Friday, August 25, 2017

The Return of Q!

Q is officially "back in work"; I've been riding her 2-3 times a week for the past month and she's been doing wonderfully in soundness of body and mind.

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"If I close my eyes, the human will leave me alone and go away."
-Q, probably

Quick Backstory

Q was out of work for close to a year due to persistent "offness" in August 2016. September 19 will mark one year since the diagnosis of lesions to her left hind suspensory ligament. (Delay on diagnosis because last summer was a Very Bad Year for abscesses and she did indeed blow one or two after I noticed she was off; unfortunately, she was still NQR after the abscesses blew.)

Other than routine ultrasounds to check the healing progress (markedly improved each time!), I did nothing special to help Q heal. The biggest thing I did was to give her time; soft tissue takes a long time to heal, so it seemed prudent to provide that time. I simply turned her out with her herd mates on their 28 acre pasture. Stalling wasn't really an option as she fusses and frets in a stall and would have done more damage to herself. In the field, she was docile and my BO (who watches the herd from her house) noted that Q didn't even play/trot/run with the herd for several weeks.

From accounts of other endurance riders who have dealt with this injury on their own horses, the time-off-with-a-year-of-turnout approach seemed the best bet for a successful return to work/competition. In fact, one of the other local endurance riders had a horse who dealt with this injury twice (more severe than Q's). She gave him a year off each time before bringing him back into work slowly, and he just finished 3rd at the AERC National Championship 50 and earned Best Condition. I'm hopeful Q will return to former work levels with time.

Current Plan

We're focusing on easy walk-trot "trail" rides and walk-trot dressage work for now (trail is limited to the field, road, and ¼-mile connecting trail between them because we don't have our trail access anymore) . These easy, slow and steady rides are helping her brain to build back the confidence she once had under saddle. Fortunately, this approach is also just what her body needs, too, if not a little more conservative - which isn't a bad thing at all.

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I'm really loving the pink on her dark coat

As we have re-entered our riding, I've made the decision to pursue a significant tack change away from my treeless Ansur. A change to a treed saddle was necessary so Q and I couldn't communicate as intimately moving forward. The close contact from my Ansur, while wonderful, was also detrimental for us. This mare and I feed off of each other's energy and I needed to put a block on that while also lending myself some added security for when she will inevitably spook.

Right now, we're bumming around in an old western Abetta saddle that's been hanging out in the tack room forever. It's working well so far, and the higher pommel and cantle help keep me more secure through her shenanigans. Bonus? I haven't yet gutted myself on the horn - a valid concern as I've definitely been tossed about and been "gut punched" before.


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She ground ties like a boss, at least

It's hard to remember when faced with more recent negative memories of this mare spooking like a total shithead, but she really didn't spook badly the first couple years I had her. Sure, she's a hot horse that is more likely to spook than a horse like Stan or Griffin, but her spooking wasn't extreme until 2015-2016.

Her downward spiral with the spooking behavior is absolutely due to my own behaviors, and I don't discount that for a minute. I slowly unloaded my own baggage on her in 2014 and it wasn't fair or right, but it's in the past. The best thing now is to do my due diligence and put in the work to help her return to her former "normal" and then, with luck, surpass it.

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Mini "trail" outing with friends!

For better or worse, I have concluded that a lot of this horse's spooking the past few years is to get out of work. It wasn't originally, but boy-o has it evolved to be such. Since reaching this conclusion, it's been kind of entertaining for me to see when she spooks. She definitely tends to do it more as we're beginning work - especially if we are leaving the barn yard - or when she doesn't get "her way". Both indications of a horse who isn't so much scared as she is lazy!

Q's only given me a "true spook" twice during the past month. Both times, I was only set off balance in the tiniest way. Through keeping my balance and not reciprocating any kind of response to her spooking or wiggling, Q is realizing her "game" is less fun to play. She isn't getting out of a damn thing and I'm not giving her any reason to react further. I'm such a party pooper! As a result, she isn't resorting to spooking like she used to and her general wiggling evasions are lessening; it's no fun when you're not winning!

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RELAXED. Which was a wonderful thing.

Whether we are in the barnyard focusing on dressage or we're on the "trail", all of our rides are walk-trot with a lot of halting. In the beginning, any time Q tensed up about The World, I would stop her, face the offending "monster" (usually something right in front of her), praise her for standing still, and give her a peppermint from the saddle to alter her focus. As time went on and Q wasn't so fussy, the peppermints went away (3-4 rides later). Now when I halt her for a moment because she's tense, we just stand a couple seconds until she relaxes and then strike off forward once more. The tense moments are definitely fewer than they were a few weeks ago and she calms much more quickly after our halts.

After a month of riding, I have observed that Q is the wiggliest horse ever. Straight is not a term she abides by the majority of the time. She's the Queen of Counterbend when we do our dressage work and she wiggles all about on the trail. The wiggling isn't extreme, but compared to Stan or Grif, she's quite loose. As a result, my biggest goal at the moment is achieving more moments of solid straightness from her. That's a really easy goal to pair with the walk-trot-halting we've been doing!

