I seemed to have managed to come down with some sort of unpleasant virus - coldlike symptoms, with lots of sneezing, congestion and sore throat, with some digestive quesiness to add to the fun. Nothing terrible, but stuff like this drags on me when I'm as physically active as I am. The weather is hot and humid too, and the flies are just awful - the face flies have joined in - this just adds to the fun.
But I managed to get all three horses ridden today. Dawn had another 20 minutes of walking ride - sometimes I love walking as it allows me to really work on me - my position and my focus and my intent not to block or brace - we did lots of big figures - circles, serpentines, etc. She offered some very nice moments of softness. Her left hind is still enlarged on the inside just below the hock, but it's not particularly sore to the touch and she trots and canters well in the pasture - it could be a splint bone fracture but I'm inclined to think it's just bruising from a kick injury - we'll know more when we start a few minutes of trot work next week. Dawn is wearing a full Cashell fly mask with ears and long nose in turnout now, and it's made a big difference to her comfort - she seems particularly susceptible to the small flies that get in the ears, and the mask thwarts them.
Pie made it up to two hours of grazing with the herd today with no appraent ill effects - Red is pretty much out all day now and has the whole gelding herd firmly, but gently, under his thumb (or hoof). Pie gets a blood draw Monday to retest his EPM levels (his titers were slightly elevated last time we tested him) and a retest for Lyme as he's now 6 months out from his treatment. And then we have the eye vet on Tuesday. He seems happy and healthly, and has lost a little bit of weight and is close to the weight I'd like him to be. We had a nice ride today, with a cold sponge off afterwards.
In the afternoon, I was just plum tuckered out. So Red and I had a very nice, short bareback ride. He's just recently - as of yesterday - developed an aversion to walking through the wash stall between the barn aisle and the indoor - it's never been a problem before and perhaps he slipped going out one morning with the guys (the surface can be very slippery and it's often wet). We worked on that yesterday and today - when things come up we just deal with them as matter of factly as we can - as I led him through, if he stopped, I didn't look back but just reached back and tapped him with my dressage whip until he started moving - I only tapped if he was stuck. It took a while, but then we managed two walk throughs without any extra encouragement.
Then we rode. He was outstanding - we had a very nice walk/trot ride with excellent engagement and softness. He seems to really like being ridden bareback - perhaps he likes my lower center of gravity. When we were done, we walked back out through the wash stall again to confirm that things were good and they were. I told him what an excellent Red man he was.
Even though I don't feel that good, I really enjoyed my rides with my three fine horses today.
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