Tristan walked and trotted sound on the longe line on Tuesday night, and when I examined his foot, there was no pus at all. We'd been going back and forth on whether the pus was some sort of weird moist environment reaction to the meds in the poultice, or whether it was drainage. The poultice had dried thoroughly and stayed stuck to the bottom of his foot during Tuesday, even though he lost the rest of the boot, and so created a mostly-sealed environment. No pus inside that means I am confident that it was drainage after all.
Wednesday night I rode, and while he felt all sorts of stiff and hinky, he also felt even in the way he struck the ground, which T. confirmed, through the walk, trot, and canter. It makes sense that after a week off and on stall rest he wouldn't feel great. I stayed on long enough to confirm to myself that a) he wasn't sore in his feet at all and b) his whole-body issues were related to the stall rest, and I could feel how to work through them. I didn't want to push him too far and make him sore after being still for so long. I soaked his RF one last time, since I was there anyway, and took his "DO NOT TURN OUT" note off his door.
C. checked in on him last night to clean out that foot, and reported that while he was sick of having his feet messed with, he looked good otherwise. I'll go down tonight and focus on stretching and straightening and working him through and getting him ready to go XC tomorrow.
Not an ideal place for a lesson - mentally or physically - but I feel good about his soundness, and I will present our challenges to the trainer before we begin. If he shows signs of soreness or it's not going well, we'll pull up. I do hope we'll be able to school productively, though, as this is our confirmation/confidence-booster before going BN at the Groton House Summer Classic next weekend.
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