A Good Trail Ride

A couple of exciting things have happened since the photo session with Charles. On Tuesday of last week, Tina and I went on another trail ride, and this one was much more successful! Thanks to our ditch sessions, Lily crossed them under saddle without any kind of hesitation, walking or trotting across as she saw fit. I let her choose. She was a really, really good girl, and she was proud of herself, too-after the first ditch, she pranced her way to the second one!

We made our way to a different branch of the trail, where you still had to cross the stream, but there was a LOT more room on the banks at either side, with some proper sandy shore on the far side and 2 different paths leading from the shore that connected to the main trail. The stream was wider here, and a few inches deeper. The ground on the near side was firm, but looked like mud, and Lily immediately balked. She was not going to go forward, even after Tina and Houdon had already crossed. I couldn't blame her, though-our last stream experience hadn't exactly been a positive one. After spinning around like a top for a minute or so (she kept trying to turn around, but I'd bring her back to face the bank), I dismounted and led her across. This time we were prepared-she was wearing her rope halter over her bridle, with a lead rope attached and tied to my saddle. Lily didn't hesitate, following easily behind me as I chose my way over the rocks across the stream. Tina had made her way up the path so she'd be out of the way. Both branches of the trail coming off the far shore were quite muddy, one softer than the other, and we chose the better one. Once we were on dry ground, I re-mounted.

The trail led onto an enormous corn field, surrounded by a proper track. A track! This is part of a historical park, and is maintained consistently-no gofer holes nor obstacles in the way. Tina said a lot of riders used it for conditioning work. At the moment, the corn field was completely cut down, so you could see the whole expanse of land, and how the track went around it. The loop is about a mile long. Rita asked if I wanted to trot or canter, but Lily felt like dynamite underneath me just then, and I had a feeling if we went faster than a walk, she would really take off.



The cornfield and the track in the summer. This photo is from the barn website www.millhavenhorsefarm.com Rita and I were going in the opposite direction around the track, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like. :)

We went around, to where another trail leads away from the cornfield, over a hill, down a gravel drive and across a bridge (I'm VERY proud to announce that Lily owned that bridge! I wasn't expecting any problems though, thanks to the artificial bridge in the outdoor arena at the barn). This leads onto another wide path that goes around a regular field. It's like conditioning heaven. At this point Lily had relaxed considerably so I gave Rita the ok to trot. And trot we did. We did the loop around this field, then turned around and trotted part of the way back. Twice the horses broke into a canter, but Lily let me rein her in both times. She still wanted to fly at the trot! Writing about this now, I wish we had cantered more, but at the time I was feeling so timid, between my foot having been recently injured and my confidence being shattered on that last solo trail ride back in FL, when Lily succeeded in bucking me off.

I'm itching to try these trails alone, but want to get some more miles on Lily with company. It sucks being grown up sometimes. In my 20s I wouldn't have given this a second thought, but the truth of the matter now is that I need to have a fully functional body in order to continue to make money to keep my horse. I've been nearly off my feet 3 times in the last 8 years (2 of those in the last year and a half ) with horse-related injuries, and it was very hard financially. The first time I had plenty of money saved up and was able to switch to a job where I could sit down a lot more during the day to give my hip time to heal. The second time, I had a properly diagnosed broken AND fractured toe, but I lucked out in that at the time 2 receptionists were going to be out, so the hospital needed coverage at the front desk. It was a VERY lucky coincidence, and it allowed me to rest my foot for the mandated 4 weeks. My hours were cut slightly, but Charles and I had enough money saved up at the time that we were able to cover the difference in our bills. I was also valuable enough as an employee that, while they hired more techs to fill the gap in ICU (they hired 2 techs to cover my abscence...that was a big ego boost right there...), they still put me right back on the floor the minute the doctor cleared me to return to full work. This time, I deliberately refused to go to the doctor because I didn't want to know, I didn't want to hear it. I'm pretty sure I had at least 2 hairline fractures in my right foot-one for sure in the first joint between my 2nd metatarsal and proximal phalanx. And there was probably a crack in the metatarsal itself, too. I could curl my foot if I did it slowly, but lifting the toes back was impossible. Walking on it the first 2 weeks was a bitch, but I had to work-I had just started this job! So I treated it like we would on a dog-I splinted it with Vetrap, and wore my widest sneakers and kept on trucking. The second week was especially awful, because throughout the course of the day, the swelling would vary a LOT-the foot would be puffy when I woke up, so the bandage would be uncomfortable when I first placed it. Then throughout the day, the swelling would go down, only to start back up towards the last few hours at work. Deciding how loosely to apply the bandage was a pain, quite literally sometimes, and I'd have to wake up at least 10 minutes earlier in the morning to allow for extra time to play with the bandage. This is week 4, and I can walk normally on it now. The 2nd toe still swells a bit, but movement actually helps it. Theory: maybe non-displaced fractures would heal faster if people were allowed to walk (carefully) with minimal bandaging.

So you can understand, given all of this, why my daredevil riding days seem to be over. I am most certainly looking forward to gallops on these trails, but only after Lily is accustomed to them.

The trail ride with Tina was awesome though, and we had a great time. Lily was going to cross the stream on the way back, until her feet really sank to the fetlocks in the mud on the way down the bank. Again, I got off and led her easily across. After reading Dom's archived post on Ozzy's misadventures with mud in this part of the country, I have a whole lot more respect for Lily's instinctive fear of mud. I knew her fear is to protect her from this kind of situation, which is why I would never punish her for this fear, and why my main interest is to just get her used to the trail that we know is safe. But I had no idea a horse could sink that much, that easily, that quickly in mud that felt firm to the human leading him! Very, very scary. Yes, I'm totally hooked on Dom's blog right now and I've been going back to read it from the beginning. :)

On another note, this day was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the high 60's. We rode for an hour and 15 minutes, and Lily broke the best sweat I've ever seen on her-her entire front end was wet, and she had foam between her back legs. Maybe we've finally snapped her out of her anhydrosis?

That is aaallll sweat! She received a bubble bath after.

Canter Haunches-In!

Floaty trot from the other day at liberty! This was a tiny cell pic-I had to uber-crop it to get this image. But there you go! All 4 feet off the ground: she has SUSPENSION! :)

Here are the photos of Lily's feet that I had been meaning to post. These were taken a few days after my more aggressive trim and about 3 weeks after her trim with the farrier (in the first trim I did, which I mentioned in a previous post, about 2 weeks after her trim with the farrier, I had just rounded off the edges of her feet a little bit; you could barely tell I'd done anything). With this trim I did a little more:

Right front. Those toes grow so fast! A week later and they're already longer than this!

