Saturday, September 8, 2012

Not An Abscess.

Well. It's not an abscess. But it's also nothing too scary (yet).

I met up with my vet in a dark, empty parking lot of a city park (since we weren't allowed to haul in to the barn she was practicing at for the day) which gave the whole proceeding the sense of a not-so-subltle high school drug deal.

Prairie was a tad confused as to why she was finishing her breakfast alone, in a parking lot, with no friends but she was decently calm. Especially given the annual tree limbing that was going on 60 yards away...

We chatted a bit an the first order of business was hoof testers.

No sensitivities. Anywhere. (yay good feet! Boo not an easy answer)

We lunged P2 around, jogged out on pavement. Walked uphill, walked downhill.. Turned in circles, everything reinforcing the initial idea my vet had (from that YouTube video I sent her) which was Rein Lameness.

Rein Lameness.

A diagnosis that I am always a little skeptical of and I think is often misused but I liked the way it sounded a hell of a lot more than "blown suspensory."

It also goes hand in hand with what is hard for me and P2. She's learned how to go without ever really lifting through her shoulder. And while she's cheating like that she still looks nice and feels forward and free so no one (myself included) corrects her out of it.

The analogy that I really liked was the notion of women who carry their 40lb purse on one shoulder all the time then can't figure out why their tennis serve is suffering.

So. Prairie is carrying her proverbial purse on her right shoulder. Impacting her gait, but not (yet) actually causing any serious damage.

So we discussed options, how to interrupt the pattern and ultimately how to correct it. The looming implications of not fixing Prairie's purse shoulder is that eventually it'll blow her left suspensory.

No bueno.

The good news is doing anything that keeps her long, low and loose is good. Moving is good. Jumping is good. Working is good.

But hauling on her mouth is bad. Jamming her up is bad. Letting her suck back is bad.

Presumably all those things were bad before but they weren't directly causing problems.

The good news is that the new plan works well with our Hunter work. But we do need to slow down and not force ourselves through anything that causes scooting.

The great news is that we don't have to cancel any of our fun things. So we're at the show and P2 has settled in great an had a decently relaxed school over fences last night (after 4 days off). Good mare.

Keep you posted!!

5 comments:

  1. Glad it was nothing serious. Guess it's time to really buckle down and work on that purse shoulder! Great analogy.

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  2. So glad that she is going to be fine and it wasn't something more serious. I hope you guys have a blast at the show! :)

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  3. Awesome!! My WB mare could be that way. So loose and moving naturally that it was easy for me to inhibit her and she was way smart and would take advantage of that. Hooray good news and hooray show and hooray jumping. Yay!

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  4. Rein lameness is about crookedness and a "block" somewhere in the horse under saddle. The rider could be blocking by restricting with one rein, or the horse may just not be accepting of the contact. This is what I've been told as my horse went through a short period of rein lameness on the right rein about a year ago.

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  5. Hmmm.... I've never heard of rein lameness, but it makes sense! I've seen horses so crooked that they appear to be lame. In fact Chrome was like that when going through his "growing pains". I'm glad it isn't serious. I guess it just gives you something else to work on. Good luck with the show!!

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