Pia: 1 Grain Ball: 0

It happened.  Pia won.  She finally destroyed her grain-ball-hangy-thing. While I am currently sad that she doesn't have something delicious hanging in her stall that she can fight/play with -  I am NOT missing the sticky grain-ball stamp of molasses all over her face/neck/back/blanket/ears. 

Nice Job Mare.  You showed it who's boss.

(Pia apparently sees no need to pay attention to the back of her stall now that her ball is gone)

In other news, while I was out at the barn yesterday enjoying the grain-ball free mare, I did some ground work and lots of trotting work in hand.  Since I'm still not riding until we know EXACTLY what's going on and can say for sure that riding or being worked won't make anything worse, I figured we can play on the ground a bit. 

We did lots of trot/halt transitions.  For some reason this is wildly entertaining to me, and I think might be the only recorded instance of me "jogging" in recent history.  We also worked on "lateral" stuff.  slowly moving over while moving forward, etc.  I wouldn't call it a "leg yield" but its not too far off.  P is really good about spinning away from me and toward me at the halt, but she has a harder time pay attention to me moving toward/away from her when we are moving.  SO that's a good baby goal for the time being. 

Also, we worked on matching my pace E X A C T L Y.  Instead of just being stopped or moving, I've been asking her to take constant small baby steps when I'm going slow, or big giant walk steps when I go faster.  I've been trying to encourage big walk more than baby jog since I think there's a good chance we might have a long future of handwalking ahead of us.  If rehab is on the horizon I want to be sure our ground manners are TIP TOP before I have to deal with a mare on stall rest who only gets to see the outside world for 10 (calm) minutes at a time.

I know that's getting way ahead of myself, but I am the sort of person who always needs a "goal," even if its a totally depressing one. 

Saturday we did go explore the trail system near the barn, which is less "trail" and more "well maintained gravel road."  So that's a fun option for good long walks if P minds her manners and stops acting like bunnies and birds are going to leap up and eat her.  Since there are lots of bunnies and birdies darting around in the "wilderness."

That's all for now.  Hopefully we hear back from Dr. Grant soon regarding his thoughts on P's x-rays...