GOOD NEWS!

Quila had a recheck today on her suspensory, and we received the ALL CLEAR!

She still has superficial swelling, but who cares? The tendon itself looks super with no sign of injury on the scan, and she flexes and jogs sound. We've been given the go ahead to return to light work for the next two to three weeks, and then if she still is looking good, we can slowly resume a full workload and potentially return to the showring at First Level by mid-June.

YIPPEE!

I know Quila will be thrilled, if for no other reason than she has completely lost patience with handwalking. I feel like I'm torturing her every time I get her out, based on the forlorn looks she gives me. She'll be much happier under saddle.

As usual, Jürgen was right--aggressive care did the trick. He'll oversee her shoeing this weekend (we have our German shoer coming), and also her rehab, and I have no doubt that she'll stay sound. He's worked miracles for me before... :D

Puzzling Questions Answered

So... they can explain the inner workings of the teenaged mind, but still can't tell us why the dressage arena letters are arranged as they are!?!?!?!

I'm excited. Creek Hollow Ranch is having a dressage SHOW, not just a breed show, for their May show date. That means that Tequila's daughter, Pik's Promise, will have her SHOW DEBUT. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this day! (Well, actually, anyone who has bred a horse and waited those 11 anxious months of a mare's pregnancy, then the three interminably long years for the foal to grow up, then watched while she was started under saddle... and paced while the young horse went through her own pregnancy and waited while she got fit again, then had a heart attack when she injured herself and had to have stitches under general anesthesia, but sighed with relief when the injury wasn't as bad as it looked, then waited patiently for her to heal and get fit again, and then waited for there FINALLY to be a show that was appropriate does probably understand. It's been a long time coming!)

Birthe will show her for me. Plans are to enter her in the Materiale Class and at Training Level. She is going well, is super-balanced and doing work far beyond Training Level, but it will be her first show--and her first time working away from home--so we'd like Birthe to be able to focus on making it a good experience for her and not on preparing her for the movements. We'll worry about what test she really ought to be showing at some point in the future. I'd like for her to get a lot of show experience this year with Birthe before I start riding her this Fall and showing her in the 2008 season.

Meanwhile, I'm riding Facet and having a wonderful time. Between additional trips to the gym for me (my nephew, who's about halfway through a certificate program as a personal trainer, has been seeing that I work harder than I normally would and making sure that my workout is balanced--he supervises every repetition that I do and every second of my cardio, so I couldn't cheat if I wanted to!) and Facet's insistence that I ride absolutely correctly, things are coming along and I'm starting to feel like I CAN ride. (Facet was making me look pretty bad there for awhile because he was so diligent at pointint out my bad habits).

I'm even getting cocky enough to think about riding Endor (with his HUGE gaits) in another few weeks.

Progress Report

Quila's showing slow improvement.

I was beginning to get alarmed when the swelling hadn't gone down at all after the first week, and there was still heat, but FINALLY, the last day or so, it has been looking better. She'll be thrilled when I tell her that tomorrow is the last day of Bute. She hates Bute.

The only part she likes is the twice daily bran mashes. She loves bran mashes. Of course, she'd like to have her grain, too, but given a choice, she'd pick bran mashes over grain in a heart beat. Go figure.

She also hates being handwalked. Anyone that sees us making our 7 laps of the perimeter of the property for our 30 minute stint remarks on it... her head hangs low, and her face, which always has a wealth of expression, has a look that says, "Why am I being punished? What did I do?" She looks absolutely miserable.

She is not a mare that needs words, her voice or action in order to communicate. You only need to look at her face. Her eyes and facial expressions speak volumes. Anyone can read her basic thoughts, and I never have to guess at what she's thinking.

I hope we'll get clearance for tackwalking when she's rescanned. She'd be much happier. That, at least, feels worthwhile to her. She'll have a bounce in her step and stop moping, stop looking like she's being led to the slaughter. I'll have to see if I can find someone to snap a photo... the misery on her face is almost laughable, like a small child with a big pout on.

Damn It!

We didn't get the news I'd hoped for yesterday.

Tequila has at least a strained suspensory, maybe a tear. There was too much edema surrounding the tendon to get a good view, so we're going to be doing aggressive conservative therapy to get the swelling and inflammation down over the next two weeks, and then rescan. THE GOOD NEWS? There was no obvious "black hole." THE BAD? We're off for at least a month. Bye, bye Del Mar National. Bye, bye DG Bar. Shit, shit, shit.

Worse yet. No fun with my favorite riding partner at all. She hates handwalking. So do I. She glared sullenly at me the entire 30 minutes today (and at Birthe during Birthe's stint).

So for now, it's Naquasone for 4 days, Bute for 10 days, and we're icing 4 times a day, handwalking for 30 minutes twice a day, and I'm poulticing it every night. And prayer. Lot's of prayer. I want my best buddy back as my riding partner.

Two weeks actually puts us in the middle of World Cup, and my vet is the official vet for the US Dressage competitors (not to mention that I plan to be in Las Vegas, too, leading the cheering section for Leslie Morse)--so our reassessment will have to wait until after we all get back.

Hmmmmph.

Say A Prayer...

As if creaky hocks weren't enough, yesterday, when I went to ride Quila, I found a new problem. She had swelling and heat in the suspensory/deep digital flexor tendon area of the right hind--all new. She's never had a problem there before, and she has no reason to have one there now, especially after the last week of work, which is less than 40% of the usual intensity. We've only done basic walk/trot/canter, no circles smaller than 15 meters, no forward/back within the gaits, no lengthenings.

She is the Queen of casting herself, but she's also smart about carefully pushing herself clear of the wall--and I keep her wrapped all the way around for just that reason. Her bandages were undisturbed. I hope it will turn out to be nothing. I iced it twice yesterday, then put her away for the night with it slathered in poultice. The vet is due out today for the hocks... I'll guess he'll be looking at it as well.

I didn't jog her, so I didn't get a sense of lameness. She didn't seem too bad at the walk (but I can never tell a darn thing at the walk, not unless she's so darn lame I can't bear to look).

The photo is from the Dressage Affaire Show, taken by Amy McCool. She said I could post it with attribution. It's our first photo in lateral work--the first one worth claiming, anyway.

WOW - Watch This!

A friend sent me the link to this video, and I found it to be one of the most amazing things I've seen... I have to share it. There are some people who have so much talent and artistry that they make your mouth drop open. This man is a juggler, and what he is able to do is unbelievable. Make sure your sound is turned on, since this is choreographed to music!

Creaky

Well, perhaps it wasn't ALL Quila's fault... A few days after the last show, Quila developed a little unevenness behind, more so on the left, that seems to be coming from her hock. We thought it might have been because she was a little long in the toe, making breakover more difficult, so we waited until after she was shod and gave her a few days to settle into her new shoes. She was better, but not normal.

She remained reluctant to take weight evenly behind--so we scratched from the Festival of the Horse CDI*** this past weekend, and the vet will be out this week to check her. My guess is that she's due for a "lube and oil change" in the hocks. We haven't had to inject anything for more than 2 years, thanks to joint supplements. She's been on high dose Legend until a few months ago, when I found she did better, with less on/off effect from LubriSyn--but now we've been showing every two weeks, and working hard schooling extensions and more collection, doing Second Level work, and I think her hocks are telling us something. Not surprising given her age--at 18, it's remarkable that she's done this well.