Crow Hopping Chronicles: Update

First off, thanks so much for the great suggestions and support! Much appreciated!

We started our lesson with K this afternoon on the lunge. The minute I asked him to canter, he started up with the crow hopping. When I brought him back to the walk, K immediately said, "I'm not a vet, but there is definitely something going on in his hind end." I reversed Kwik and then asked him to trot and canter in the other direction which lead to more crow-hopping. K said it almost looks like there might be something neurological going on (fantastic... that does not sound good). Apparently it looks like he's having trouble figuring out his back end. She had some great suggestions, and I think I'm going to have him evaluated by a lameness specialist in my area.

Knowing he may really have something going on is terrifying, but I'm happy to have a plan. Hopefully I'll know more soon. Thank goodness work is busy right now- I need something to take my mind off of all of this for a hot minute.

Step 4: Tough Love?

Well, my vet didn't find anything major on Friday that she immediately thought could explain Kwik's crow hopping. His poll was stuck and his left SI was out, but she said that's all pretty typical stuff. I'm to give him three weeks, and if he doesn't improve, she wants to x-ray his feet to see if there is anything going on there.

I gave him the day off and lunged him on Sunday. This did not go well. As I was warming him up at the walk, he suddenly dropped down and attempted to roll. I couldn't believe my eyes, but I got him up immediately before he could roll over onto my saddle and put his ass straight to work. I can x-ray every part of his body, but it will be a waste of money if this is an attitude thing. He clearly isn't taking me seriously, and at this point, I think he's just being a snot. We did lots of transitions, and once he was good and warmed up, I asked him to canter. He jumped around like an idiot, putting on an impressive show for the dressage instructor giving a lesson in the grass arena. Thanks buddy. It was pretty hot, so once I got him to canter around politely for a few laps, I got on and we went for a cool down trail ride where he proceeded to be an angel.

I think it's time to cowgirl up and see if we can't work through this. The problem is that I've come off a handful of times trying to work through this and 1) it's scary  2) it hurts to fall like that and 3) I don't really know how. We need to be working consistently with a trainer- I need help figuring out if this is a pain thing or an attitude thing. There is a trainer that teaches at my farm ever Wednesday, and I sent her an email explaining our little situation. She was super nice and agreed to meet us for a private lesson tomorrow. We're going to start him off on the lunge line and go from there. Am I making the right call here? 

 

Happy Birthday Kwik!

Today is the big guy's birthday! Happy 10th birthday Kwik! Unfortunately I'm hitting the road early today so I can get to Nashville at a decent hour for Easter weekend festivities and won't make it out to the barn. That's okay, we'll celebrate big time when I get home on Monday ;-)

Kwik certainly seems glad to be back to work, and he's definitely feeling his oats. Our ride on Wednesday started off fine- we walked and walked- circles, serpentines, leg yields. He felt good and was starting to really move out. I asked for a little trot, and he started up with his porpoise rodeo bucking routine. Unfortunately I couldn't stick out this one either, and I'm still q-tipping sand out of my ears. Other than some mean looking bruises, I'm a-OK, but I really wish I knew what the %$%& these little outbursts are all about. Is he just super fresh? Ill-fitting tack? Just being a jerk? Something I'm doing? I really don't think it's a tack thing since he carries on in the round pen sometimes like this sans tack. I don't really think he's trying to be a jerk either, but who knows. Either way, we're going to take a slight detour on our recovery plan and focus on ground work until I can hook up with Ann for a lesson or training ride. I didn't want to do a whole lot of lunging/round pen work until he was comfortably working under saddle again, but I'm starting to become a little wary, and the ground work will only benefit us when we are back under saddle. He's been on SmartCalm for a month and a half, but I bumped him up to SmartCalm Ultra for his April shipment, so hopefully that will help take the edge off until we can get back to where we were riding-wise. He rarely does this when he's in consistent work, so if we can get there, I'll bet we won't have this problem.