Right hind (yep, she was still resting the left hind here-these were taken last week). I put that mustang roll on there, though-I was really happy with that.

Left front

Left front. You can see the little crack I was talking about in my previous post-a result of the flare she gets on the medial portion of this foot. I had completely removed the flare prior to taking this photo.

Left hind.

Left front. Note the lateral heel (on the right of the photo) is more worn down than the medial heel. She's also trying to self-trim, as you can see by the big chip on the lateral wall of this hoof (right side of photo; almost even with my shoe.)

Left hind. Cotton was packed into the crevice; this was prior to treating. You can see why I had missed this problem before-I had just brushed the hell out of this hoof, and you still can't see the crack; it would get this packed in with dirt. Note also the stretched white line-the farrier should have corrected that with his trim, but it was never done. She also has a flare on her lateral quarters on this foot (right side of photo).

Right front. Again, medial heel (right side of photo) more worn than lateral. One thing I will give my farriers: they never over-trimmed her frog in the year that she had front shoes. Her foot will widen more in the back now that she is barefoot, but I was always happy that her heels never became contracted during her time with shoes.

Right hind. I like this foot-look at that huge frog! This is why I wouldn't DREAM of putting back shoes on her! But again there is some white line separation, and the heels here are also uneven.

I could still have done way, way more for her, but I'm afraid. I want to see a professional do it first before I do more.

Today, we lunged some more. Lily moved beautifully today, and I decided I'm just going to keep working her normally-she is completely tolerant of me cleaning her foot now, and her abscess is almost completely healed. We did a nice long slow warmup with walking, trotting, and some work over the trot fan pole (she remembered she's only supposed to trot over it!) to stretch her back.

Tracking UP! Working that engine!

Taking a break and looking pretty. You can kind of see her dapples in this one.

I also set up a cross rail and then a vertical using 2 of the blue water barrels as jump standards, and lunged her over. Here are a few so you can see. She has a nice little bascule but doesn't quite know yet what to do with her legs. We only jumped each one (the crossrail and then the vertical) 3 times in each direction so as not to overstress her tendons.

Dangling her legs over the little crossrail

She really used her back over this one, taking a shorter spot while lifting over the top of her body and really pushing with her hind legs. This is why we do these exercises.

A very nice, relaxed and easy jump over the vertical, about 2'6" high.

Leaping over the little vertical diagonally-I kept setting her up funny in this direction, but she tried her heart out anyway.

Afterwards, I actually stood up the barrels, set up a higher crossrail, which we also did 3 times in each direction, then I made a vertical, with one pole across the top of the barrels. This jump was a good 3', if not higher.

I had Lily jump it twice in each direction. Going to the left, she leaped into the air, but took down the pole, first with her front legs, then with her back legs on the second try. Like I said-she just needs to figure out what to do with her legs! But her jump was very good. At this point Diana arrived, and for once I had a witness!

With Diana in the arena with me, watching, I switched directions and had her circle to the right to approach the jump. She refused 3 times in a row because she was coming in flat, without impulsion. I knew she was also tired-she's not used to jumping, which is why we were only doing a few reps each way, but it's great cross-training for her-dressage tends to make horses tight across their backs, while jumping and work over cavaletti and ground poles helps to stretch and release their back.

On the 4th attempt, she bounded into the air, completely clearing the jump without touching it. I had her do it a second time, just so we'd be even with the 2 jumps in each direction, and this time she clipped the pole again. I had her trot over the poles on the ground between the barrels so she'd finish knowing the poles wouldn't hurt her, and we left it there. She was blowing afterwards, but not exhausted, so I let her walk out for a good 10 minutes while chatting with Diana.

I then took her into the barn, hosed off her legs, front end and hindquarters, and turned the Farmtek fan on her, and she cooled down completely while I tacked her up for a ride. Diana and I were going to go out to the park, but the weather was being temperamental (as you can see by the photos-I saw several rain bands sweep by us) and didn't really want to get drenched again while on the trails. Plus the memory of the fall the other day was still a little too vivid. My elbow is healing up well, and thanks to lots of arnica salve over the last 2 days, my hip is sore only when I get stiff (after sitting down or when I first wake up)-I didn't even bruise! And my neck, which yesterday hurt more than my hip from the whiplash, is actually 90% better today, also thanks to generous applications of arnica.

Diana was relieved that I wanted to stay in the arena, because she didn't really feel like riding after all. So I rode while she did her chores.

Lily and I did one of our usual walk warmups-loose rein, then moving onto more collected work. We practiced the same lateral stuff from as of late for about 15 minutes, then I chose to just ask for a canter-she felt great: relaxed, loose and bendy. We cantered around twice in each direction, then tried lateral work at the trot. We hadn't really done this in awhile with her foot, so she kept breaking the trot to finish the moves at a walk. So on another gut feeling, I had her pick up the canter again. On the left lead, I let her trot into the canter, and then she was there. Right in front of my leg, up and collected. I gathered her up more coming into the corner and instead of letting her fold herself around the corner, I just stayed in the same position, asking for the same bend with Lily's body while allowing her to face the same direction we were going, and Lily tried. She had it for a second, broke into the trot, and I asked her for the canter again. Asked for the bend again, and she responded: BAM! Haunches-in, at the canter! It was only a slight haunches-in (kind of like what a shoulder-fore is to a shoulder-in), not a dramatic one like you would see in upper level dressage competition, but the bend in her body was there. We did a couple of strides of this, then I released her into a walk on a long rein. Circle and change direction, then I gathered her up again. She picked up the right-lead canter from a walk. Canter around the corner, and same thing again-maintain that bend, and she totally and absolutely nailed it, effortlessly. Lots of pats, and I gave her a long walk around the arena in both directions on a loose rein.

After that, we did some shoulder-in at the trot, then I let her zoom around the arena in what I call her medium trot. It's frustrating sometimes not having mirrors in the arena to check ourselves, but from what I saw of our shadow on the wall, we looked good!

Diana stopped by again to check on us and asked how Lily was doing, and I told her fantastically! I was trying to describe the canter haunches-in to her, and she asked if we would be able to repeat it so she could see. I told her we'd try, and explained it was only slight-I could see it and feel it but wasn't sure if it was marked enough to be visible from the side on the ground.

