Good News Bad News

Bad news first - Hemie is lame. He first showed signs Monday night - head bobbing, feeling off. His hind left started swelling, but very little heat. 

Luckily I already had the vet scheduled for the next morning for annual shots, so at least he had good timing. All parties (me, trainer, vet, every other person I could track down at the barn for their 2-cents) concluded that he likely just whacked himself in the turnout being fresh and silly. He gets stall rest for a few days, standing wraps, daily topical application of Surpass, and some bute.

And cookies. Lots of cookies.

Good news is that he is already showing signs of improvement, and that our rides so far this year have been excellent. Time for photos!

Working on our rear command

We jumped this for the first time the other week. Hemie had no issues.
99 problems but a ditch ain't one!! 

We've had some really fun coursework in our lessons so far this year, such as the right-side yellow to oxer - 4 strides, and the skinny red on the left to the tall X or the red boxes.

Center shows our two one-stride gymnastic. We've also been doing interesting lines and angled jumps, such as red boxes downhill, turn to to white gate. 

Black tube to ditch, right turn down the bank into water and over the log.

We've signed up for the cross-country clinic at Galway Downs next weekend. Fingers crossed for a full recovery for Hemie so we can still go! I've signed up to ride with Debbie Rosen so I'm very excited.