Bodies Fail, Hearts Never Do

He's been the magic in my life from day one.

Since Dino entered his 20's, he's gotten progressively more and more difficult to manage as his workload has gotten more challenging. This isn't shocking - he's worked hard his whole life and these things catch up with a body after a while! In the past two years we've done his first Adequan, joint injections, and regular NSAID regimen. I've had to really carefully plan my training schedule to keep him progressing but not make him sore. Some days he'd come out and make me feel like we could go Grand Prix, other days all he wanted to do was go for a walk around the farm. I learned to accept that our lesson and competition schedule needed to be very fluid and completely dependent on how Dino was feeling physically in the moment, and that scratching classes and cancelling lessons was something that was always a possibility. I cherished the good days and gave us both grace on the bad days, and tried my best to listen when my horse said, "I can't." 

Since our last show in July, Dino hadn't been feeling 100%. I was having to manage his body during rides way more than normal just to keep him on the bit and connected, and things that used to feel easy for him were getting more and more difficult. I was gradually losing the ability to collect him and influence his hind legs, and especially in the walk, he was coming behind the bridle and anxiously opening his mouth more frequently. His feet were in rough shape, and my farrier put glue-on shoes on him to give his hooves a break from damaging nail holes and allow them to grow and recover. 

I ended up cancelling our planned lessons for August, and asked my vet to evaluate his soundness. Flexion tests showed us that his stifles hurt, the right more than the left, so we injected both joints and gave him some time off. Unfortunately, after two weeks of total rest and a handful of light rides, Dino still wasn't sound. 

I just love this photo. He had given me a phenomenal ride on this day. 

Armed with x-ray and ultrasound machines, we worked him up thoroughly yeseterday, knowing that something more serious than run-of-the-mill sore joints was at work here. We'd already picked all the low-hanging fruit - injections into the most obviously sore joints, chiropractic, IM joint therapies, and daily NSAIDs - and we would need more information to help Dino get comfortable in his hind end. 

His hocks and stifles x-rayed flawlessly. Dino surprisingly had no signs of arthritis or degenerative changes in his joints. For a pony of his age especially, his joints were absolutely perfect. 

Unfortunately, that left us with the only remaining possibility being a soft tissue injury. When we ultrasounded the right hind leg, we found a small injury to the proximal suspensory ligament. Thankfully it wasn't torn, but there was inflammation in the ligament and an area that was fuzzy-looking. (It helped me to visualize a rope that was once taut and tightly woven but had become loose and frayed.) While the injury isn't the worst it could be, it's still a pretty serious one, especially for a horse of Dino's age with Cushings. He's likely to have some difficulty healing, and he may or may not be able to go back to light work. For now, the plan is to keep him living out as both my vet and I think stall rest would be detrimental to the rest of his body, do some shockwave treatments, and recheck him in 4-6 weeks to see if the ligament is improving. We're also checking his ACTH levels to be sure his Cushing's is as controlled as we can get it to help his body heal. If Dino hasn't shown improvement in that timeframe, I'll likely have to make arrangements for him to be on stall rest. If he shows healing, we'll stay the course and hopefully bring him back to light work. 

Throwback to our first ride in the double! What an awesome day. 

With the diagnosis in hand and along with lots of love and support from my vet, I made the clear and obvious decision to retire Dino from dressage, and providing the ligament heals, step his workload down to something his body can handle better than the intensity of 2nd Level work. While I was hoping to have one more chance to show him in October this year, that's now completely off the table. I love him more than I love dressage, and Dino's comfort and happiness are my priority. My hope is that after healing from this injury he'll still be able to be in light work, and I have plans for him to help the next generation of horses and riders find confidence and joy! He's got baby horses to teach to trail ride, and nieces and nephews to give pony rides. And he will always be my best buddy; his back will always feel like home. 

As I've begun to come to terms with this new phase in his life, I've cried a lot of tears. Our horses embody so much: our dreams, our identity, our ambitions, our joy, our passion. It is so, so hard to let go of those things as Dino ages and his body weakens. Riding and showing him has been a huge part of my life for the last decade, and knowing that chapter has come to a close hurts my heart. It's grieving him in a thousand small pieces.

This pony could JUMP when he was in his prime!

But as I look back on everything Dino and I have done together over the past nearly 11 years as partners, I am filled with pride and gratitude. He colored my childhood dreams copper penny bright and took me places my younger self couldn't even begin to imagine. He taught me to be relentless and to be soft. To be tough and to be gracious. He forgave me so many times I can't even count them, carried me through grief, realized old dreams and gave me new ones I never thought were possible. Dino taught me how to lose with grace, and to win with humility. With him I learned how to train and how to compete, and how not to do those things, too. 

Riding and showing Dino brought so many incredible people into my life. Over the years I have been blessed to connect with talented trainers committed to our growth and success, vets who cared for his body and taught me how to understand and provide for a horse's physical needs, friends who have stood by me through the emotional roller coaster of life with horses, and a fairy godmother who anonymously supported my dressage dreams from afar. Thank you, all of you, for being a part of this amazing journey with us. Riding can feel like a lonely sport sometimes, but it takes a big, beautiful community to make it happen. 

There he goes, fulfilling dreams I never dared to imagine.

There will probably be more long, emotional posts from me in the coming days as I move through this change in our lives, but I want to thank you too, readers, for sticking with me here at PONY'TUDE all these years. I'm grateful for everyone who has come here to read along with Dino's adventures and has stuck with me for the past decade. Connecting with you all in this way has been so special, and I don't have plans to end the blog here! One of the things that Dino has given me is a love and passion for the sport of dressage, and while time and money are always a challenge, I do want to continue on in this sport and go as far as I can. Dino's late-realized talent for dressage opened up a whole new world of possibility for me as a rider, and as of now, I have no plans to quit pursuing my dressage education. It's just going to look a little different! 

Thank you again - my readers, friends, trainers, vets, saddle fitter, farriers, barn managers, ALL OF YOU - for your love and support, for your cheerleading, for your friendship, and for your undying belief in Team PONY'TUDE. 

It's been a wild ride.