I asked Lily to pick up a right-lead canter (since this direction had been easier), and went straight down the short side, then maintained the bend going down the long side. I was able to push her hind end even more to the inside this time-Diana exclaimed when she saw it. Very, very cool.

After that, we did some more medium trot work for a couple of minutes to let her stretch out, then called it a day. It was an awesome day, indeed!

So this is kinda what we looked like. Courtesy of lonecastle, on YouTube

8 Seconds

Today was an interesting day...

I did my chores at the barn, then tacked up Lily to go for a ride on the trails. It had rained all night and most of the morning and the arena had turned to muck, so I applied Vetrap to her foot and covered it with duct tape to protect it from the water with the intention of just riding her around on the park road. I used the mullen mouth eggbutt again, since Lily had been so good the day before. My plan was to just go for a long WALK, just like the vet said we should do.

Left hind after a good scrubbing. The crevice appears wider due to keeping it open with the cotton, but it's not as deep, and it's definetely not as painful. She wiggles the leg when I'm messing with the foot anticipating it to hurt, but when I'm actually treating the crack, she doesn't even flinch anymore. You can see the abscess, all nice and clean, on the back of her upper heel in the photo. This is still sore when touched directly, but seems to be healing well, as you can see in the photo-no signs of swelling/redness/bruising.  

Duct tape & Vetrap bootie. And yes, she was stocked up after almost 24 hours cooped up in her stall.:(

Secured around the back of her heels to cover the abscess

 Well. I rode her to the park and she was looking around more than usual, but was calm otherwise. Going down the powerlines, there was a cluster of logs by the brush on the side of the trail that she had looked at the day before. I decided to have her take a closer look, but she was not having it. She avoided getting closer and actually started to get worked up about it, so I decided to let it go and ride on. She walked a couple of steps, then suddenly spun and tried to bolt. I have no idea what spooked her-if it was the logs or something else. I brought her to a halt, but she didn't like that and proceeded to buck. And buck and buck and buck. Remember from my Isaac post how much air she can get when she bucks? I lost a stirrup, and she continued to crowhop, all 4 feet leaving the ground at once, and I couldn't bring her head up with the stupid snaffle. I came off.

And slammed into the ground left side first, in the middle of the powerlines. My head bounced off the ground, and once again I thanked God for riding helmets. They have saved my life more than once. Lily galloped away; I leaped to my feet (thankful that I could still actually do it) and went after her. Instead of heading home, she had turned into the park, and veered off into the brush halfway down the powerlines.

I found her in a clearing in the bushes by the fence running down the perimeter of the powerlines. She considered trying to run away, but the reins were stuck on one of her front legs and the bushes were too overgrown to allow her to go through anyway.

I called to her and was able to catch her. I unsnapped one end of her reins to get them off from her leg, and she tried to take off again-she was terrified I was going to beath her: she was stuck in a flashback of the cowboy. I sighed and yanked on the rein to reel her in, but the buckle on the end of the rein slipped off her bit and set her free. (Go figure-I thought it had broken, but it was still in one piece!). She galloped away, this time heading home, and I saw her disappear by the entrance to the park. Great. Wonderful.

I alternately walked and jogged up the powerlines for what seemed like forever. My left hip (my already bad one, caused by a nasty fall from my jumper mare when I was 20, then compounded by a rearing horse falling ON me 5 years later) was definetely bruised and I was certain that it would be near impossible to walk by tomorrow, so might as well move as much as possible now. Even so, right now it felt like the head of my left femur was jabbing into the hip socket with every stride. I ignored it and moved on.

By the time I got to the gate Lily was nowhere to be seen, but her galloping tracks were fresh in the sand leading onto the asphalt. After that there was no clue as to what direction she had taken-logic said she would have headed back to the barn, but looking at her tracks, she might just have well headed straight into the bushes and tall grass that ran behind the barns on our street.

I made my way back to the barn on foot, reins still in my hand and helmet off. Turning onto our street there were still no signs of her. I tried calling Judy in the hopes that she might have her phone on her, wanting to find out if Lily was back at the barn, but there was no answer-Judy had been riding in the arena when I left. I hoped she had headed back. If not, it might be a small mission to find her. What if someone stole her? Or my saddle? I have a bridle tag on her with my name and phone number for precisely this reason, in case we ever got separated (I have one on every halter, even the rope one, and both bridles), but what if they decided not to call? I kept my phone in my hand as every possible dreadful scenario played through my head.

I plodded on, and halfway down the street, I found the duct tape bootie that I'd made for her left hind. I breathed a sigh of relief-she had definetely headed home. At that moment, a Gator pulled out of Saphire Stables, a nice hunter/jumper barn on our street, with a lady I didn't recognize driving, a groom that I did know riding in the back (he was the cousin of the stablehand from my previous barn-both really nice guys), and Jess, a girl that had boarded at our barn back when I had my neurological gelding, in the passenger seat. They stopped to ask if I was okay, and I said yes; I asked if they had seen my horse. They said she had galloped up the street and had disappeared into our driveway. They had seen her running by and had come to look for me. The lady was nice enough to offer to give me a ride back to my barn-this is one of the wonderful advantages of boarding on a street with only a handful of barns: everyone knows everyone, even if only by sight. I thanked the little trio profusely and hopped onto the bed of the gator as my phone rang-Judy. Lily had made it back to the barn okay.

As we pulled into the barn, Ines had just tried to hop on Lily to come look for me, but Lily had refused to leave the parking lot. Good for Ines, as she had not been wearing a helmet when she did so-Lily appears safe and calm to ride and is the sweetest horse on the ground, but she does NOT trust other people on her back other than me, and I was glad we had arrived at that point, or Ines might have gotten hurt if she had insisted.

I thanked everyone for their help, and then decided what to do about Lily. She had had her reward of getting away and coming home, so the damage was done. I had to get back on and do our walk workout, but I was terrified to get back on her. I put her rope halter on over the bridle, clipped the lunge line on, and led her, still fully tacked up, to the arena. Some of the water had drained out in the last hour (the barn really is high and dry for the most part) so I took Lily to the far corner where it was just damp sand and no puddles. I sent her out on the lunge, and Lily chose to gallop. And gallop and gallop. Change of direction. More galloping. I removed myself from my fear and anger, and just watched her. Her gallop was beautiful-very uphill again, like the day before-no soreness there. I gave her some line, and with the additional length she ended up lined up right in front of one of the water barrels. Normally she would have dodged the water barrel to the inside, which is what I expected, but instead she came to a complete stop, then jumped over it. An upright water barrel. That's at least 3 feet high. She leaped over it with a foot to spare. "Holy shit!" I exclaimed, but no one had been standing around to watch. Again my mare's talents go unwitnessed. I brought her to a stop, set 2 barrels down next to each other on the floor, and lunged her over them in both directions at canter and then trot, in the hopes that this would tire her out faster-up until now she had been going-going-going. When she had finally settled down to where she didn't want to gallop around like a madwoman anymore, I took her back into our corner and let her trot out in both directions in a beautiful lengthened trot. She was moving great today, I'll give her that.

