Once again, I’m falling behind blogging. Last time I posted, Nay and I had a lovely ride before he bolted on me the next day… We’d been on a 1 good ride, 1 bad ride pattern for quite a while. I ended up switching him off his performance feed and onto the same brand’s senior feed (but not before the feed store had already ordered me a bag of performance) and the senior has made a world of difference. He has energy, but not insane amounts of energy. I’m debating feeding him some of the performance mixed in with the senior (my original plan though now I think the bag will last me 2 months at the rate I want to feed) or just feeding Subi the performance since I’m pretty sure he’ll eat it (and I don’t need to worry about excess energy. Stay tuned tuned…

Anyway, the caveat to all of this is my health is still a mystery and hasn’t been good. My MRI was normal (thank goodness, though some answers would have been nice). I’m doing PT 2x a week and it’s NOT helping. I’ve been able to ride through the vertigo for the most part (until my latest lesson) as long as I medicate. But generally? I feel like utter crap all the time. It’s taking everything I can to ride 3x/week and I know Nay needs more, but…

Last Tuesday, nervous after Nay took off with me Sunday, but knowing it was 100% energy related, I had a really nice lesson. Nay was a gem. Willing, patient, and a star when it came to his left lead. We didn’t do a lot, but what he did, he did well. After some canter work, we worked on these little boxes (that Nay could walk over) in a figure eight at the trot and canter. Leads weren’t a concern since he was a super star earlier so the plan was the trot unless he landed correctly. Either way, he did them in both directions in both gaits and we called it a day.

I rode again Saturday morning after PT. I felt like shit, but my medicine seemed to kick in before I rode. (I don’t take meds for PT though I wish I did!) Nay was super UP in the cross ties despite the fact that it was 85 degrees so I tossed him on the lunge line to be safe. And could barely keep him going. I guess he just didn’t want to stand around? We basically repeated our lesson on Tuesday. Trot work, canter work, then some jumps. I’m trying to bring the Pivo out 1x a week and I managed some video but I don’t know what was up with it because it kept turning around to video the barn… Anyway, I got some video? Nay was wonderful even when a pony was galloping around in the nearby field. We repeated our figure eight from Tuesday’s lesson and then trotted and cantered a single a few times before calling it a day.

Sunday? More hot and humid weather (it’s MAY! In the Mid Atlantic! Too early for July weather). My plan was a nice and easy ride. Just some trotting and cantering. We got out to the outdoor and Nay basically knocked me over when another horse trotted over a cross rail coming towards him. Nice job. Thankfully that was the end of his antics (I guess it caught him off guard?) and he was comatose once I got on. We had the ring to ourselves for a few minutes but were quickly joined by another horse. This actually gave me the chance to work by the road as we chose to split the ring. I haven’t actually worked much by the road lately. Nay didn’t care. We trotted, did some poles, and then cantered left without care (or pretty much any effort). To the right? We struggled. We picked it up wrong then got it. So, when the other horse left, we did some figure eights at the canter with simple changes. Our left leads were perfect, the right less so, but I do thing Nay got it he does need to canter on both leads. We did several transitions before calling it a day.

Finally? Tuesday. I woke up feeling good. Weather was cool and by the time I got ready to ride, I felt like crap. I took meds but I probably could have taken them earlier. I’ve always been OK on a horse, but not this day. Nay was super fussy with his head the entire time I was walking and that make me feel even more wobbly. Trotting felt bad (cantering, less so, but maybe the meds were kicking in). My trainer did tell me to get off if I was dizzy, but I’m freaking dizzy all the time right now so what am I going to do? Nothing? Medically I’m fine unless they can find something… So we pushed through, but it wasn’t the ride I wanted.

Trotting was OK. Nay had energy, but was slow at the trot. He was trying SO HARD to be good. When I first got on, I thought, I should lunge, but I didn’t. I regretted it the entire ride. I planned to lunge when I got there, but there was a horse turned out in the indoor. I hate that. I didn’t want to lunge during the lesson prior, but I should have just taken the first 5 minutes of mine to toss Nay on the line.

Nay’s left lead was fabulous. I mean absolutely fabulous. He’s so confident and balanced now. When lunging, I’ve JUST been lunging to the left. It helped so much. But created a new problem. Our right lead sucks now. So, that’s this next week’s goal. To the right, we lost the balance and confidence. I also someone don’t trust myself and keep looking down. Unlike when we lost the left, we CAN get the right, Nay just gets a little stressed. So yeah. We asked 3 times and picked it up the first and third. Third time he dramatically side passed into it… So, some time on the line to re-establish the canter, lots of praise, and he’ll have it back.

We tried to repeat the figure eight exercise and it just didn’t work. The plan was to do the stone box to the brick box and instead of repeating the stone to go wide to the blue X (the in of the inside line). The first attempt of the stone Nay was jumping sideways with energy and we had to circle before walking over it and cantering out. We managed to get over the brick and then did and up and down trot to the blue. We landed and it took everything I could to get Nay’s head back up. The second partial attempt started the same way before I just said no. I didn’t have the balance to deal with it and he had too much energy. He was good, but damn, not lunging hurt.

I can add also that 2 of those 4 rides also required help loading to go home. Why? No clue. So trailer training is happening again. (If someone walks/stands behind him, he loads right up so it’s a test thing).