Wizard Rides 335, 336, 337: Hope

Tuesday, 2/21/12

My friend Cathy stopped by the barn on Tuesday, and shot a short video clip of me riding Wizard. You can’t really see much of his issue here, but there are a few tail swishes when I ask for a trot from a walk. I did not ride for long, and we just walked and did a bit of trotting.

Wednesday, 2/22/12

My mom was out at the barn with me on Wednesday, and I expected another ride of tail swishing and ear pinning. When we were in the large arena, I was right. The footing is very loose, deep, and sandy at the moment because we have not gotten any rain in a while. As an experiment, I took him out to the dressage court in the back of the farm. The footing is firmer out there. To my delight, Wizard was AMAZING. We had our best ride in months. He was focused, swinging his back, and gently chewing the bit. Photo above is from our ride.

Thursday, 2/23/12

In hopes of getting another stellar ride, I went out to the barn and rode in the same arena. No such luck. About 75% of the time, he was great, but the other 25%, he was tense, or swishing his tail. And just to keep things interesting, at one point, he stumbled on a stone and leapt out of the stumble and reared up just a bit. Good thing I had my heels down. What could possibly make him happy as a clam one day and back to being tense the next? He’s in his 6th week of Lyme Disease treatment. I see no major changes yet. He has put on a little weight and muscle, though, so maybe he is turning a corner. I keep giving him time off from riding, but it does not seem to help.

On Friday, I gave him the day off from riding and let him play in the indoor arena for a little while. On Saturday, I put ground poles in the arena and did some free schooling. The poles were great for his foot placement and body awareness. He actually broke into a little sweat, which was good, too. He usually can play for quite some time without sweating, so the poles were some sort of work for him. He also started to stretch over them, and by the time we were done, he was longeing around me in a perfect circle, with no halter or longe line.

I’ll just keep experimenting. He looks so good- I keep thinking that good news is just around the corner.