Back in February, when I had decided to sell Lily, we had had an incident similar to this that had set everything in motion, but while still at home-we never got to leave the property before Lily had her little crow-hopping outburst. At that time, when I lunged her immediately after the incident, Lily was absolutely terrified of me and did everything in her power to try to get away from me, not listening, mentally stuck in a flashback. This time, while still wanting to run, she still listened to me when asking for changes of direction; I didn't even bother with requesting down transitions because I knew that despite everything, she was so worked up she wasn't going to obey. I really didn't want to argue with her, and risk losing all the ground we've gained this year. So I let her do what she chose, trusting that she would do what was best for herself.

She listened now when I asked her to walk, however, since she wasn't doing it of her own accord, then I led her to the arena fence, where I removed her bridle and tied her by the rope halter to the fence. I ran into the barn, quickly switched her bit back to the pelham (it is very likely I'll never use the mullen mouth again! Definetely not for trail riding!), with double reins this time, and in the process discovered I had a considerable scrape on my left elbow. All that adrenaline had kept me from feeling it all this time. I washed it quickly and almost yelped when it burned like crazy from the water, then ran back out to the arena. Lily was blowing hard and I didn't want her sitting around like that. I put the bridle back on, closed the arena gate that led to the outside, and hopped back on.

She was blowing HARD. So hard that I couldn't feel my own trembling; all I could feel was her breathing. I gave her a second, then gathered the reins and asked her to walk. She did.

We did some of the best lateral work Lily has ever given me, all at the walk, but we even half-passed at the walk in both directions, did perfect walk pirouttes (holy shit indeed!) and our renverses were gorgeous. She was cooperative and listening, immediately bending into the positions I asked her to and moving laterally with barely a weight shift. It was beautiful work. I asked her to trot a half circle, then canter a half circle, just to remind myself that I wasn't going to die on upward transitions, then brought her back to a walk. I was still really shaken up about this fall-it was always my worst nightmare to fall in the park and have my horse gallop back to the barn. What if she'd been hit by a car? What if we'd been on the trails, me knocked unconscious, and an ambulance couldn't find me? What if I'd bled out? What if Lily had been killed? What if, what if...? All of these played in my head as we worked across the arena. We did walk work for an entire hour, and she was still huffing and puffing by the end of it, despite the sun having already set and the temperature dropped. I had her do one more turn on the haunches in each direction before hopping off, and led her into the barn. My poor mare was exhausted-I don't think I've ever seen her this tired. :(

I untacked her quickly, hosed her off, scrubbed her foot thoroughly, put her ice boots on and prepared her epsom salt soak for her left hind.

She had almost completely dried off, but she was still panting somewhat, despite the ice boots. Normally, these drop her temperature within a few minutes.

I switched her to the wash rack by Rose's stall, hosed her off again and turned Rose's Farmtek fan directly on her. Within 5 minutes her breathing had finally slowed to a normal rate and effort, and she had perked up, all of her fears forgotten, ears pricked in my direction and watching my every move as I finished setting up her feed and picking her stall. My mare was back. Thankfully, her left hind was fine: she was putting weight on it and alternately resting left and right like a normal horse.

I applied Sore No More to all 4 legs, wrapped her with standing wraps, and treated her foot as usual post 2nd vet visit (only iodine spray and cotton w/topical antibiotic). Her paddock and walkout were both still very wet, so she'd have to stay in her stall tonight again, and I was afraid her legs would balloon standing still after all that activity and body heat. Dianne will be at the barn in the morning, and she said she'd take Lily's bandages off then and let her walk around her little grass paddock if it was dry. I definetely want to do some groundwork with her tomorrow, weather permitting, which will also allow her to walk around.

On the upside, I was joking with Diana that maybe I should take up professional bronc riding: I stayed on for 8 seconds!

My prize for my 8 second crow-hop ride: one lovely scraped elbow!

Vet visit

Dr. Glen Gillard, one of the best vets in our area, if you ask me, was able to come out today after all! I called the office again at 9:00 am, right after they opened, and they were able to squeeze me in for a 10:30am appointment! I was already at the barn to remove Lily's bandage from her foot and clean her stall at that time, so I decided to just hang around and wait.

This is how she's been resting that foot for the last couple of days. See? It's not the normal way a relaxed horse will rest a foot-she sets it off to the side, keeping all of her weight on her right hind.

I did attempt to soak her foot in hot water with Epsom salts, but she was not thrilled about the hot water on her sore foot, and eventually managed to spill the entire tub of water (I used one of our giant rubber feeders for this-if she stepped on it by accident it would give) between trying to talk to Rose and flirt with Bob. She spilled the soak in the process of wiggling her butt over to Bob so she could squirt all over the wall of his stall...when I turned to look, BOTH Bob and Rose (who is a mare!) had their lips up in the flehmen. Apparently Lily's hot stuff...



Iffy about the hot water.

I shooed Bob out into his paddock, "She's MY mare!" (him and I argue about this), patiently made Lily stand straight on the cross-ties again while she rolled her eyes at me, and hosed down the wall of Bob's stall to remove Lily's urine. Mares!

It's a hike to the hot water tap, so I ended up using room temperature water with Epsom salts instead. It's not as effective but this still works-I know from personal experience from treating infected cat bites. This she tolerated better, especially when I put her feeder with bute, crumbled Stud Muffins and a drizzle of molasses in front of her.

Room temperature soak while she eats her bute-and-treats mix

I finished picking her stall while she ate, and then I moved her over to the other, dry wash rack to allow her foot to dry before doing anything with it. Some gunk did come out after the soaking; I wiped the underside of the hoof clean and wrapped a small hand towel around the hoof to keep dirt out of it.

The giant crack in her frog. Nice and clean after her Epsom salt soak.

I ended up not doing anything else with her foot; I let it be so Dr. Gillard could see it as is, and put her back in her now immaculate stall.

