While Lancey saw a lot of action over the December holidays, my main man has still been going strong - stronger than ever before, in some ways.
Our early-morning rides continue to work very well with my schedule. Absolutely no one else is making demands on me yet at 5:45 in the morning when I tack him up, and I can fit in a grooming and a decent ride before a quick coffee with my parents and then dashing off to work. I dread to think of how I'm going to make this happen in the winter. Either I'll have to squeeze some writing into that time and then ride him when I get home from work in the middle of the day, or it's gonna be floodlights and freezing my butt off. Either way, this works great for now. We're sticking easily with a consistent five-day-a-week schedule (one lunge, three schooling rides, and one ride that's just stretching or poles or maybe jumping) and he is thriving in it.
Unfortunately, though, while his brain feels absolutely brilliant right now, his skin has been just disgusting. It was doing well for the start of summer and he was hardly using any of his anti-itch cream with no rubbing and no hives - until the beginning of January, when he suddenly had the worst flare-up I have ever seen on him. He exploded in enormous itchy hives that then burst open and oozed blood and goo. It was horrific. I have actually never seen anything like it. The poor guy didn't seem that itchy, but his skin was sore and he was just generally depressed.
Of course the vet put him straight onto injectable steroids which no one likes but it was time for drastic measures. He had those for five days and then injectable antihistamines for five days. The worst of the flare-up did subside, but the odd raw spot still remained, and he became progressively more and more itchy.
The other product that has been working well for the itchiness is a hemp oil cream for people I picked up out of desperation because it said "actively soothing" on the bottle. He used to use Equi-Soothe, which is for horses and did help quite a bit, but it's very oily and clumped on his hair and left him super gross and sticky. The hemp oil cream works great, absorbs nicely and is a LOT cheaper.
So that's what we've been mostly focusing on of late - the canter lateral work and flying changes, with all their complementary exercises, like counter canter in renvers, true canter in travers and shoulder-fore on a circle, canter to halt, pirouette canter(ish) to medium canter. It's been a loooot of canter work. In trot, I'm working on this weirdness he has going into the right rein, especially in shoulder-in. We do a lot of shoulder-in to renvers and back (also renvers is TOO HARD and I hate that it is so useful as well). We also played with the half-pass zig-zag in trot, which went surprisingly well. He is feeling fantastic.
Throughout the itchiness and the awfulness, however, he continued to feel really great to ride. I felt bad about putting a saddle over that mess and would have stopped at once if he'd shown any signs of discomfort, but each ride was just better and better, so we carried on. That wasn't the end of his health dramas for January-February 2022, however.
I was taking a picture of his glorious tail in late January when I realized that his butt looked very strange. He has always had quite a round bum, and it had lost some of its shape, but I'd thought this was just because he did lose some weight with the itching saga and the new workload (not necessarily a bad thing, bro was t h i c c). But as soon as I inspected the butt from the side, I could see that something was definitely amiss.
I panicked. I texted Coach J, I googled. The internet said it was a hunter's bump and then proceeded to be very mysterious about what a hunter's bump actually was. I thought my horse's sacroiliac was going to drop off. So when the Friesians needed a chiro appointment, I immediately piggybacked off of it.
The chiro felt over him and said, "Mm, actually I'm not feeling anything very much. How is he to ride?" I said he was fine but I did add that Thunder would not, in fact, say anything if he was not fine at all. I have known this horse to be grazing happily with a fever of 41.5C (106F). He's just one of those people. The chiro set to work on the few things he'd found - nothing major, a tight rib here, a slightly restricted neck - and then went back to the hind end and said, "Are you sure he feels good? How are his changes?" I said that his changes were forward, through and balanced like never before. The chiro didn't think it possible. Thunder's right fetlock was horribly restricted - it made a deafening sound when he put it back - and the pelvis was accordingly tilted and generally messed up. As soon as the adjustment was done, I could literally see the bump sinking away back into its place. Thunder had a huge reaction, too, yawning, licking and chewing, and sighing deeply. For a stoic horse like him, that's a big reaction.
His bum looks normal again now, although I can't say I've felt a huge difference in him under saddle. His canter seems different - not exactly better, although I'm sure it must feel better to him, but certainly different. He's not quite finding his collected canter as easily, but when he does find it, it has more jump and throughness than before. His changes feel the same as ever - and they're getting quite nice now. They're balanced, straight and through as long as I ride them properly and he's even been giving me some really confident and easy four-tempis.
We had a lesson two weeks ago during which I asked Coach about his canter half-passes to counter canter to flying change. He had been a little awkward in the change and the half-passes were there but they just didn't feel easy - everything felt stiff and he felt slow off my leg. Coach identified that for once it actually wasn't his response to my leg that was the problem. In fact I had been so obsessed about riding the back end of the horse that I had forgotten he does, in fact, have a front half, and was letting him plough along hollow, leaning on his shoulder, and twisting his neck. We did some work on bending and counter bending to soften him in the contact a little (and to get me to stop pulling the reins) and then suddenly we had beautiful canter half-passes with a soft bend and easy sideways steps. Incredible how horses have more than one body part and the job of the rider is to make sure they all, you know, cooperate. Dressage is hard, y'all.
One more show at EM and then we can debut at Medium. I seriously can't wait - I have no illusions of brilliant scores, but I'm so ready to ride a new level. I would love to show him at EM 3, 4, 5, or 6 for his last EM show, so that his first flying changes in the ring aren't in his first Medium test as well. But honestly he finds the Medium 1 changes easier than the EM 4-6 changes. We taught him the changes using a leg yield aid (not the one-step-of-walk method) and so he is sort of anticipating a change at the end of a half-pass anyway. In EM 4-6, one does a bunch of counter canter and then changes on the long side, which he can do but it's harder for him. Medium 1 is D-R half-pass, R-M counter canter, M flying change. It seems to fit into his head much better (and mine).
I do think his trot could be much more powerful, though. I cannot even imagine getting a passage out of our current trot. This will definitely come up in our next lesson, though, because the moment I ask for more trot he starts running and that is not productive.
His lungeing is going really well, too. He seems to hold himself so well in the lungeing - I mean, look at that lovely open throat and the six-pack he's showing off here.
He does need some weight, though. I pushed his Stud Time up a little but I think it might take some tinkering before we strike the balance between energy for work and energy for condition. It may be time for a bit of canola oil. His working energy is so much better - I haven't felt him get flat on me in a long, long time, even when our sessions run a little longer than planned.
He might trot like a donkey but he sure walks well 💜
Just look at that soft eye. He's so beautiful and precious and I'm unbelievably blessed to have him 💜
God is good.
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