Hello world

So here I am, peeking out into the world again.  Not sure if I will resume posting routinely but I want to at least check in on occasion.

Odin has been doing really well these days.  I need to get some photos - losing our photographer was rough - but he looks very grown up now.  Filled out a bit and please please please not getting any taller.

From a recent bath . He is close to 16.3 although he doesn't look it

We are continuing to develop him at a super slow pace.  I think he is probably in a position to be pushed more but I am not and he is still only 6 so we will stay slow.  Ever since the stifle injection he has developed a ton of strength in his hind and has stayed comfortable.  We still do periodic estrone injections but that is all we had needed so far.  We will see if we can keep that up through winter or if he needs more support.

We did add ranitidine into his life for stomach acid maintenance and that has really helped.  In fact, if he misses a few doses you know immediately, drama king that he is.  He starts "spooking", tail swishing, and just cannot even horse.  We did a barn experiment on him to see if a grain that purports to fix ulcers would work at our facility because he is so clear on when his belly isn't perfect.  The grain failed the test but it was again a clear demo that Odin on Ranitidine is awesome and Odin off Ranitidine is a no go.  At least it is a cheap thing to do.

He has stayed in training and probably will unless I lose my job because it fits with my life right now. So much progress has been made in so many different ways - self carriages is improving, he holds his leads both ways, his changes are getting better and better, his jumping is improving, etc.

There is still plenty to do - he needs better balance cantering right, he still can get overexcited jumping and lose rhythm, he does have a tendency to lean on your hands - but it all keeps getting better and he is now in a position to help his rider out some and be confident in various scenarios.

I manage to ride him about twice a week myself and I am lucky in that I have a strong enough riding base that I can pull off decent rides without being in great shape and with inconsistency.  That being said, I manage it carefully.  If I am mentally distracted or stressed or don't feel good, I keep the ride in a box I can handle.  If I feel good, we do more.  My goal is to enjoy him and at least keep myself in basic shape and not ruin the training!  With all the chaos in my life over the last 6 months that is good enough for me.  My trainer is very supportive and amazing.

Honestly, there were points in the last few months were I contemplated selling.  Horses aren't my current priority and they cost so much money.  But for now I am glad I am sticking with it.  I think Odin is a special horse and a great partner and since I have a good support team, if I can swing the money, I will be glad to have worked through this tougher part later.  And who knows, maybe my person life will make sense again one day!

Life in Numbers

Last time I posed in late March, I thought maybe things were starting to get better.  That would have been accurate if I had instead thought that maybe my life was about to fall apart.  So let's try and revisit this in numbers....

1 - long term romantic relationship ended

1 - fall off the horse when he spooked grazing on the buckle that messed my back up pretty nicely

1 - freak hail storm that trashed my car.  Mine was one of the few that wasn't totaled (because it is so new) so instead after about $11k in repairs I will have a car I can likely never sell

2 - cats euthanized.  On the same fucking day.  That day can be lit on fire and never heard from again.

1 - birthday that hopefully goes down as the worst birthday I ever have

And as the icing on shit cake.....

6 - weeks in a walking cast after breaking my 5th metatarsal.

I was just getting back into riding after my back injury when this happened so I guess I like paying for other people to ride my horse.  He at least has been doing very well in training.  His punk teenager phase continues so I am not too sad to let the pros deal with him right now.  He isn't scary or dangerous, but just has more opinionz than I need at the moment.

Things can always be or get worse, but it would be really nice if the world cut me some slack for awhile instead.

Emerging from the fog

The last 6 months or so have been fairly rough, with a lot of things happening at the same time.  Work issues, life issues, physical health, mental health, it has not been a barrel of monkeys around here.  While in no way is everything resolved, I think in the last few weeks I have started to find a way to mentally re-calibrate my coping mechanisms (aka anxiety medicine).

Odin has been a source of nearly constant fun and joy since I bought him so having him go through health issues at the same time as everything else was depressing and I probably didn't handle it well.  I try not to ride much when my anxiety is bad because the horses can always feel it so that meant plenty of walking only rides or skipping rides entirely and I am forever grateful to my trainers for stepping up and covering my slack.

On the positive side, the horse is doing fan-freaking-tastic right now.  The steroid injection seemed to get that stifle on track and so far he is holding leads in back and feeling good.

However - that didn't resolve all the tail swishing, nose flipping, angst that Odin was feeling.  Trainer R decided to experiment with some left over tubes of Ulcerguard and Ranitidine and bam, magic, horse stopped being so twitchy.

We have been able to get some really good work done lately on trotting, cantering, and jumping.  His jump is miles different than last year, much easier to ride.  And his canter is coming along so nicely.  We have to make up some lost ground from the downtime dealing with his stifle and belly, but less than I thought we would have to.

And to keep both of our brains happy, we have been doing lots of trail rides too.  I think daylight savings time is stupid, but I will still totally take advantage of it!  Odin really likes to graze on our trail rides and has become something of a punk about wanting to be the one who decides when we eat.  Since I don't fancy being dragged over his head, we have been having "talks" about it.  Sometimes I have to boot him pretty hard and then he squeals in protest.  It is kind of funny.

Here's to hoping spring continues to bring improvements overall.  Oh and photos, I really need some photos!

Diagnosis Odin

Just kidding, like anything is ever clear in horse world.

Last Friday Odin got the good drugs injected, a quick racing stripe clipped onto his leg, and we took a look inside his leg via ultrasound.

It is a special kind of torture watching grey on grey blobs float around the screen while waiting for your vet to examine each tendon and give you their opinion.