Mark and Dianne showed up to do their chores while I was puttering around waiting for the vet. Once she had settled down, Lily was in uber-sweet mode. Dianne and I stood in front of her stall talking about her, and Lily poked her face out, sniffed at Dianne's cheek, then stuck her nose under my chin, and started nuzzling the collar of my shirt, making doe eyes at me (she gets a very soft expression, and her eyelids droop a little). She's always very sweet with everyone, but I was moved by the extra gesture for me. After that, she was extremely attentive, watching my every move as I did the minis' stalls and cleaned up around the barn, even though both Mark and Dianne were working down by her stall.

Dr. Gillard arrived 45 minutes late, which is the norm for all equine vets in our area as the South FL equestrian scene moves into fall and the busy show season. He had me walk Lily up and down the barn aisle to watch her move, and then took a look at her foot. I explained what had happened while applying the Today and showed him the syringe. After palpating her frog and eliciting some flinching, he said she should probably receive a broader spectrum topical antibiotic, plus an oral one (thank God-I did want systemic antibiotics, since I have no idea what that hoof looks like on the inside), bute twice a day (already on it!), and inject the crevice with hydrogen peroxide to get oxygen in there and kill any anaerobic bacteria once a day. He gave me a 20ml syringe for this and a 14G IV catheter for this. Afterwards, I would stuff the hole with cotton dipped in the topical antibiotic medication. He told me to only wrap the foot if she was going to be on damp footing, and to definetely walk her-either hand walks or tack walking was fine, to promote circulation. Yesss! We get to ride in the wide open arena after all!

As soon as the doctor left, I proceeded to treat Lily's hoof. I poured 10mls of hydrogen peroxide into the syringe, removed the catheter stylette and attached the catheter to the syringe; prepared my cotton with medication; and had Dianne hold Lily with a twitch while I did this. Getting that catheter tip into the crevice was not an easy task, as Lily kept kicking out half-heartedly (the twitch did make a difference in her level of cooperation). In the process of her wiggling her foot around, the catheter tip did end up slipping in farther than I originally wanted, but I used it as a chance to quickly inject the peroxide. Bubbles and blood came out. I squirted the rest of the peroxide into the crack, then let her rest the tip of her foot on the floor and with cotton-tipped applicators, I gently stuffed the medicated cotton into the hole. I thought this would be more difficult than the peroxide injection, but she actually tolerated it very well.

I put her back in her stall and mixed up some beet pulp with the Tucoprim powder that Dr. Gillard had prescribed. She ate most of it without a problem.

That afternoon I returned to ride. While grooming Lily and tacking up, I noticed she was either standing square or even resting the right foot, in a normal way. Yay! She already feels better!

We stayed in the arena as night fell, and ended up doing an hour of walk work. She was very "up" to begin with, as I knew she'd be between being in heat and not having been worked in 5 days, and she tried balking at the corner of the arena that adjoins Bali's turnout to protest the fact that she was being ridden while Bali was out having fun. I asked Lily politely to continue, but when she tossed her head in protest, I gave her one sharp kick, where she leaped straight up in the air with all 4 feet off the ground like a frightened cat, then continued walking as if nothing had happened. She didn't balk again.

We did A LOT of lateral work: shoulder-in, shoulder-out, renvers, side-pass, leg yields, shallow loops, turns on the haunches and voltes, and a cool exercise from 101 Dressage Exercises where you do leg yield to half-pass as you go down the long sides of the arena. Basically, you are maintaining the same bend as the horse moves diagonally and laterally from the rail to the quarter line and back again. She actually did really, really well with this, switching from one side to the other as I shifted my weight and leg. She especially gave me a good try tracking left, which is her stiffer side.

Initially she wanted to complain, especially since I was riding her in the pelham with a single set of reins (extra braking power in case she decided to go cuckoo), but I was very quick to reward every little effort, and she soon became relaxed and willing. The one thing she refused to do was the Ackerman Square-she was hypersensitive to my seat, and wriggled forward, backwards, diagonally, and just seemed unable to focus on sidepassing in a straight line sideways no matter how I sat-every correction from me turned into an overcorrection on her part. I switched to turns on the haunches, and abandoned the exercise for another time-I really didn't want to fight with her when she's like this. I love her sensitivity, and I also love that she totally tells on me. 99.99% of the time, when she doesn't get something or can't do something, it is completely and totally my fault-I'm contradicting my cues unawares. She'll still try, though, but will become very frustrated, "You want me to do this thing, but your body is completely telling me to do this other thing! Arrrgh!! Make up your mind!!" At this point, it's best to let it go, avoid the meltdown, and revisit the exercise at a later time when she's more relaxed and I can concentrate on correcting what I'm doing wrong.

We finished the session with a power walk on a loose rein, Lily's nose almost to the ground, her stride long, her back up and swinging. I then gathered her up and had her do 6 steps of reinback in a straight line (she tries to escape sideways), then had her halt and got off, giving her lots of pats.

Even though she has never been trained in this sport, Lily is totally teaching me dressage. She can do everything; I know she could go all the way up to at least Fourth Level if we wanted to. She may never beat the fancy warmbloods, but she can certainly perform the movements.

I just have to learn to ask correctly and accurately, each time. We'll get there.

I let her chill in front of the fan-she was not hot, but she had broken a little bit of a sweat, so I allowed her to dry before grooming her, set up her bute with Stud Muffins in our tack stall (she took 2 steps forward in the cross ties when she smelled them! *lol*), then had Diana hold the twitch while I treated her hoof again. Her reaction was not as dramatic as this morning when I injected the peroxide, and as soon as the twitch was off, I placed the Stud Muffin feeder in front of her right away, so she'd associate it with a reward. She scarfed happily while I finished setting up her feed, with one cross tie attached to only one side of her halter, which meant that when she was done, she was free to wander over to Rose's stall wall to sneak some of the hay from Rose's haynet through the stall boards.

I put Lily back in her stall with her own dinner. Goofy mare. :)

Stormy Weather

We did get to ride on Friday after all. It was sunny all day long; Diana swung by my house to pick me up at 3:30pm and we went to the barn. We did all of our chores first and fed the horses their early dinner a little after 4:00pm so we could head to the trails at a reasonable time. Lily was ignoring her early dinner hay and pouting for her beet pulp/grain mix, but I wanted to feed it after we were back. I went into her stall to give her attention, and she became super curious about me, sniffing my face, my neck, my arms, by body all the way down to my toes, and back up again. It took me a minute, but then I remembered I had used a different body lotion that day-it smelled really sweet and fruity. I guess she liked it? She repeated this a couple of times and the look on her face made me laugh. She was pressing her lips together tight in concentration, like "Hmmmmm...This looks like you but it certainly doesn't smell like you."

