Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season or hopefully getting to enjoy a day or 2 off from work.

I had a great lesson last week and couldn’t figure out how to blog about it. Basically we focused on trying to fix my position as I have a bad habit of jamming my heels down too far and my trainer tells me this gets Nay Nay angry. So, most of my lesson I got to hear, “heals UP!” Which was very odd. But, I lifted my heels and Nay went slower. I also have a crazy tight leg (muscle memory all of these years later from riding Subi, the world’s BOUNCIEST slow big strided thoroughbred). So, jamming my heels down doesn’t help.

Other than that? I went out to ride yesterday, got on and immediately found my horse was lame. Hard to see at the walk until you look, noticeable at the trot. Some heat/swelling around his left hock. We came home, I gave him some bute and that evening (2ish hours later), swelling/heat gone, but he was still resting on his toe a lot.

This morning I was prepared to call the vet (I was ready for 8-12 months of stall rest and recuperation). But there was no heat/swelling again. I trotted him again and while he’s SLIGHTLY short here and there, he’s 1000% better than yesterday. He also tried to take off on me, rear, and buck while we were trotting so clearly he’s feeling fine. So instead of diagnostics since there’s nothing there (my horse was lame yesterday and is mostly fine today. Can you come look at him because I’m a worrywart?), he’s getting rest and we’re going with he strained something and can get a week or 2 off to start and if he hasn’t improved, we’ll do diagnostics. If he’s worse, a few days of stall rest. But he’s pretty ok right now and clearly not in pain. He’s also standing on that leg without issue.

So yeah. That’s where we’re at?