Lame Horse Getting Better

Well, it's been a quiet week--Midnight has been lame. His "syndicate" (his owner, the other leaser and myself) is not entirely sure what the cause is, but it has been very rainy and muddy, so most likely he just tweaked something playing in the field. No swelling, no heat. He's been put on Previcox and he seems to be feeling much better.

The weird thing? I was actually glad to have the break, and quite pleased with myself that I was able to identify that there was something not quite right last weekend. I'm pretty ignorant of horse leg issues and causes of lameness, but after just a few minutes I could tell he wasn't moving out quite the way he should. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was, so I longed him so I could get a better look...and sure enough, a barely perceptible head bob at the trot. I let him go with that. It was my first time longeing him so I was pleased to see that unlike most groundwork, he has impeccable manners on the longe.

I let his owner and the other leaser know, and he got a few days off, though now the barn owner thinks we should be exercising him lightly just to keep the blood flowing. So this weekend we had a little solo hack for about 20 minutes--he was quite good, and only spooked at the end. Obviously the entranceway to the trail was totally safe, but when we exited the same way, it was haunted, so he had to do a little stop and stare.

He felt much better when I tried trotting in the ring at the end. No head bob...which is great because I would like to take some dressage  and jumping lessons with the certified eventing trainer before she leaves for the winter. Gearing up to do the exact same combined test in the fall to see if we can get fewer than 16 jumping faults, ha.

On the Horsenation front, it appears that the formula "X Number of Cute/Scary/Cool/Funny Things" is a huge pageview generator, while people hardly read anything that doesn't have at least a 3:1 pictures-to-text ratio. I am disappointed in the literacy of the unwashed masses. But what else is new?