I took her out of the stall and checked her feet. Her energy was "up", not her usual super calm, laid-back self, and I figured it would be a good idea to lunge her before riding. However, her frogs on both hind feet looked somewhat bruised today-the farrier took off too much frog on her left hind as well! I applied Durasole to her frogs and soles, allowed it to dry, then I took her out to the arena while Diana waited for the other grooming station-Bob's owner was giving him a bath right then. I wanted to do a little groundwork, and then I was planning on letting her work at liberty around the perimeter of the dressage arena. The track around the arena is currently overgrown with weeds and grass from the rain and lack of use, so it's a soft cushy surface for sore feet.

I took the lunge whip with me this time instead of my dressage whip. The last time I worked her with the dressage whip free in the arena, she totally laughed at me and did whatever she wanted. I was also really tired that day, and I know this was also coming into play that time-without the right energy, it is nearly impossible to work a horse properly at liberty, either at close quarters (like in a round pen or the square picadero) or from afar. It is utterly AMAZING what you can do with a sensitive horse from one end of the arena, if you are able to project the right energy. It never ceases to astound me.

On this Friday, I felt that we had graduated to a level of trust where Lily would not run herself into the ground anymore at the sight of a lunge whip in my hand. I was right.

We walked quietly into the center of the arena, to a spot where the footing was softer, and I had her lunge a couple of times in each direction-I just wanted to watch her move, and also to control her warmup. She was definetely sore-she was not tracking up at the trot on her own, so I didn't push her. When I asked her to canter, she leaped into it and did her bycicles in the air (I love when she does this-her front end comes up, her head goes down, and she kicks her front legs forward, doing circles in the air. It reminds me more of a puppy playing than a horse!) which always makes me laugh, and tells me she's in a happy mood. She didn't hold the canter for long, and I didn't ask her to-only a few strides in each direction and that was it. We practiced a couple of changes of direction, where I changed the whip hand and lowered my upper body, and she was keyed into me so that she changed directions without barely missing a beat, without slowing down to a walk like she used to. Very cool. This was probably all a grand total of 5 minutes. I then took off running backwards in a straight line, with still 20m of lunge line between us, and she followed at a jog. I stopped, and she continued to jog, closing the distance and coming to a stop at a respectful 4 feet from me. I let her rest for a minute, patting her, and then practiced some turns on the forehand with her. I had read about this in the 101 Dressage Exercises book. She did it perfectly to the right (with me on her left, gently vibrating the lunge whip towards her hind legs), not so much to the left (with me standing on her right). One of the big things I discovered with Lily's groundwork is that she is decidedly one-sided-it is VERY obvious that in her early training they neglected to work her evenly from both sides, and when she is nervous or confused, she will actually GUARD her right side to keep you from stepping over to that side to ask her to do things. This sometimes makes me wonder if maybe she didn't happen to get beaten from the right side later when the cowboy handled her.

I then removed the lunge line from her halter and stepped back. Lily looked at me for a second, alert, and I pointed towards the arena fence, and she obliged, trotting off towards the wall.

She worked beautifully. I always let her run as much as she wants to, initially, because these are the only times when she can gallop and pick up speed, since our turnouts are small. This is also why I always like to warm her up properly before setting her free-otherwise, I would not have lunged her with sore feet on this day.

Happy canter around the arena.

After galloping and then cantering around, she slowed to a trot, and I asked for changes of direction and transitions from walk to trot to canter and back down again. She was a lot more comfortable on the outside track of the arena, on the grass. During the last few months, she has developed LOVELY transition from walk to trot at liberty, where her back and withers come up as she pushes off into a big snappy trot, and she'll look like a mini upper-level dressage warmblood for a minute, before settling into a long, sweeping trot. She didn't do this today because it involved her pushing with her sore back feet, but she still gave me a nice long trot.

Standardbred trot around the arena

Her natural self-carriage has improved a lot in the last few months, I think

Should I come or should I stay?

I asked her to stop by standing still-as long as she is moving, I'm walking in a smaller circle in the center of the arena. This time, however, she wouldn't come to me-she'd just stand and stare at me. So I'd send her away to work, and try again. She would stop when I did, but still wouldn't come. We tried this a few times, and I must've been doing something different with my body language, because she would not come, even when I tried dropping the whip on the ground before standing still myself. So eventually I just had her stand still for a minute, and then walked over to her, put her regular lead rope on her halter, and we did an old Parelli exercise where I pass the lead rope behind her neck, opposite the side I'm standing on, and move lengthwise towards her rear end. The end result is that she must move forwards and come back to face me-the pressure on the lead rope will bring her back in a half-circle in the opposite direction from me. She used to freak out so much with this exercise, but we have this down to almost a dance-she knows to come back even before feeling the pressure of the lead rope on her halter. It's the best gauge of her mental state: if she is able to do it quietly, without even flinching (sometimes she still does if she's on edge, so we'll have to do it a couple of times to remind her that I'm not going to hurt her), I know she's in a very relaxed state of mind. On this day, she was 100% relaxed.

At that point I stood with her for a minute, and then led her back indoors. I hosed her off-we'd only been out in the arena for about 15 minutes, but there was that pre-storm heat and she had broken a sweat. I sweat-scraped her and tacked her up, still wet, knowing this would keep her more comfortable during the ride.

Dark clouds started to roll in as we made our way down the road to the park. Lily again looked at the clumps of dry, cut grass on the side of the path leading to the park entrance, and leaped over a palm leaf lying on the ground. I took her back to it and made her walk around it until she finally stood with both feet on it and relaxed, while Diana and Bali waited for us patiently. Silly mare.

Scary clumps of dry grass!

Once inside the park, we turned right and took the skinny trails, alternating between walking and trotting. Both Lily and Bali behaved well, despite the wind beginning to pick up and rustling through the treetops.

Bali and Diana take the lead at a trot.

We took turns leading, until we were out by the powerlines again. We crossed the street by the powerlines and headed into the main trails, which were unusually dark from the impending storm. We trotted and even cantered a bit, and took the mares through the handicapped rider's trails, with all of their little obstacles. Lily looked at some of the obstacles more than usual, but did not spook nor startle.

We came out of the main trails with the intention of crossing over the hills by the park pastures before heading home, but a flash of nearby lightning quickly made us change our minds. Instead, we turned back towards the powerlines and walked the rest of the way home. The wind was really picking up then. Thankfully, the two mares remained calm despite all the swirling vegetation around them.

