Trot sets and trail rides…

Today me and a Maren decided to take our ponies on a nice, gentle trail ride. Backing up a bit, Tanta got the go-ahead to start the next part of her rehab!! Which is:

We just completed day 3 today. It’s so fun trotting her again!! Hehehe.

Anyways, We thought we’d just walk and then do Tanta’s trot sets on the flat parts of the trail. It was a really nice day… actually sorta cold, but there was sun and no rain so I’m not complaining.

But once we mounted up and headed out, we realized it was super windy. Ok… we started the ride off with a small twig falling out of a tree and landing on Tanta’s head… which startled her. So she was on high alert! So the tarp flapping around the back of our neighbors woodshed in the bushes caused a few spooks!! Then a big scary truck drove past us which freaked me out more than Tanta… who was unphased.

we turned down a side road, and got about 1/3 way along before Tanta stopped/started spooking at a rock. a rock!! This is when I realized Tanta was feeling veerrryyy fresh. Hahaha. She isn’t one to spook at stuff like that, unless she’s feeling hyper! So… she literally wouldn’t walk past the rock, and was skittering out in the middle of the road. We might have held up traffic. Maybe. I had to give her a big kick… that worked. After that I waved apologetically at the traffic and made Maren lead. Which was fine. Until we got near a horse hand walking in the opposite direction. Both Oliver and tanta most definitely saw the other horse… but… Oliver waited until we were pretty much right across (we were on opposite sides of the road) from this other horse before he threw in a massive spook, and landed with his from feet in the ditch, then hastily retreated from the ditch, almost leaving Maren in it. I thought he was going to *ditch* her. Get it!!! Hahaha… ok yeah that wasn’t that funny. MOVING ON!

we then got the the actual ‘trail’ part, and that went pretty well. Our horses were snorty/spooky, sure, but nobody ended up in ditches or on the ground so I call it a success.

After that we popped out onto another road, this one quite hilly. we walked down hill #1, and then started to trot up the next hill. Except Tanta spotted this really old falling apart truck on the side of the road, that has literally been there forever and decided it was going to eat her. Cue her spooking all the way across the road and almost into the ravine… ugh. I managed to kick her forward to avoid that disaster. Thank goodness these roads are pretty quiet!! The rest of that road went relatively well, other than a few minor spooks. After that both Oliver and Tanta seemed to have really calmed down, so we were just walking on a loose rein. Then this truck with a big trailer (bouncing EVERYWHERE, I might add) zoomed past us. Didn’t slow down at all (was going too fast to begin with) and didn’t go wide around us at all. So yeah, another spook… but not too bad. Luckily they are used to cars and trucks.

Right after that Ollie and Tanta relaxed back into the loose rein walking, lulling me and Maren into a false sense of security. We had just turned a sharp corner… one minute I was slowly plodding down the road on a loose rein, and the next I was plastered back as Tanta bolted down the road… luckily it didn’t take long to get both horses under control again… of course there were 5 cars all trying to drive by right at that moment. They were all really nice and pulled over as soon as they saw Tanta and Ollie bolting down the road… but… what? Tanta  has never bolted before, and I had no idea what spooked her. I was in the front, so couldn’t see what Ollie had done. I asked Maren and apparently a car came around the bend behind us, causing Ollie to spook And land with all 4s in the ditch, and bolt forwards… and I’m assuming he startled Tanta into bolting… ha.

Thankfully at this point we were like 10’ from our driveway… and got home safely.

I really wish Maren had worn her helmet cam… it would have been really entertaining footage!!

 

Relaxing trail ride right? Hahaha

Tucker❤️

 

Tanta’s X-Rays!

The vet came out yesterday to X-Ray Tanta. this was our first time meeting this vet, but I really liked her! (in this post I will call her Dr. M and our regular vet Dr. C… otherwise this will get confusing real quick! lol) She seemed very thorough and informative. we first explained what had been going on for Tanta, and then we trotted her on the driveway. I got Maren to trot her so I could watch her go as well, and she actually looked a lot better than the last time I trotted her, about a week ago. we then trotted her on the lunge line both directions and she still looked pretty good! not 100% sound, (same on the driveway) but a lot better. this was very encouraging! I haven’t really been trotting her, as Dr. C had advised against that, because we were not sure what was bothering her.

Dr. M said she would normally consider a nerve block, but Tanta wasn’t lame enough to necessarily tell anything from that! which I was honestly pretty happy about.  we moved onto the X-Rays. we did quite a few views of the right front… and they were pretty clear!! the sesamoids look FINE!!!!! *phew* and the lump looked like… nothing on the X-Ray, so it is not in fact “a bony Lump”. The only thing that showed on the X-Ray was a little bit of arthritic changes in her coffin joint, but that is nothing unusual for a horse Tanta’s age and it wasn’t anything extreme. Dr. M doubted that was the cause. so what was the cause of the lameness? we are not 100% sure. Dr. M’s guess was maybe soft tissue injury, and the lump is scar tissue, or maybe Tanta bonked herself and because she does have some arthritic changes, bonking herself could potentially make her go a bit lame…

we also had Dr. M X-Ray the lump on Tanta’s nose. and she thought it looked good!! although she did say that face radiographs are the hardest to read, and she would show it to someone else in her clinic to be sure! it sure did look confusing!

sleepy Tanta ❤

so the plan is this

week 1: stall rest but she can have access to 1/2 of a run out. (need to go put a board in the middle tomorrow!! or more accurately; have to get dad to do that tomorrow!) she can also hand walk for 5 mins a day.

week 2 : same as above, but hand walks can now be 10 mins instead of 5.

week 3: Tanta can have a stall and a whole run out! hand walks can be 15 mins.

week 4: Same as above, but hand walks can now be 20 mins

week 5: if all is going well and Tanta is *cross fingers* sound, I can start riding her on her walks. they can be 20 mins (ish) still.

week 6: same as above but walks can increase to 25 mins… this is exciting stuff!

weeks 7-10 as shown in the chart below. I get to add trot and canter in if she is all good still!!

so yeah! that’s the plan… we will unfortunately miss all the schooling shows I was planning… I’m feeling pretty bummed about that. but I am so relived that Tanta should be feeling better soon! annnnddd we should ready to go for the first event in May! so that’s a plus.

I took Rasty on a bareback trail ride today… he was feeling fresh! there were multiple times on our ride I wished I’d had a saddle on! in the driveway, he actually tried to play buck.  he only actually put his head between his knees and gave a small hop, but if I hadn’t pulled his head up… Rasty never bucks! lol. then I trotted him and Maren watched. I like to see how he’s doing lameness wise when I take him out, although he is always pretty much the same… he felt pretty dang fantastic! not completely sound or anything… but better than he’s felt in a long time. he was also sooo hyper on the trail! he was spooking at everything that he normally does not bat an eye at. last time Dr. C was here, she suggested putting Rasty on the same thyroid medicine as Tanta and Lilliput are on, to help control his weight. I’m wondering if that is making him fresh. but he certainly felt good! so when we got back home I hopped off and asked Maren to trot him so I could watch him go. she did, and he looked quite terrible. not worse than normal, but definitely not how I thought he felt when I was riding him! I do find it hard to compare how lame a horse is riding vs. watching from the ground… but this was fairly extreme difference to how he felt. so I hopped back on and trotted him for Maren to see. then I hopped back off and trotted his with me leading. strangely enough, he is way sounder when I am on him… that’s a little weird isn’t it?? I have never heard of a horse being sounder under saddle than when in hand… huh! I will have to research that! 🙂