Is X-Lax an Option?

I have been riding, don’t worry.

Saturday I went up in the late morning after handling some Mitzy business. Vinny was pretty good, a little up maybe, but good. As always, I prefer more ‘up’ than not. 

I tacked him up complete with ear puffs and a dousing of fly spray and decided to stick to the indoor ring due to high bug populations up top in the outdoor ring. My only goal really was to keep him moving since he’d been off for so long. It was mainly because of K and myself I guess, we both work a lot and then on top of that K is planning her wedding and I had car troubles.

We didn’t really work on anything special, just maintaining a good pace at the trot around and around the ring. There was a lesson going on at the same time and every time we’d pass this horse, Kiki, he would pin his ears and ‘try’ to run at her. That really just made me laugh. Next I got a good active canter out of him and tried to keep him bent around my leg on a big circle.

Finally I popped him over a small  cross rail with a couple of cavaletti in front of it. Vinny decided it would be a good idea to sort of bound over each cavaletti and then jump the cross rail right at the base of it. That was fun. ha.

Can I just say, going one and a half weeks without consistent work in the saddle is never a good idea. It is amazing how quickly I lose stamina. I guess I’m just like Vinny. I need consistent work as much as he does.

Sunday was my first day of work at WRF. Let me just say, it much more fun to get up at 0700 when you know you’re going to work around horses.

Apparently the BM forgot it was my first day and didn’t tell the other gals working that I was coming. We kind of sorted out the mix up. One of the girls was not happy I was there. I offered to go home but was told to stay. The gal training me was very nice and we agreed to trail ride this upcoming Saturday. I basically followed her around all morning. I learned the feeding and turn out schedule. I emptied water buckets, cleaned the paddocks out, swept aisles (wow, shoulder work out anyone?), cleaned the tack room etc. I really enjoyed it. The experience was definitely muscle building and I am still feeling it today.

Monday was originally supposed to be lesson day, as always, but S was not feeling well so we cancelled. I went up to the barn anyway and hacked my boy for maybe 25 minutes or so. The temp outside was just too hot to do anything more than that. I set up some cavaletti three strides apart and worked on adjusting his stride. The three was obviously pretty easy, the four wasn’t bad, and the five was non-existent. We need to work on that one. When we were pretty much all finished I rode him up to the gate that goes outside, unlatched it from the saddle and we walked outside to the orchard. We immediately picked up a trot and trotted up the grassy hill and back down the other side, around a tree and headed straight for a log jump. Vinny really loves this and he makes me laugh every time. He popped over it and pretty much took off back up the hill again. Silly boy.

Today I got a call from the barn around 0900 saying Vinny was colicking and could I come up and walk him? I have never dealt with this with my own horse before. My tummy sank and the stress began. After speaking to my GM about my emergency (didn’t even try to explain as he is not a horse-person), I left and raced up to the barn. When I got there he was back in his stall looking okay. I got him out anyway and walked him around and hosed him off a few times. We stopped periodically so that I could listen to his tummy. His right side was pretty normal, but the left was almost silent. Ughhhh. My poor baby! Eventually I had the BM take his temp and it came back normal at 99.7. I realized he was acting pretty normal as well. Nipping at me, trying to play with me, pushing my back when we were walking, etc. I ended up leaving about an hour later and now am back at work. Worrying. Of course. Still no bowel movement as far as I know.

Horses are so stressful, haha.