Storm rolling in

The wind whipping through the tall grass by the powerlines

Diana and Bali :)

As we were reaching the end of the powerlines, I saw something dark jumping through the tall grass, and realized it was a loose dog. I have issues with dogs being off-leash around horses, and it is not allowed at the park. A couple of weeks ago, a couple of loose dogs almost caused a massive accident, spooking a group of riders on a guided trail ride on the park horses. Luckily nobody was hurt. This time, the dog belonged to a couple who had both of their dogs off-leash. I cursed out loud and it must've carried in the wind, because they immediately picked up their other dog, a beagle, and started looking for the black dog that had escaped. They made it all the way to the end of the powerlines with us, and they still hadn't found their second dog. That's what happens when you let your dog off leash, people.

Back in Puerto Rico people were not very good about keeping their dogs inside their houses or even confined to their yards. Loose dogs were a problem-they would chase cars, people, and horses. Thankfully, Lucero, my Paso Fino, was very brave, and I trained him to swing around and chase any dog that came up on our heels. He eventually learned to do it on his own, without a signal from me, and we were always lucky that the dogs never stood their ground.

Lily does like to chase things when I ask her to so far, but I don't know if she'd be willing to chase after an aggressive, barking dog. 

The rest of the ride back home was uneventful. Back at the barn, we rode into the arena to dismount as more lightning flashed in the distance. At that instant, Oreo came tearing out of the barn in a mad dash towards the far wall of the arena, with one of the brown tabbies in close pursuit. I don't like that tabby-she bullies Oreo constantly, and she used to pick fights with Smiles, Judy's barn kitty before Oreo.

Oreo leaped on the wall about 8 feet away from Lily and me, and the other cat stopped in her tracks when she saw Lily. I kicked Lily into a canter from a standstill and we took off after the tabby, chasing her out of the arena, away from Oreo. Lily received a big pat from me, and I hopped off.

We didn't hose the mares off, as they had barely broken a sweat. Instead, we untacked them and turned them out in the arena with little Willy to graze while we picked their stalls. The storm was holding and the lightning sirens had not sounded from the park, so it was still far away. The horses got to graze for about an hour before we brought them back in.

The first rain bands from Isaac were supposed to start coming that night, so we left all the horses inside for the night.

Excitement

The farrier came today, and he was very happy with Lily's barefoot progress.

First trim & front shoe removal on July 20:

He left the toes long to see how she'd wear them down-he didn't want to take off too much and then have her be constantly footsore because of not having any foot to wear down.

He filled the nail holes with wood putty. I thought this was ingenious, and it actually worked-the nail holes did not crack during the 4-week period between trims.

Left hoof. Note the slightly uneven heels-the farrier said she puts more weight on the inside heel, but this can eventually be corrected.

Right front. Same issue with the heels on this side too.The mat was wet on this side, so the underside of the hoof was also wet, and there's some gunk stuck around the area of the white line.

Second trim, today:

I just realized I took this one at a different angle from the first. But you can see that he completely took off the nail holes. The toes are still somewhat long, for the same reason as before.

Her feet look uneven in this shot, but they actually look more even, in person, than they have in awhile!

The chip on her left front that had me concerned a week ago, but she's worn it down herself.

He took off some of the apex of her frog on her right hind, I'm not sure why, and there was some vascularization close to the surface of the frog-maybe an old bruise? Or maybe she had thrush starting there? It looked really ouchy, and I was upset because the farrier did NOT bring up any issues after the trim-he actually said she had no thrush, too. I'll get pictures-I didn't have my cell on me at the time, and by the time I took the photos of her feet above, I'd already applied Durasole to her feet. I was cleaning Willy's stall across the way while the farrier was doing her back feet, so I didn't catch this until after he'd left, and he didn't mention it while we were talking about her feet afterwards. Next time I'll just stand there and watch the entire time. I thought that in barefoot horses you mostly leave the frogs alone, especially on hooves like her back feet, that have been barefoot forever.

I'm soooo itching to do this myself; I'm just afraid of screwing up. Anyone do their own trimming out there?

Any plans on riding in the arena were pretty much done-I wasn't going to ride her in that rocky, sandy footing with a sore foot. So I decided to take her out to the park instead and just walk in the open areas on the grass. We have Tropical Storm Isaac threatening to come in the vecinity of Florida, so I wanted her to get some exercise, in case she ends up cooped up for the next few days due to the rain. I switched the baucher back out for her pelham, with only 1 set of reins on the shanks, in case she decided to go cuckoo, though she'd been so good the last several outings that I wasn't expecting her to be any different.

Dianne rode out with me on Beau, and as it turns out, it was probably a good thing they were with us! Lily was looky going down the white trail to the park. The grass on both sides had been recently mowed, and there were clumps of dried grass clippings lying in little piles all over the path and the grass. Lily stared at them as if they were rabid.

Going down the powerlines the horses were fine. The sky was overcast, and a nice cool breeze was blowing-the weather was perfect for riding. We turned left at the end of the powerlines, and I decided to take us through a service path that leads inbetween the park horse pastures and the Horses for the Handicapped covered arena. A stablehand was turning 2 horses out, and Lily just had to stop and watch, then leaped forward, terrified, when the girl slammed the gate door. Oookay... Overreact much? It's not like she's never heard a gate slam shut. I had to spin her around, narrowly missing poor Beau's surprised nose, and then we made our way hesitantly up the path. The footing had patches of black mud in the grass, which Lily snorted at as if they were cavernous holes in the ground, refusing to walk over them, and then, at the end of the path, tried to turn tail back home for no reason at all. She's been on this path before, just in the opposite direction-it's not like she's never seen it, either. I spun her around again to face forward, and she settled down as we crossed over to the park barn, through the children's playground. She actually didn't care about the playground at all, and we walked through the parking lot quietly, heading up the grass that runs along the pasture fence line. All of the park horses were turned out for the night, and a little red dun mare came trotting up to say hi, followed by a cute silver dapple pony. Dianne used to work at the park barn, and she was telling me about the two horses, when all of a sudden, they both took off running and bucking along the fence line, and some of the other horses joined them. It was like someone had flipped Lily's Dynamite Switch to "On". She whirled around, tail flagged, and tried to take off with the other 2 horses, but was brought to a rude stop by my hands on the reins. She arched her neck beautifully and pranced, but I felt all of her energy relocate to her haunches, and before she could try anything, I moved her off of the grass along the fence in a hurry-I did NOT want her rearing on an incline. She protested, tossing her head and prancing more, and I tried turning her away from the playing horses, but she spun around to face them one more time and gave a LOUD BLAST through her nose. Once, in a single exhale. If she had had fire-breathing capabilities, flames would've come out of her nostrils at that moment. *lol* I got her onto the grassy field on the other side of the path by the fence, maintaining her moving in small tight circles to keep her mind off of going UP and AWAY. She settled into an animated walk, neck arched, but as we were walking away on a straight line, she did manage to throw in a single rear, just to let me know exactly what she thought about me not leting her play with her new friends. She landed, and we walked off as if nothing had happened. Dianne in the meantime had just been focused on staying out of wild woman's way, and Beau did all of us proud by staying impassively calm. There have been times when he's fed off of other horses' excitement, but not today, thankfully.

