I think i was more overjoyed than she was! *dance*
I'm glad to report that the transition was smooth, you wouldn't have known she hadn't been out - out with the last 6 weeks! There was only a little bit of trotting and one little buck/fart as a gust of wind caught her funny, ;) , but the other two stayed calm. Thankfully as E had only pulled a hind shoe the night before and his farrier can't come till the middle of this week and G is "technically" retired although he can still do light work and hacking as he is only in his early teens - but was retired from full work due to leg issues.
So right, enough waffling out of me, time for some pictures!
(All taken 09/07/2011)
E and K have buddied up - K is possibly coming into season or else she wouldn't be so nice to him, lol!
So Poor G get's left on his own - quite literally in a corner!
The Three Amigos grubbing up in an orderly fashion!
Then I went back later in the day to check all was still going alright, what do ye think?
And last but not least her ladyship in all her regalness (in my totally unbiased opinion of course!)
To say that I was overjoyed to let her back out was a massive understatement, and the fact that she didn't tear off round the field potentially damaging herself even more brought her right back up in my esteem.
*hug my horse*
I am so proud of how she has been behaving ever since just before the injury!
(I'll apologise now, this is about to turn into an "I *love* my horse" sop-fest)
The last two spins i got out of her before saddle fitter came and re-itetrated my belief that the saddle wasn't fitting were nigh-on-foot perfect for us. She was working calmly and properly! Which was a huge step forwards for us!
Then for the whole 6 weeks that she was on box rest, getting hosed & poked and proded, and then walked like a mahoosive dog on a lead - she behaved really well bar one or two minor strops towards the end as she was building up energy due to lack of movement!
And then to top it all off we eased her back into lungeing work last week and paddock turn out, increasing the lungeing sessions (only walk, trot and halt) by 5 minutes every two days and the paddock sessions (1st outing was 30minutes, 2nd an hour, 3rd 2 hours - then she went out out on saturday from 3pm onwards). I had been apprehensive about letting her out as she has been known to go loop-dy when let out after prolonged stays indoors, lol, but as i mentioned above after one fart/buck and a bit of trotting she was fine!
Her luneging has also improved massively as well, :cheer:, she responds immediately to voice commands (although stand still takes a bit for her to listen lol, she's not really one for the standing still as such!) and now she is also starting to carry herself correctly in trot on the lunge withought a training aid! I have posted before how we'd been using a pessoa to build up her back musculation ... but that had practically stopped by the time she got injured, however will resume it again probably next week to build her back up slowly again and continue with our slow lunge work, as she is still having up and down days with limping while lungeing. Most days she is still taking a few stiff steps before working herself slowly and calmy into un-lame work.
She has also stopped taking off on the lunge, ;), worked her monday night, for only 15minutes as it was still 26C at 7.30pm so after having been in the field since Saturday and moving of her own accord i didn't want to do too much in the clammy-ness of an indoor!
But we were working in the "spookier" of the indoors as this one has a gallery, is behind a row of stables and has a big double door which opens onto the car park that overlooks the road - so provides more than enough excuses for a horse that likes to take every opportunity she can to mess.
Bless her cotton socks (or three white ones, ;) ) she didn't put a foot wrong for me that night, when a car pulled in and someone got out slammed the doors and droped plastic bottles or something all in the sapce of a minute she half-thought about taking advantage but after a "don't" she reconsidered and dropped the head again relaxing back into a bouncy flowy trot! *dance**dance*
She was a little sorer that night than she had been last week which also contributed to my working her less, but overall the quality of her work is imrpoving in such a way that i don't mind at all doing a little less if it means what we are doing is actually having some effect, ;)
Just out of curiosity on Saturday, before she went out, I tried a little bit of canter with her on the lunge - now usually this can lead to mahoosive fireworks and rejuvenated bucking/farting/plungeing with energy she had hidden away in reserve somewhere - now i wouldn't have asked her to go up a gear if i hadn't been 99% sure she'd behave - I am getting better at reading her, ;)
Anyway she was good and did no messing however she wasn't comfortable either so after 2 rounds i brought her back to trot and cooled her off, ;)
Sorry, as usualy my post has gotten a lot more long-winded then I'd intended! However I am just so happy with how she is doing and although it may be incredibly slow by professionals standards I want to make sure I give her the best chance at durable recovery as possible and have no intention of rushing her back!
My end goal for the end of the year is to have bought a new saddle that fits and eventually (this is the dream for now) get back to our weekly lessons, ;) - but for this i need to feel happy in "our" ability to behave in company of others as the arena lessons are in can get pretty busy so we don't need any temper tantrums, ;)
I may be jumping the gun here and she could yet prove me wrong, but I am hoping that getting a saddle which fits correctly will add to the work we have done and enable us to get right back on track!
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