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!