Riding a Freight Train

P has now been on a pretty heavy regime of ulcer meds for 6 days. The first couple days were all about surviving and trying to figure out his insane meds/feeding schedule. He gets 2 meds (Ranitidine and Sucralfate) 3x/day, and then 1 tube of GG 1x/day, but the Sucralfate can’t be fed within an hour of any meds or food. And the vet gave me a syringe to dissolve the 20 pills in, but giving my horse meds via syringe 4x/day was just not working. So I got creative.

Step 1: Cover the bottom of the Tupperware with applesauce.

Step 2: Grind 20 pills of Sucralfate into powder with your family’s Magic Bullet (on another note, how sad is it that I’ve been grinding pills by hand since June 29th when this was sitting on my counter the WHOLE TIME).

Step 3: Pour powder onto applesauce.

Step 4: Pour molasses on top.

Step 5: Stir until it looks super disgusting. That means it’s ready.

Step 6: Laugh as your horse gobbles it up because he has no idea that YOU WON.

Step 7: Try to keep inquisitive pony away from the meds when giving in pasture. Be content when said pony resigns to licking your arm for 2 minutes straight.

 

 

As a follow up to my last post, everything has arrived and husband beat me to 3 out of 4 of them. Then put them in a pile in the garage to mock me. But he did miss one…

 

F

 

So now onto the meat of the week- my lesson with Trainer B from Friday!

I didn’t ride too hard leading up to it since P had been scoped on Monday, and he also had a wonky shoe on his left front. He was tripping a lot and just felt NQR, but thankfully the farriers came out Thursday evening to fix it so P was raring to go on Friday morning.

To make sure that it was the shoe that had P feeling like that, I lunged him before we left. And P was a fireball, despite it being like 99 degrees. So I thought for sure I had taken the edge off when we pulled up.

P was in one his moods where heaven forbid he listen to reason (me), and was just blatantly ignoring me. I literally galloped him around the arena like 5x each way, hoping to get whatever was up out of his system, but that did nothing. I had no brakes, no half halt. He wasn’t exactly running away like he sometimes does, or bolting per say, he just wasn’t listening.

We were supposed to be doing the following exercise, jumping the rolltop and then using the circle around the arena to get a SJ quality canter back before jumping the C4 oxer.

It actually ended up as such: race toward the rolltop and launch, then barrel around the arena before hauling ass to the C4 oxer.

And P was so unsteerable (this should be a word) that after the first go-round, we almost barreled into Trainer B and Husband, who were sitting under umbrellas to the inside of our landing zone off the C4 oxer. There were two overturned muck buckets here:

And rather than listen to me and go to the outside of them, or even just, I dunno, JUMP them, P goes to the inside and almost takes down their umbrella. Sorry, Trainer B, hope you have good life insurance if you’re going to continue working with us.

Listen with the sound on and you can hear a bit of panic.

Trainer B told me to try posting the canter to get him to relax, and it worked to some extent, but didn’t have that much of an impact- I think because I couldn’t really the rhythm down right.

 So we had to pause and go to a little obedience work.

Trot jump with takeoff and landing poles, then halt after and back up a few steps. Rinse and repeat.

Then it was back to the original exercise with a new twist: changing gait every side. Canter the jump, trot the short side, canter the long side, trot the short side, etc. And if he got too strong, halt and back up, then go forward into whatever gait we were previously in. And that really did the trick.

Except it worked a little TOO well, and I got P in way, way too deep. That’s what he gets for listening to me.

So we came back around and did it again. And this time…perfection. I sat up, saw the distance, held slightly and P softened off his forehand and jumped. Angels were singing. So I pulled up, Trainer B and I agreed it was perfect and we should end there, I asked husband if he got that on video to which he replies, “Yep.” Then when we got in the truck to go home, I wanted to relive my glory moment so I get my phone out and….

It’s great that he and Trainer B get along. It is. BUT YOU HAD ONE JOB, HUSBAND. Fighting dogs? WTF? Whose dogs are fighting? Why are they so important?

Ok, rant over. The best part of the lesson? Trainer B wants to sit on P the next time we’re there (this Wednesday, muahaha) to see what he feels like. I tried to make him get on P right then and there, but he had already changed onto real clothes with real shoes.  Excuses, excuses.

Maybe he can make him jump the C4 logo. I didn’t realize that until I took these screenshots, but it’s like P JUST CAN’T EVEN over 1 extra inch.

 

 

At least I got to test out my new Barn Dog Apparel shirt- and it proved to be the perfect shirt for the day!