I'm trying to think rationally about this instead of, "OMG, I've got this horse that I can't handle, and I should just sell him and get a schoolmaster since I'm a terrible rider and have no business with this horse!" No. No. No. We're going to focus on ground work, schedule some lessons and training rides, and see where that gets us. No freaking out. Not yet, anyway.

On a more exciting note, this weekend is the inaugural SEC Equestrian Championship! Ann went down to Auburn to head up ground control for the event, so it should run like clockwork. I would have loved to go cheer on UGA, but alas, I will be out of town. Hopefully the championship will be held in Athens sometime soon. Go Dawgs!

Stupid Mistakes and Seromas

Why do we go against our gut feelings? One of the girls at the barn asked me if I wanted to join her for a walk/trot trail ride on Sunday afternoon. I explained that Kwik hasn't done much trotting in the fields/in the open, and I wasn't quite sure if it would go well. She said let's give it a go, and I was so appreciative for the invite I figured what the hell. What I should have said was, "thanks so much, but we'll probably just stick around here and do some arena work and finish up with a short walk around the farm."

The ride started off fine. Kwik was relaxed and seemed to be enjoying himself. When we reached one of the fields, my friend suggested we try a little trot. We managed to make it to the other end, but at that point I was ready to just walk since he was pretty strong. We attempted some more trot work in a circle with some suggestions from my friend, but I could tell this wasn't going to go well. I was quite happy to do some stretchy walk work while my friend finished up her flat work, but she offered to hop on. She's an experienced rider (way more experienced than me) so I said sure, and she immediately put her leg on, sent him forward, and attempted to put him into a frame. I could see the wave of confusion and frustration wash over poor Kwik's face- he had absolutely no clue what she wanted him to do, and he answered with some strong bucks, a rear, and some more porpoise bucking. My friend ended up coming off, and Kwik took off back to the barn.

I wanted to cry. There is absolutely no excuse for that kind of behavior, and truth be told, I'm a little concerned he has that in him. At the same time, I couldn't really blame him. I knew he wasn't ready for trot work in the field, and he was absolutely clueless when my friend hopped on. We were lucky no one was hurt, and this incident was completely my fault. From now on, I'm going to stick to my guns about taking things slowly with Kwik, only adding new elements when I feel he's ready, and choosing our trail outings wisely to ensure we only have positive experiences.

On another note, L and I took some photos of Kwik's maybe-hematoma and sent them to the vet. Dr. P was quick to resond, and she thinks it is a seroma (similar to a hematoma but more serous-sanguinous than straight blood). The plan is to treat once a day with DMSO tempered with nitrofurazone and see if the body will reabsorb the mass. Obviously we'll never know exactly how he got this, but I'm thinking he got kicked a day or two before we moved to Ashland since he wasn't turned out with anyone after we moved until last weekend.

Kwik and I had an amazing lesson with Anne on Monday that included some jumping (proof that he is not, in fact, a bucking, rearing, crazy horse)! Details coming soon!

A Weekend of Firsts Part. 1

I had Kwik adjusted for the first time (probably in his life) on Friday, and I was pleasantly surprised at what Dr. Jay didn't find. I was half expecting there to be something major going on, but he said that, other than typical racehorse stuff, there isn't much else going on. Yay! Kwik does have some TMJ, but Dr. J showed me a massage technique to help manage this. I'm planning to get his teeth floated in March, so hopefully that will help some as well.

Earlier in the week I learned about a mini cross country clinic to be conducted by Ann Haller at the farm over the weekend. I told the BO I might be interested in participating if there is a green/beginner group. Anne called me that night to learn a little bit more about Kwik and my goals. We had a really nice chat, and she assured me that there is a lot we can do to introduce Kwik to the field and build confidence.

