Back At It Again, With Awkward Style

It is safe to say that the Red Dragon is back in the full swing of things and looking fabulous, completely baffling almost everyone at how quickly he has taken to the barefoot life. His feet looking incredible and besides a bobble on rocky ground, hasn't taken a lame step in weeks. 

I can tell he is feeling exceptional, and he isn't afraid to show it. Yesterday B was a little asshole when L came out early to tack up, and he dodged her attempts to catch him. Granted, she had no cookies, so she fucked up there LOL. However, besides the first year I owned him, when he hated/feared everyone, B has NEVER ran from me and the little shit refused to be caught for almsot ten minutes, running around like a loon.

What a dick. Of course, since the humidity hovers around approximately eleventy billoin percent, he was DISGUSTING, muddy and sweaty from the get go. Like, dripping, muddy tail dreadlocks, mud eyebrows...the works. I dont think I have ever hosed a horse off BEFORE riding, so that was a first. 

The good news behind all the mad galloping is that B didnt give a shit about The Chair. 

Chairs can be sheisty

To be honest, he didn't give a shit about anything. I've actually never seen him with no fucks to give and he happily trounced through water, executed calm flying changes and worked through some transitions. Albeit, slightly lazily, but I'm not complaining. L even commented thats shes never seen or felt him that chill...it was amusing. 

What he couldn't seem to figure out yesterday, was his legs, as soon as we started "jumping". I use quotations because dragging old trees into the water puddles does not a jump course make...but it was pretty cool and he was having a ball.  Poor fellow was all over the place though, actin' brand new. All our jumps were at the new farm, and honestly he probably isn't ready for a full course for another week or so.

Olympic level piaffe

Most awkward TB alive

Its OK B, we all are ugly sometimes

Eventually we gave up over the tiny fucking log he couldn't seem to negotiate and moved on to the dead pine tree and splashing around in the water.

I literally laid on my stomach in the wet and muddy grass to get these pics, so you better fucking enjoy them #doitforthegram

I love this one; just casually stepping over 

Dreadlocks

He was a good lil nugget, if just a wee lazy, but I was proud of him for not being a total fucking lunatic for his first real time back undersaddle in about 6 weeks. Here's to moving on!

The Chair

I solemnly swear, this is my last post with lunging pics. Promise.

Now that I'm allowed to ride (Monday, but lets be real, I'm gunna ride Friday-Sun) I am done with the boring ole lunging pics and going round and round and round.

I think B is done too, and with the way our session went yesterday, I can indeed confirm he just cannot any longer. 

 I could finally get him on the sand though, which was fantastic. It rained for fucking eons, thank the lort because our massive pond legit dried up and all our arenas were cement. With the rain, the arena was actually better than the grass and he was 100% fine in the sand.

Minus, The Chair.

"Its behind me isn't it"

Horses, as we know, have no sense of logic, so to B, the chair that mysteriously appeared and has never been there before was a cause for great concern. He was not phased by the thunderstorm and crazy ass lightening off in the distance, oh no. But the looming white chair of death, absolutely bloody terrifying.

I simply just laughed and let him get on with it, knowing he would eventually get over himself, but what resulted was some of the most flexy positions I've ever seen The Dragon bend his neck.

This is exactly why red man is getting clipped like a giraffe this winter. Mark my words, its happening. 

I'm not even mad, I'm impressed

Poor B was stuck on the chair for about 15 minutes and would go around the circle nicely for half a rotation then see the chair and lose his shit again and fly off the handle.

Eventually he settled, but by this point he had worked himself into a tither and was sweaty AF. All I wanted was forward and relaxed, but he was determined to be forward, tense and DOWN.

Thunderstormy clouds

Finally, 5 more minutes later, he relaxed over his back and started pushing from behind and I left it at that. A bit longer workout on the lunge than I would have preferred, but I try to end on good notes. The storm was also lurking closer and closer and if you know anything about me, you know one of my only fears in life, besides crippling student loan debt, needles and Trump becoming president, is thunderstorms.....so we ended it just short of 30 minutes.

butt sweat

body sweat

Today hopefully L will be out to work him under saddle truly for the first time since the transition and I am taking every advantage of her health to possibly ride out any shenanigans my back would otherwise be subjected to if I tried. Then over the weekend I will get some quick flatwork in and call it a day. The entire barn is participating in a jumping clinic at the new farm, and I sadly have to miss that due to wedding activities (not my own, I'm in the bridal party)

I am having a tremendously hard time holding myself back from ALL THE SHOW PLANS because I missed most of June and all of July and August is the last month of showing before it settles down. 

 I know coming back full force is idiotic, even though his feet are handling everything quite well. But, he hasn't jumped in over 6 weeks ( I think the last time was when we tried the hackamore) so I want to see how he feels over fences before making huge plans. I might participate in the 2ft class Aug 27th since Yanks and V are going. There's a giant show in November that I think is safe to shoot for, and a few schooling shows in Sept and then December starts the indoor circuit. I also may hit a dressage show or two, which will actually be our Dressage debut together haha!

Anyways. Just really jazzed we are both feeling better again and trying not to get ahead of myself. I always come back at things way too fast and re-injure myself, and I am determined to not do that this time!

Praise The Lort, a GIF Story

Guys.

This is big.

I. 

Was.

Cleared.

