First things first: not lame!

I explained the things I'd been noticing to T. before we even got the lesson started, and he watched us warm up - head-jerking, inconsistent contact, etc. - and put us through our paces veryvery thoroughly, with improvement in spots. Then we talked about it for a while.

The upshot is: shortness in the right hind. Which is not unusual; it's always been his weakest limb. T. did not see any discomfort or pain, more of a mechanical stiffness/habitually limited range of motion. Which is to say, he's fifteen, and this is the first time in his life he's being asked to really truly swing his hind end. Probably evenly split between his stifle and his hock. He can reach and extend without pain, he'd just really rather not. So add a dash of laziness on top of it all.

So what's happening is he's coming up short with the right hind - not necessarily a problem tracking right, but tracking left he's not getting the thrust he needs to (as T. explained it, most of the lifting power comes from the inside hind, most of the thrust from the outside hind), then offloading the problem onto his left front, which is throwing him off balance and making him jerk his head up.

Solution is, as always, kick-kick-kick-kick. Bend him inside, half-halt outside, push him onto the outside rein and then make damn well sure the outside hind is doing its fair share. Supple with the left wrist, bend around the left leg, half-halt the right hand, kick-kick-kick-kick the right leg. Several circles of come-to-Jesus and we were going 2-3 strides evenly and with power; once we could get that more or less consistently, we had a bit of a walk break. Picking up again, I worked HARD on the same problem in the walk, where it was a bit easier to convince him to swing through. He wasn't exactly pleased at all of this, mind, but once I closed off every available exit door, he sighed and farted and acquiesced.

By the end of the lesson, he'd loosened up nicely, and we had some really glorious canter complete with spiralling in and out both directions, and a big powerful swingy trot on a long rein a few times around to stretch out.

So: old horse, new tricks. Though as T. points out, we're kinda victims of our own success. It's not like this is new for Tris, more like by the time we used to get to this level of the work it was the last five minutes of the ride, and he was already warmed up and loosened. So he wasn't really having to work very hard to muscle through it. Now, we're warming up with the work we used to finish with, and he's not quite supple enough to support that work so early in the ride. It's just a time-patience-work thing, though; strengthen that right hind, get the joints used to moving, loosen up the joint fluid, and blow his little mind. He's already on glucosamine and I just started him on MSM about 3wks ago. We're getting more bute on Friday from the vet; for the next little while, I might make him a little bran mash with bute after days he's worked hard.

Horses are so neat sometimes; every small little thing adding up and figuring it out and working on it is always like putting together an incredibly intricate lifelong puzzle. I love it.

Long time, no talk. Mostly very very good, straight uphill as Tris is starting to learn to not just accept the bit, but push through his hind end, up into his back, and in line with his shoulders. He's getting stronger, and the canter is coming along nicely.

Alas, tonight, after a week and a half of scheduling disasters that left him mostly-off-with-just-C.-riding, I went out and while grooming him, discovered a whopping big edema on his chest, about the size of my fist. Further investigation revealed a tick buried in him at the origin point. Fifteen minutes of some rather excruciating digging with tweezers and I still couldn't get all of it - the area around it was swollen, and it was dug in pretty good. Tris was a trooper, only shifting his feet occasionally to show his displeasure, and checking for my face after kneeing me in the forehead once. We had words, and he was very sorry.

So on second diagnosis: not an edema, an abscess from the tick bite. He always gets them, though usually before on his face. I cleaned and swabbed away with Corona, showed a few people who will be at the barn all weekend so they'd know to keep an eye on him, and rode.

Riding was...eh. He was stiff and fussy in contact, and sort of jumpy-forward, not power-forward, which I had some trouble channeling. I was also not navigating the outdoor ring very well, couldn't find a good circle until halfway through the ride, and all the changes of direction and bend so early were not sitting well with him. But eventually he settled in to work nicely, and we even blew out for some gallops down the long side.

The problem, though, was his trot to the left. Something funky's going on. It could be a veryvery mild lameness or it could be his new style of resistance. He has switched sides again, and was superb to the right and a beast to the left tonight, so that could have triggered this newly weird bracing to the left. But his head is jerking ever so slightly, and he's not nearly as consistent in the contact as he was. He showed a tiny hint of this in my lesson last week, but T. didn't say anything, so I set it out of my mind. This time, though, C. saw it as well, and I don't know. She agreed that it's tough to place. If he's still doing it next Tuesday for my lesson with T., I will bring it up and get his word on whether it's my riding, Tristan's resistance, or we need to give him a week+bute or something first-line like that.

The slightly good news is after the ride, the abscess was better, had clearly drained a bit, and the Corona stuck on nicely. I am away for the weekend - again! - so C. will keep an eye on him. I don't think this will need hot compresses, just scrubbed out with hot water and swabbed with Corona to keep the wound site itself clean.

Sigh. Not exactly what I was hoping for on such a gorgeous day...

Again with the sucking about keeping this up.

First: unexpected jump lesson on Tuesday, and it was awesome. Tris came out spunky and a bit tight, but forward and ready to rock and roll; he hadn't been ridden in four days. He warmed up great, and I got to work on floating my seat and half-halting him to a better tempo instead of booting him forward into one. The trick with him is balancing on that edge, keeping that gathering without letting him think he gets to slip back down a gait to make it easier.

