Embracing the Alternate Timeline

There's a lot to catch you all up on that happened over the past couple of weeks, and a lot of thoughts rattling around in my brain to share. Let's get started, shall we?

After our lesson at the end of July, I dutifully worked at getting Dino out into the bridle, searching for that feeling of uphill, balanced power and solid connection that we had lost. Some days were successful, some less so, and some days I got frustrated and angry that he wasn't responding the way I wanted, and I ruined everything with my emotional outbursts. 

I tried to stick to our show plan - one schooling show at the beginning of August to get in a clean attempt at 2-1, followed by our first rated show the week after. Surely, I thought, I'd have the whole contact problem nipped in the bud within a week! 

You are probably laughing at what a ridiculous idea that was. 

While we came away from the schooling show with a blue ribbon (perks of being the only pair riding 2-1!) and another 58% and change, I was so, so disappointed in how Dino felt that day. In the test, while he made some kind of vague attempt to perform the movements when I asked, I never once felt that he was up in front of my leg, his back was dropped, his neck was tense, and there was a LOT of anxious mouth-opening during the whole thing. The judge, bless her, was absolutely lovely and explained why our scores were so low (total lack of uphill balance will do it... ugh.), saying that Dino just wasn't pushing up into the bridle. Her assessment was spot on with what I had felt, which is always a good thing, but I was pretty upset that he felt so bad. I schooled him a bit after our test, getting him a little more in front of the leg, but I just couldn't get him past the tension in his neck and back. It was like the hind legs were moving and propelling him forward, but I was losing the energy completely somewhere between his haunches and his mouth. The circle was very, very broken.

Driving home, I decided it was time to bring in our vet for a look. This issue wasn't resolving with training, in fact it was getting worse, so I made an appointment for a lameness work-up with our fabulous vet. I figured something had to be hurting Dino somewhere for him to keep behaving this way, and I was going to find out what it was. 

Naturally, all the very worst outcomes were coming to mind in the days leading up to the appointment (career ending injury! kissing spines! horrific carrer-ending arthritis! bleeding hind-gut ulcers!), but we decided to start with a basic lameness work-up and a good look at his mouth, head, and poll in case this was just a matter of something like a mouth ulcer, spinal misalignment, or TMJ pain. Dino had worked beautifully in just a halter the day before the appointment, so I wasn't sure what to think. 

After poking and prodding and flexing and jogging and lunging we found that Dino is just an old man who works hard and is a little bit sore and stiff all over. He flexed a little bit positive just about everywhere and had some back soreness, but there was really nothing scary or acute that we wouldn't expect for a 22 year old doing 2nd Level work who's never had any of his joints injected or been on any kind of maintenance drugs aside from the occasional loading dose of Pentosan, which I had stopped because I got squicky about injecting compounded meds into my horse, and it just didn't seem to do much at some point. We decided to start with getting some good drugs into him - Equioxx (a daily anti-inflammatory) and Adequan (an I.M. joint therapy injection) and see how he responded. If those didn't quite do the trick. we could move to injecting hocks and/or stifles, and there are lots of drug options aside from heavy-hitting steroids that are safe for a Cushing's pony like Dino. 

We also took a look at the fit of his bit and bridle, and determined that I had my bit hanging a little too low in his mouth, and that it's overall just too big for Dino. There was a LOT of extraneous movement in the large rings of the eggbutt, and with it hanging down lower every time I pick up the contact there's quite a bit of movement, so we talked about changing it for something smaller and more stable. His bridle also juuust touches the base of his ears, which might be a bit uncomfortable, so we chatted about getting something with a narrow, traditional crownpiece, or going with a horse-size crown in an anatomic bridle so that the cut-outs fit where his ears actually are. My vet also used the words "when you get your double," which gave me hope that we'll be back to Wonder Pony levels of awesome soon! 

With all of that information, it was clear that scratching the rated show was the right choice. My pony certainly wasn't feeling great in his body, and certainly wasn't feeling strong enough to compete, especially at 2nd. While it was absolutely disappointing, it was the right move, and ultimately I'm more concerned with getting Dino comfortable and loving dressage again. 

Since we got him started on his new medication regime last week, I have ben feeling an improvement under saddle. He doesn't feel like he's ready to strut down centerline just yet, but after a couple days of meds I got on and immediately felt his back come up - something I honestly haven't felt in WEEKS! He's not as solid in the contact as I'd like yet, but the moments of anxious chomping, mouth-opening, and hiding behind the bridle are far fewer. Dino feels better with every day the drugs build up in his system, and I think with some careful training to re-establish the connection and correct posture, he'll be right as rain. If not, we can always inject some stuff! 

I also went bit shopping and have a few friends who've offered their bits for me to try, but I'll touch on that particular adventure in another post. There's also the Retraining My 2nd Level Horse To Go On the Bit  post coming, as well as some legitimately FUN, not depressing or disappointing stuff to share with you all, but that's for another day! 

As far as HOW we got here, I think it was mostly a factor of Dino working hard in saddles that didn't really fit. He is a lovely, stoic creature and put up with it until he just Could Not anymore, and started getting crooked/behind the leg/behind the bridle to avoid making everything hurt, which of course just made it worse. He went so nicely the very first day we got our properly fitted saddle, but the soreness and poor alignment from having ridden in the saddles that didn't fit was still there, and we were soon back to a very dysfunctional way of going. My hope is that by breaking the pain cycle with drugs and re-introducing a straight, forward way of going into the contact, we will be able to build back the strength Dino needs to do his work happily and in comfort. 

And, with luck, hopefully we'll have a fall show season!