Catch Up Post. Lameness

I've been slacking on the blogging front, but hey, that's life sometimes.

Hubby and I went to Pismo Beach for a long weekend to celebrate our 1 year anniversary. It was lovely and relaxing.

I got an 8 am lesson this past Saturday before leaving, and it was a great ride. We worked on our usual stuff for now: straightness, slowness. We added in some work on my equitation (still working on sitting up after the jump to better collect and prepare for the next jump). Overall it was a fun lesson and a great start to a lovely long weekend.

Last night I went to the barn, accompanied by hubs. As Rick was getting a refresher on how to longe, I noticed Hemie was ever so slightly off.  Hind left. No, hind right. Left front. Bah!

I hopped on to see if it was just my imagination, and no, I did feel the slight hitch. Poor Hemie had lots of energy and wanted to go-go-go, but we ended the ride and hosed off his legs. No heat, no swelling. I called Laurie whose gut feeling was that it was his hooves and we may need to shoe him again. That was not my gut feeling, but she said she'd take a look at him today and call me. My gut feeling was just a small soreness or owie from his wild bucking (he was feeling fresh), or perhaps a small injury when getting turned out. I've learned personally that there doesn't have to be any heat or swelling for there to be some inner damage (knee issues still ongoing from my fall last Thanksgiving).

Well, today at lunch time Laurie called. She and another trainer, Mary Jo Lord (her website here) checked out Hemie and both thought it was front left. Laurie left a message for the farrier - the plan is to hoof test him and get his professional opinion then take it from there. If we didn't have the show on Sunday, I probably wouldn't even do that - the lameness was so small, I'd be inclined to just give him a few days off and see. So please send him your warm vibes for a quick healing.