Unsettled

Last night, I drove around the many, many washed-out roads to get to the barn (about which more later). I was meeting someone who wanted to look at my trailer at 6pm, and I got there at 5, so I longed.

It was, to say the least, dissatisfying. Tris was not particularly interested, and showed only glimmers of good work. He was capital-L-Lazy, and would not step out in the walk and kept hopping into the canter in the trot.

He settled into a lovely trot going left, finally, nice and stretchy but never settled in going right, even after some canters to get him warmed up and blowing. He just looked uncomfortable, stiff, and discombobulated. I couldn't place a specific problematic area: I watched his hocks, his front feet, his stifles, his back, everything to see where he was not using it effectively or not weighting properly. I was stumped. I can't describe it any more than he just wasn't using his body well, at all. His legs were clean, cool, and tight, his back was not sensitive, nothing obvious was out of sorts.

So who knows. It's possible he's been stuck inside the last few days and not getting as much moving about time as he needs. He's definitely due for his Pentosan, and that niggling in the back of my mind about hock injections has started again. We'll see.

Between that, the fact that the people who came to see the trailer did not buy it (they were lovely, but it wasn't right for them, sigh), and the tripling of the length of my barn commute due to washed out roads, not the best night ever.