On the plus side, all of the tendons look clean and healthy.  On the negative side, there is obvious inflammation in the stifle joint. Best guess is he tweaked the tendon somehow, it got inflamed, and now it is catching because of the swelling. Probably related but somewhat peripheral to his overall stifle bugging him.

After much agonizing on my part - and snoring on Odin's part - we decided to throw a steroid injection in the joint.  I hate injecting young horses but both vets from my practice were there and were aligned on this as a treatment with the rationale that continued inflammation leads to degeneration and we do not want that.

So a million hours of scrubbing later, he got his steroids, antibiotics, and HA injected with a mandatory 3 day vacation.

It has been 70 degrees here, by the way.  I don't generally recommend having your horse be hurt and laid up when you are getting spring in winter.

On Monday, he had one hell of a snotty nose, but the injection site was cool and clean.  I assume the vets brought him a little bit of a bonus cold on Friday (sigh).

Tuesday his nose was better and he was allowed to go into turnout and have a light ride.  Trainer R reported he seemed to be feeling good.

Today is the day we find out for sure how his stifle is as he goes back into full work.  Vet said he should be feeling great.  I am withholding optimism.  I can't get to the barn until tomorrow but I am hoping for a trainer report.

Horse mysteries

Odin was doing really well with his Surpass.  Even before the Estrogen order came in, after a couple days on his magic lotion he was moving 100% better and felt great.  The estrogen finally came in on Friday and he got that shot and had a great weekend of riding and jumping.

7am work meetings suck but at least I saw this sunrise

The weather even finally gave us a smidge of a break and we were able to do a trail ride!  Hell, Monday we even did a quick hack in the outdoor arena - the first in months - and we were both a little giddy about it.

R said his training ride on Tuesday was probably the best ride she ever had on him.  I left a voicemail for the vet to discuss next steps to make sure he stays this sound.

And then yesterday happened.

I got there after work, got on, and could immediately tell he was unhappy.  Tail swishing, swinging his butt around, head flipping.  I asked for trot and he kind of blew up, kicked at the wall and half reared.  OK, I get it buddy.  Got off.

Trainer R said she rode him earlier and it was the same deal.  Of course colic was the first assumption, but he was eating, drinking, and pooping normally with good gut sounds.

Here is Aragorn helping himself to my sun chips

Maybe an allergic reaction?  Maybe he has been working hard and is having a teenager moment?  He has such a good work ethic I lean towards pain over attitude but so far can't rule out either.

Giving it a day or so and will call the vet out if he gets worse or doesn't improve.  But damn.  We were doing so well.

Think good thoughts for the Odin, please!

Tune ups

Thanks for the comments on my last post, I am still clearly not keeping up very well, but I appreciate them!

Putting Odin back in training for the winter was an incredibly great decision as I am still barely managing to get to the barn these days.

But when I did ride a couple weeks ago I noticed two things, he was absolutely horrible in the mouth region and he seemed stiff on his right hind.  Trainer R was positive he needed his teeth done and thought it was time for a soundness check too.

A teeth float has mostly done wonders for his mouth, although he has some residual mouth stiffness (probably still expecting it to be uncomfortable).  So at least that was an easy fix.

Last Friday, the vet came to do a soundness exam and pretty much immediately said the Odin needs some help in his right hind stifle.  Not too surprising, as this has been his bad stifle since I vetted him 15 months ago and his workload has been lighter this winter.  We x-rayed it then and it x-rayed clean.

He is only flexing positive about a 1 and as a comparison we flexed the left hind and he came up positive on that stifle too, although much less so.

For now we decided to go back to routine estrogen (I had him on a 4 week cycle) and Surpass.  The estrogen hasn't come in yet but after a week on the Surpass he is feeling a ton better.  Not sure what the next steps will be - an ultrasound was mentioned but I bet that is spendy - but for now with new teeth and his magical lube, he is a happy horse again.

The winter weather has not been so kind to us, but I am relieved he feels better.

The best brain

I could probably title every post about Odin similarly and I bet it will show up again if it hasn't already.  But he continues to impress everyone around him, especially in this so far craptastic winter.

Not much has changed since my last post 3 weeks ago.  Jon got sick over Christmas, then I got sick, the weather tanked some more, and last night when it was warmer, the winds got up to 90mph.  Take a pill, CO, we are already sick of this.

from warmer times

I did decide to put him training through the end of March so if there happens to be good weather during the day, he will get worked, but it is definitely inconsistent at the moment.  Last week he basically spent the whole time wrapped up in all his blankets like the kid in a Christmas Story.  And yet while some of the other horses went basically feral and were giant irritations to handle, Odin remained polite on his lead.

Which doesn't mean he isn't feeling the weather.  In turn out, he is definitely, uh, exuberant, and he has had plenty of lunging and carefully managed rides.  But it seems pretty clear to me that his brain has come a long way since when he is feeling pretty bouncy he restrains himself to squeals and minor dolphining, and has never taken it any farther. We listen to him so maybe something would happen if we didn't, but I really appreciate his early warning system.

We jumped a little bit yesterday and while he was cracking his back over the cross rail (ow saddle cantle hitting me in the butt), he never got overly excited or did anything but lope off quietly after the fence.  Hooray for an excellent brain and careful training!

My trainer has been very complimentary of my riding too, which is a surprise to me given how I am barely riding more than once a week.  Who knew this was the key to my riding successs?  Sigh.

And one of my good friends is adding some lessons in on him after having to unexpectedly retire her horse.  She says he is fabulous and, well, I tend to agree.

So mostly quiet times but with the best TB around.