Good News Out of Bad News

Lucky is Upward Bound

The bad news was that Stacie had to cancel coming to ride today. It really is fun when she's here and it gets some extra work in for Toby.

The good news is that when she went to walk Lucky, still recovering from his surgery to remove the dead bone in his pastern, she was delighted to find him sound and bouncing off his feet. This is super news because he has been lame for over a month after the surgery. We have both been concerned about his soundness, so this is really exciting.

She has him boarded at the New Jersey Equine Medical Center right now where they are hand walking him every day. She can go on weekends only. She is planning on moving him to another barn much closer to her home for the rest of his rehab and then will eventually get him back home when he can be turned out again. The new stable has an indoor ring which will make the walking much easier--as opposed to up and down the aisle of the barn (a big barn, but still, it is an aisle). And the new place has no closing hours so she will be able to walk him herself after work. Here's hoping this is at last the beginning of a full and much speedier recovery for Lucky, a very special boy.

That left me with a sunny Sunday and three horses.

I took Tucker out first and gave him a very short school in the arena. This time, he only questioned me about going forward on the bit at the walk for a half stride. One more half stride hesitation into the trot a bit later and then no more hints of protest. His canter departs were relaxed and, even after a little walk on a long rein, he settled right back into work with no problems. So, I took him out for a hack in the woods. He was nice and forward and seemed really happy with himself and the whole state of the world.

When I told Toby we were just going for a hack too, he let me catch him without much fuss. We had a nice little ride along the middle distance trail and he got a big fat carrot afterwards.

That left Chance and my plan to ride him just in the arena. That was not Chance's idea as he fussed and argued a bit as he tried to head for the gate out to the woods instead of going around the track. He tossed his head and tried to pull the rein out of my hands and me out of position in the saddle, but fortunately, I can sit pretty securely against that sort of thing and I managed to maintain control and get him where I wanted him to go instead of where he wanted to go.

We did quite a bit of walking with bending and general obedience the goal and then did some trot work with the same idea in mind. It wasn't the prettiest schooling session, but I added figure eights and the trot and serpentines to the repertoire. The repeated bending helped Chance focus a little more on his work and less on adventure.

All in all, as much as I missed Stacie, I spent a good afternoon in the saddle.