We ended up being placed with M and her horse Sherlock, who is actually Kwik's next door neighbor in the barn. After we tacked up, we rode over to the xc field. Kwik was a very brave boy walking down the trail. When we reached the xc field, Kwik stopped dead in his tracks and gaped at the big scary things lurking in the field. He felt like a loaded spring, so I decided to hop off and walk him the rest of the way. The group before us was finishing up some course work, and Anne gave me a leg up so Kwik could take in the sights as they finished up. Since the girls were coming through the water complex, Anne wanted Kwik and Sherlock to follow one of the seasoned guys on a walk around the perimeter of the water and then circle back so Kwik could see the riders coming through the water. Apparently the horse splashing through the water was pretty scary because Kwik exploded into a bucking, twisting fit which was pretty damn hard to sit. I really thought I had it, but I ended up sliding off anyway. I was totally fine, just really surprised and kind of embarrassed. Kwik was a good boy though and just stood there trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Anne gave me another leg up, promised these kind of things happen with green horses and that they'd all been there before, and stood with us while the rest of the advanced girls finished up.

Thankfully, the rest of our ride was much better! We spent the time breaking up the field into "classrooms" and worked on leaving the group to perform a task, riding uphill, and putting your horse into "4-wheel-drive" for downhill riding. Then we transferred these skills to walking up and down the small bank. Kwik tackled walking up the bank no problem, but he was a little weary about going down. When he finally did step down, I was so proud that he trusted me enough at that point to tackle something like that! We practiced walking over a small ditch next, and then worked on walking through the water complex. To my surprise, Kwik followed Sherlock right into the water (which was actually pretty deep). He started to play in the water, but Ann talked me through riding him safely through, and we did the exercise again without Sherlock. Our last challenge was to leave the group and ride one of the obstacles we worked on solo. I chose the teeny ditch, and Kwik threw a little hissy fit walking down and over but did great walking back up.

M and I had two very tired (emotionally and physically) horses by the end, and I couldn't have asked for a better xc introduction for Kwik. Anne was fantastic - she did a wonderful job challenging us and building confidence simultaneously. Sure we had some meltdowns, but this is all new to Kwik, he's only been at Ashland for a little over a week now, and honestly, I couldn't be more proud. :)

Watching coursework

Me, Kwik, M, and Sherlock 

 

Right before the rodeo show

An Interesting Ride

This Saturday I brought my tack out to the barn since I was dying to ride. I wasn't really sure where we'd be able to ride, but I figured I could at least doodle around in the pasture for a bit. After currying off the 200 lbs of mud caked on Kwik, I tacked up, and we walked up to the pasture. There wasn't anywhere really flat enough to lunge him for a bit first, so I just got right on (mistake #1 since he hadn't been ridden in over 2 weeks). There was a lot going on (mistake #2). Someone at the farm next door was making all kinds of noise with a backhoe, cars were whizzing by, the AT&T guy was tinkering with something along the fence line, and evening feeding had begun. Kwik was pretty good walking around initially, but he became a little more concerned about the goings on (probably because I was getting more and more nervous). All of a sudden he bucked 3 or 4 times. I was able to sit it out and bring him back into a walk. I walked him around the top of the pasture a few more times, hopped off, and walked back to the barn. Right before the neighbors began target shooting. Sheesh.

Now this random bucking thing is not new. If he hasn't been worked in a while, he will do a very strange "rocking horse" buck-like maneuver when I first ask for the canter (in either direction). It's not really a defiant "I want to remove you" buck. It's more of a "holy crap I'm really stiff and I need to get my body working right before you ask me to really work" buck. Once I get him under control, put back together, and ask again, he canters along like a perfect gentleman. Because this has happened a few times, I have made a point to lunge or free lunge him in a round pen first before riding after time off. Usually he will buck in each direction (with and without tack) and then settle in. Usually I don't have a problem riding him after lunging, and if I ride him again the same week, we don't have a problem (even without lunging first). I'm not going to worry too much right now since I'm not able to work him consistently in his temporary home. When we move on the 26th, he will go back into regular work, and I'm thinking this may help. Plus, he could really benefit from some chiropractic work, so I'll set that up when he's all settled in.

Even though we had some hiccups, it was fun to sit on my boy again. That, and I managed to stay on! Can't wait to ride for reals in a few weeks!

I swear I wasn't TRYING to buck you off!