And just like that winter is ending and the spring sun is shining down on us again. Although while I was breaking ice from buckets and wearing a million layers of clothes to do barn chores, it felt like winter was going to last forever. Now I can’t believe it is already time to start spring conditioning and head to the vet for a checkup.
February was a rough month with all the snow melting. Stinger’s new stall was flooding every day for about a week straight because of ice changing the way the water was flowing outside, combined with heavy downpours. Shoveling water out of a stall and pushing it with a wheelbarrow is not as easy as it seems (and don’t plan on staying dry if you hit any bumps). And of course, it would flood when we were almost out of sawdust (waiting for it to stop raining and the ice to melt so we could go get a trailer load), so I had to use a couple bags of sawdust to keep him dry. It was quite a week, and Stinger would try to stay in the one dry corner looking at me really confused about the water invading his space. The day it flooded the worst; I scooped out about 8 wheelbarrows (as full as I could still push them and not spill it all) of water and two more of just wet sawdust. It has been dry since then, so fingers crossed that with the ice melted, the problem is fixed.
The second week of March brought Stinger’s vet checkup. We started out with a reevaluation of his lameness, by trotting him up and down the road for the vet to watch him move. Overall, he had improved but there was still lameness in his right hind. The tricky part though, was that he was more lame in the right front than anything.
The next step was a repeat ultrasound to see how his suspensory was healing. The part that was originally torn is healed with some scar tissue, a good thing, but it will be weaker in that area and may be more susceptible to another injury in the future. The swelling was also reduced significantly compared to our November visit. Although still showing about 15 to 20 percent larger than the left leg.
As far as the treatment, we opted for another shockwave session on his hind leg and repeat coffin joint injections for his front feet. There was a good amount of runny fluid that came out during the injection, so he definitely needed them done again (joint fluid should be a more sticky fluid, Stinger’s was like water). We are supposed to continue using the redlight therapy on his hind leg and he was released for turnout in a week (the vet wanted to give his injections time to absorb before he could go out). He was also scheduled for a second checkup two weeks later to see his progress after he had some time outside.
In the meantime, we began riding and conditioning the other horses. We started out slowly to build up their strength. I had only actually ridden Reno four times before March, so we are still learning about each other. He was kind of tossing his head when we were loping, we were thinking that he needed his teeth done. We rode him in a hackamore instead of his bit until we got the sharp points taken off. We gave him a couple days and then transitioned back to his bit, and he is a lot better. He will have his teeth done completely at a later date with the other three.
So far, we have done a barrel drills and a handful of patterns. He seems to really want to do that pattern and gets a little confused on why we are going slow, but he will still do it. I have to keep working on my confidence on the pattern again. Whenever I can ride with two hands between the barrels, Reno does a lot better. He seems to be feeling good and even gave a little playful buck the other day after the third barrel, almost to say ‘hey that was fun, let’s do it again’.
Stinger really enjoyed going outside, he had been on stall rest since October. He did run around quite a bit; but he had a ton of extra energy from being inside. After the first couple times, I could tell he was a little sore on both front and back right legs. I continued using his magnetic blanket overnight and started his redlight again. He also finally got to meet Reno (they are stalled on opposite ends of the barn, and he has only seen him from a distance). They seemed to make friends quickly and were playing in the fields across the fence. When I bring Reno over to saddle him, they will whinny to each other to say hi.
For Stinger’s second visit, we didn’t actually have to drive there. I took a video of Stinger trotting straight to and away from the camera and then discussed his progress over the phone. He is still allowed to be out for now, but we want to try to keep him from running around as much, so he may need some calming pastes before he goes out. He is also going to start Equioxx, which helps reduce pain and inflammation from any arthritis, and redlight therapy on his front hooves. If he doesn’t have a lot of improvement, our next step is to go back to the vet and have x-rays of his front feet accompanied by any special shoeing he may need. The vet is thinking he might be heading down the navicular path. (Something that can sometimes be managed but has no cure) We will need the x-rays to confirm this.
With the weather looking so nice we were able to get in a lot of riding days in March, even though some days we were bundled up. We decided to sign up and go to our first show tomorrow (March 29th) so wish us luck! We have two exhibitions and then the open class, plus it’s supposed to be 72 degrees! I’m actually really excited to go to the show, something I haven’t felt for a while and I’m curious to see what time we run for our first competitive run together.
The Barrel Racer's Journal 