TO RIDE. (and workout)

I've been regressing horribly this last two weeks to the point of not really being able to to walk or SLEEP (I am a literal zombie rn) so my PT opted to get aggressive again and dug around in my back with those oh so magical dry needles. After a few minutes I felt a huge TWANNNG and she had gotten my back to release in two MASSIVE spots...I almost cried I felt such a rush of relief. It was the single most painful and wonderful feeling I've ever experienced in my entire life

Then, because she's sadistic and evil,  she just casually told me I should be OK to start getting back in the gym, and riding, next week....like it wasn't the earthshattering, life altering news that it actually was.

At first I was like

And then I was like

And then she was like

And I was like 

She assured me, that its better to get the injury moving now, but to be sure not to over do it and sent me on my merry way to live life again.

Weekend Update: Killer Bees, Lunging and Show Recap

Besides obsessing over the Olympics and watching every second of it while I do homework and work work, I spent most of my weekend lunging B and organizing my stuff for The Great Move (more later in a sec). Not a horrible way to spend a weekend, honestly. Also, Yanks & V competed in a recognized BN event in Michigan, so I have news on that as well.

Brace yourself for a shitload of lunging pics. Sorry in advance.

Before I get to Bacardi, just wanted to catch everyone up on the super exciting world of eventing (have you watched Rio XC from today??---holy SHIT) and how V & Yanks did this weekend. Probably a good thing I wasn't there to be honest, but she rode quite well in the jump phases. Dressage is her weakest phase and they did poorly. Dead last after dressage, they went into stadium with gusto & determination in which she rode the windy, maxed out BN course brilliantly. I could definitely tell how hard she has been working on this phase, and I was so proud of her! She moved up from 20th to 14th after stadium, which I found impressive. XC was apparently pretty tough too for a BN course and she ROCKED it going double clear. They were cooking' (from what I could see on the FB live feed) and actually had to circle him a few times, but hey, she rode well and they went double clear and moved up to NINTH after XC. Moving up 11 places from dead last is seriously impressive and I was really proud of her. She also told me exactly what she did wrong in dressage without prompting and how to improve and it made me feel super confident in her. V will go nose to the grindstone when she knows she needs improvement, so I know after this show they will do some work on the flat together. Overall really happy with that, and that Yankee handled the haul wonderfully and came back looking fantastic!

are those...peppermints?!

Also, our BO bought a new farm and since there are resident boarders there and at EME, she prefers we consolidate sooner rather than later and move ASAP. As in, the next two weeks or less. Originally the move date was October, but now its now, haha. I am pretty jazzed for the new place though. I think we might lose our big grassy XC field, but BO is putting in a brand new, massive and glorious outdoor, revamping the stalls and the turnout is wonderful. 60 acres of turnout yo. That will be amazing in winter, since before our pastures were too small to safely turnout because of ice and mud. Pretty excited!

So there's that. Yay!

Then there's B. He's honestly improving so much faster than I am that its a little depressing. I lunged him every other day during the week then Fri, Sat and Sun this weekend. Continuing lunging that often is not something I want to subject his joints to, so my wonderful barn friends have volunteered to ride him 4x/week for me. Bless them.

His feet also look fucking amazing for only having been out of shoes fully 3 weeks now.

Not too shabby

I think I might get slightly obsessed with his feet and their changes throughout this process, so bear with me. Here  they are so far;

OK, so we need comparisons now because just looking at that is like, useless. So here we go;

To me and my super uneducated opinion on feet, it looks like an improvement...kind of. I might be wrong but it looks like his frog has actually collapsed a little and lost its definition. Most likely because its actually touching the ground 24/7... I don't know. However, the edges of his foot look rounder and less brittle. I've been rasping the rough edges, but not messing with the shape of his foot at all, because I am not a farrier. Overall, I think this is an improvement AND he's 100% sound on everything but the rocky path....which I would not expect him to be.

The left was his worse foot and the one we couldn't keep a shoe on to save his life. The shape of the foot hasn't done much except round out on the edges...but that frog! Is it just me or did it actually expand just a little bit?? Like near the heels. Not really sure, but I'm loving these comparisons. Also 100% sound on this foot as well.

In a few weeks the farrier will double check him again and see if he needs trimmed, but he thinks the foot looks pretty good for now. 

I am seriously impressed he's 100% sound already. Our arenas are actual cement lots rights now, so I wouldn't dream of trying him on those, but in the grass he's great.

Friday he was foot perfect, despite the killer fucking bees swarming us constantly. Saturday he was less forward but still great and then yesterday he was raging to get moving. He was so amped...poor guy was probably bored to death lunging.

Seriously, the bees were vicious. FUCK YOU BEES

Since the damn bees were trying to eat us alive, I kept all the sessions under 15 minutes, but he seriously looks brilliant. Sunday I was daring and tacked him up fully and actually hopped on to cruise around the neighborhood after. Again, mistake, since I essentially couldn't walk afterwards, but it was mostly worth it. I am literally dying (and gaining a bajillion pounds) not riding or working out, so I just had to for another 10 minutes.

Here's the part of the blog you can skip, but I just have to share since its all I have right now. I've taken probably about a 100 pics over this week and there's only so many to post before it gets incredibly boring, but at least he's getting fat and shiny and he's moving forward and 100% sound. All I can ask for really. 

His worse direction, moving out nicely

Shiiiiiiiny

muscleyyyyyy

ADORE

The shine, I can't :D

Round and lovely

He's still bit stiff to the right at the canter, but I am positive this is from lack of work, not his feet. I am hoping that getting ridden will help him carry himself even more correctly and get him back to where he used to be.

I HATE that I'm still out of commission when my horse is going so well, but I luckily have amazon barn friends to help. Just wanna heal faster, I am SO over this!