Note to self: do NOT walk along the fence line by the pastures when the horses are turned out, especially if riding by ourselves!

Lily settled down quickly, and we made our way back through the hills to return to the powerlines. It's amazing how much my attitude affects her- if I'm calm despite her own nerves (like today), she really will settle down quickly. However, if I allow myself to be affected, her nervousness will snowball. She was a very good girl for the rest of the ride, and I rode her on a long loopy rein. Our ride was almost exactly 45 minutes long. I was glad I'd chosen to do this ride, though, because Lily was definetely sore on pavement.

Back at the barn, Lily had barely broken a sweat, so I only hosed down her shoulders and back, then let her dry in front of the fan. She then went out with Willy and their haynets. Hopefully it stays dry tonight and tomorrow-Diana and I are supposed to go for a hack in the afternoon. Go away, Isaac!

Inspiration

Last night I had another good ride on Lily. I finally, finally purchased the book 101 Dressage Exercises, so I wanted to add some of these to her workout. I switched out her pelham for my baucher French link, which she likes, because some of the exercises I wanted to do involved lateral work, and I didn't want the additional leverage of the pelham for these exercises-I wanted her to enjoy it, not be tossing her head in frustration.

We started out with our usual walk on a loose rein, then did some shoulder-in at the walk in both directions to loosen her up, and we moved on to a regular trot. Again she sucked back in the corner closest to the gate that leads out of the arena (not the barn gate, the one that leads to the parking lot. She's never cared about this gate, and if it's open she has to be coaxed to exit through it) and pinned her ears when I asked her for more trot. That was it. She'd been doing this for 2 weeks and I was done. I smacked her on the shoulder, not hard, but enough to make a sound, and this completely took her by surprise! She jumped into a canter. I immediately brought her back down to a trot, quietly, and had her circle in that same corner at a trot. She settled down quickly- this was the kind of reprimand that a year ago would have kept her nervous for a week!- and continued at a nice working trot. She did not try to suck back at that corner again, so for the first time in 2 weeks we actually had a normal workout of walk-trot-canter sequence. With the baucher she would occassionally go above the bit, but not the way she used to in the beginning, back when I first started working with her. As she warmed up, she was almost leaning on the bit when I asked her to lengthen down the long sides of the arena. Slowing my posting seems to help lighten her, and I can feel her back come up underneath me in these instances. I wish I had constant video of our work. It's hard sometimes to know if what we're doing looks the way it feels, especially since I haven't done any of this on a seasoned dressage horse to know how it should feel.

We started with this exercise at the trot, which we had already been doing, except we do the short sides of the arena in shoulder-in only:

Changing bends was actually simpler with the baucher, and she kept up the trot all the way around the arena, in both directions.

We then took a walk break on a loose rein, and afterwards, I picked her up and did this one:

She totally rocked the side-pass. The square was probably more rhomboid in nature, but her side-passes were fairly straight and even in both directions (I had no markers, so I knew the sides of the square were not all the same length, but whatever), and quarter turns on the forehand were perfect!! I had never asked her for any kind of turn on the forehand while riding. She received lots of pats and another walk break.

I let her do some medium trot around the arena, with large 20m circles maintaining the pace, and back to a walk. We then practiced walk-canter-walk transitions once around the arena in each direction. Still a couple of trot steps going into the canter and back to a walk when on the left lead-I have to set her up perfectly to be able to go into the up transition without any trot, especially on this lead. We got it on the second try.

Lily was really into her trot work last night, and wanted to fly at the trot. I collected her into more shoulder ins down the long sides of the arena again, again once in each direction, and her energy was such that she gave me some of the most forward shoulder-ins ever so far. We then we tried our hand at a canter circle, with a halt after a full circle. I didn't expect her to be able to pull this off, as it is an advanced exercise, but she surprised me by giving me a clean halt and a very "up" canter depart on the right lead. It was excellent! We did it 3 times on the right lead, then gave it a go on the left lead. Not so successful-Lily picked up the incorrect lead twice (my fault-I wasn't sitting straight in the saddle), then became VERY riled up, anticipating the canter depart from the halt to the point that she actually sprang into the air, all 4 feet off the ground at once, before I could properly cue her. Laughing, I had her stop and stand, but she kept wiggling-to the front, backwards, and to the sides! I finally got her to settle down and just stand quietly for a few seconds, during which she kept turning her head to nuzzle my left foot, like, "Mom! What are you waiting for? I want to GO!" When she finally just STOOD, I just asked her for couple of trot-canter-trot transitions on the circle to relax her. Once she'd stopped anticipating, we moved on to a different exercise. I probably should've tried the canter-halt circles again, but I know my mare, and to press the issue would have just caused her get more and more revved up-I'd rather keep her in a meltdown-free state of mind; we can always re-visit this exercise later.  

So we moved onto this exercise, in which I discovered we really need a longer arena (ours is 20x40m):

The leg yields down the short diagonal were just taking us right into the corner, so in the corner I'd cue for the canter and we'd do a canter circle before coming back to a trot back up the long side of the arena. She totally rocked this exercise too, on the left lead more so than on the right for once. To the right, she did have to re-balance herself with a couple of trot steps on the straightaway before she could pick up the canter. I really liked this one-we'll be practicing it more.

We repeated our canter collection & lengthening sets from our last ride, and shallow canter loops, which she again did really, really well! We then walked out for 10 minutes. The evening was significantly cooler from the night before, with a breeze that was almost chilly blowing in, and Lily cooled down quickly. No ice boots for cooling down-a good hosing was enough, and then she went out with little Willy for the night.

Lily loves Wee Willy :)