Jumping went well - when I ride better, he jumps better, surprise. Some of his new maneuverability in the canter translated beautifully in the rollbacks we were trying. I had a couple of reallllly nice jumps, and only one truly awful one; he took a teensy bit of a long spot, I wasn't as deep in my stirrups as I could've been, and just...never got into two point. T. described it as parasailing. Quite the flyer.

At the end, we got to just canter around and jump what we wanted, and Tris was a bit tired and punky, kept breaking his canter or not rating, and after each jump I was thinking about many things and kept getting a teensy bit more and more into my knee rolls and out of my stirrups. Which resulted in a brief time out as we circled and re-organized, and had 2-3 quite decent last jumps. But for reference: the loose ring he's going in now is not going to be enough bit to jump anywhere but the indoor. It is a bit too subtle for my black-and-white pony.

Last night was...not nearly that good. It wasn't even 5% that good. It was one of the worst rides I've had in weeks and weeks. Started off not awful: bending nicely in the walk, then springing in the trot but not quite through, and still tense enough that he wasn't blowing out like I was hoping. He was also reluctant to move off the inside leg, though he had outside leg down cold - spiral in was great; spiral out was a negotiable thing. I just couldn't quite fix it, and am still nervous about riding in traffic, so couldn't really shove him out the way I wanted too.

I asked for canter earlier than I usually would to try and blow him out - sometimes that will loosen him up. And it. was. AWFUL. It felt like riding a washing machine that's out of whack. He was off balance, high-headed, cranky, and my seat immediately went to hell and my legs came up, we had horrible fights about not running through his shoulder, no semblance of softness to speak of, hard to keep him there more than a few strides, constantly got the wrong lead...you name it. I was practically in tears after a few attempts - and it didn't even accomplish what I hoped. I settled for a decent down transition and a bit more forward swinging trot, and gave him a break.

Picking him up again after his break felt better. Still not what I'd call "good," but his trot came back quickly, and I asked for a better contact - really into the outside rein instead of just curling his neck. He was tracking up a teensy bit more, though he never quite got where I wanted him. Canters were...well, better, but again that's not saying much. He was at least getting some circles through, and not trying to fling his head around and crash into the other horses, though Bobby, who was cooling out, was not convinced, and tried to swing and double barrel Tris when we came around one circle. So that was fun. Can't really blame him; it probably looked rather out of control.

He got a teensy bit soft at the end of each canter, and I called it done on that work for the day. Back to the trot, then a break. After the break, walk-trot transitions on a circle and through leg-yields to try and inject more energy into his walk, then some stretching in the trot, and then done.

I don't know what to do about his canter anymore. I can't ride it well, and we keep taking one step forward and three steps back. I don't know if he's stiff from the cold, or if it's mental, or what. I spent most of the ride home nearly in tears sorting out what I'm doing wrong: I'm out of shape, I'm not riding him enough, he's getting older and stiffer, and in the end, I've had this horse for over four years and we still can't canter decently. I can't go down to the barn any more than I am; I'm already struggling to pay for gas each month and staying up until midnight to read for class, not to mention getting to M.'s and crawling straight into bed. I can't afford to put him in any kind of extensive training, and at this rate, if we don't get his canter in a place where I'm not worried about him bolting sideways out of the dressage ring, we aren't going anywhere this summer. Shipping out to ride Intro tests just doesn't seem worth it to me. I just don't know.

...oh well.

Got there last night to find four other horses in the ring, and my crowded-ring skills are very rusty. Tris was a bit wigged out by so many horses, and disinclined to get right to work. Problem is, until he's warmed up and forward, steering him can feel like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. Which, as you can imagine, creates additional problem in a crowded ring.

In retrospect, I probably should have just worked on our space management to get him over it; instead, I tried to get work done. I have lost my dressage whip in the wilds of my parents' basement, and had been borrowing a school one; all the ones normally on the wall were now being used, so I had to try to get a reluctant Tristan forward without the occasional reminder of the whip. Which didn't work. (Spurs tend to create an artificial aids arms race with Tristan, and I have been avoiding them, but who knows, might be time...)

He tried to spook in every corner, occasionally flipped his head up and his shoulder out right into the path of an oncoming horse, and while we had some really lovely moments, overall I was not pleased with either my riding or his willingness to cooperate. I should've expected it - never in his life has he been good two rides in a row - but still. At least I was in a better mood than earlier this week and could more or less shrug it off. The only really humiliating part was that T. was teaching lessons to people who were riding their horses much, much better than I, and...yeah. Ouch.

Quick update, my first ride in over a week and a half:

- Forward really is the key to everything.

- I can't really describe in words how satisfying it felt last night to be working on sitting Tristan's trot down - half-halting and posting slowly to ask for scope and a bit of suspension and more through his back. Really good thinky stuff instead of fighting and stiffness.

- Last night, for the first time EVER, I had actual control of his outside shoulder in the canter. Just right, but - when I put my outside leg on, he spiraled in. I had him between four aids, on a 20m circle. I even said out loud to L. how weird it felt, having my horse that completely underneath me. Consequently, his canter smoothed out it was like all of a sudden riding a hunter hack and not my motorcycle mustang.

- \o/