. We should still be able to qualify for USDF, unless we screw up or this is worse than I think.

She actually injured herself on Wednesday. I hand-walked and iced her then, and rode her lightly (equal to our warm-up) yesterday. She was stiff when we started but then felt good yesterday, and the leg looked OK after the ride. We did a bit more (just a tiny bit)—I rode no more than 20 minutes, and only did easy transitions from walk/trot, trot/canter and canter/trot—today. No simple changes, no trot/halt, no collection, no extension. I kept things easy, and just asked for her to be loose in the poll and to give through the ribs (but kept my circles large, 15 meters or greater).

It was a really helpful ride, in that I learned a lot in 2 minutes. I was having trouble at the canter: she was traveling haunches in on the right lead, and coming against my right leg, stiff in the poll and I was having a tough time getting her to do a transition to trot without pulling. I was getting frustrated, since my new mantra is “Thou shalt not pull.” And I didn’t want to bring her up hard onto her you-know-what because of the hind leg... Fabian was riding another horse at the time, though, and had seen the problem. “Look,” he said. “You have to get her into your outside rein.” What? But she’s looking to the outside already? Increase the contact, and won’t we be facing the other direction in the arena? That’s what my instincts wanted to shout... “Let go of your inside rein NOW and half halt on the outside rein, and use your inside leg.” My instincts screamed NO. Boy, are they STUPID!

I did what he said, and PLOP, she softened in the poll, straightened, and the problem was solved. Then I heard Jürgen’s voice in my head. “She’s haunches in. Put your inside leg on and push her into your outside rein.” OK, Jürgen, now I get it. You meant I should stop trying to pull her to the inside and twist her into a pretzel with my inside rein, and do something that works instead. Thank goodness you’re German. An American trainer would be billing me extra for having to repeat themselves and for pain and suffering, because I’m so slow on the uptake... I’m sure Susan has said the same thing, too. I just wasn’t hearing it. I had to get to the “I’ll never pull again” place first, I think.

I also realized that it (today’s problem) STARTED because I hadn’t gotten her there (on my outside rein, in correct contact) from the FIRST canter stride. I waited (again) until there was a problem, and THEN tried to fix it. I DO HAVE TO GET BETTER ABOUT THAT.

Of course, now I won’t get to practice what I just figured out, at least for a few days, because the swelling increased from just the small amount of work we did. I’m hoping it was just the heat and nothing more, but as Jürgen said on the phone (he and the rest of the gang are at the CDI*** Woodside), a few days walking never hurt anybody. So, it’s ice, ice, ice and walking until he’s back and can take a look on Monday or Tuesday. It doesn’t look scary bad, but I don’t want to take risks with a horse as precious as she is to me.