This week has afforded the least counterbend so far in our dressage ride and the straightest, least wiggling ride so far in the field. Q really seems to be settling and we're having more moments of focus and relaxation than moments of tense and fussy. The fact that I can feel and notice a difference is huge!

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Western dressage? I do like this setup for us...

Fortunately, while we have issues to work out under saddle still, Q's trust and the mutual understanding between the two of us has grown leaps and bounds over the last year on the ground. As a result, I can read her a lot better and know when to ignore, praise, or reprimand accordingly and can do so appropriately. This knowledge is facilitating the under saddle work, too, and I really think we are on a good path forward.

While it really sucks that she suffered the setback of this injury, I can be grateful that it has allowed this mare and I to finally come to a better understanding of each other. I am really optimistic for our future and hope to be back on the endurance trail next year with a horse that is stronger of both body and mind than she was before.

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More of this in the future, please!

I try to find positive things in negative times - silver linings if you will. Has your horse ever suffered an injury setback that had a silver lining to it in the end? Or maybe an injury that resulted in a stronger bond between you and the horse after the rehab period was up?

32 comments:

  1. As always, I love your posts! Not an injury comment here, but a training one. I agree with 99% of your post... except for the part where you say you halt when you feel Q getting tense. Man, I just cannot disagree more with that one!

    IMO the worst thing a tense horse can do is stand still. All that energy builds up inside and usually just explodes, dangerously. It either goes straight up, straight out, it's gotta go somewhere. I bought a green-broke horse 4 weeks ago and in my first outing into the field I felt him go tense and want to stop to look at something in the distance. No way! I kept him going at a walk, and he got over it.

    I rode with a girl on the streets, her horse's first outing. A car was coming towards us and she tensed up. I told her to keep her horse walking, right behind my traffic-proof horse. She refused and stopped her horse to look at the car. I could see the horse tense and get taller by the second. The car came and the horse exploded, straight backwards at warp speed, the horse hit the car, ripping the mirror off.

    Of course we all know horses are individuals. YMMV. Glad to see Q back under saddle! Agree with your decision to go treed.

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    1. You've got a great point and I hear you. That car situation sounds terrifying - I hope everyone was okay! Situations definitely vary for how one should respond and stopping in that situation definitely doesn't sound like the right answer.

      I've tried many tactics to resolve Q's spooking since it escalated in mid-2014. Forward was one of the first methods I tried and have revisited many times. Unfortunately, Q is a weirdo and will often escalate MORE when pushed forward and then spook again and bigger at another thing soon after. I never gave her time to process before and so she fretted about it until she found another outlet to explode (spook). I plan to evolve our "pause to think" halting to a downward transition from trot to walk or canter to trot as time goes on. With predominantly walk work right now though, that "pause to think" moment ends up being a halt. Slow and steady, we'll get back to a good place =)

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  2. My horse had a hind suspensory branch tear last spring. I did all the rehab tack walking (boring) and then got busy and threw her out in the pasture for the past 6 months. I'm going to bring her back to work this winter, and hopefully return to endurance next year. It is so stressful worrying about reinjury!
    Good luck with your rehab! Hope to see more good progress reports!

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    1. It IS so stressful worrying about reinjury! I'm really grateful to have two other horses to keep me plenty occupied so I don't feel much pressure to push Q too hard too soon.

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  3. I think tincture of time and low expectations when slowly legging a horse back up after a soft tissue injury is the best deal way to deal with it -- so kudos to you! Hopefully Q comes back better than ever 🙂 I rehabbed one of my mares through a mystery lameness a few years ago and it definitely strengthened our bond. And I think dealing with the extended lameness made me appreciate our rides even more when she was back to 100%.

    PS. Q looks SMASHING in pink 😍

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    1. Yes to appreciation - definitely heightened now. And thank you! That means lots coming from you, the queen of colors and matching ;-)

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  4. It wasn't a horse injury but more my own pregnancies that necessitated a step back in work. Especially when an unexpected complication of pregnancy made riding forbidden (since blood thinners, pregnancy and riding don't REALLY mix well...) I did a lot of ground work and hikes, where I walked Gwyn like a dog. I even used the lunge line and let her walk ahead of me like on a leash. She had a blast and we got to explore trails and get off property even if I wasn't riding. Or my older child could ride on the trail. I was grateful I was able to find ways to continue work with her, rather than give up and sell her, as you sometimes see when someone has a pregnancy and the horse 'has to go'. I refused to let that happen.

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    1. That's AWESOME that you were able to be creative and find a way to enjoy your horse without riding. I wish more people could do the same. Thank you for sharing your story. =)

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  5. gosh she's a handsome mare <3 so glad to hear that she's settling back into the work again so well, and that you've got a really good bead on where things are and how you want to move them forward again!

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    1. She is a looker...especially when she's being a good horse haha.

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  6. She looks good in pink although I loved her in the orange as well. Time off for Gem two summers ago after her heel bulb got ripped off did wonders for us as a pair. Like you, it forced me to slow down and go back to square one in a way and fill in some of those gaps. I'm so glad she is back and can't wait to read your ride reports on her once again. As far as the spooking, while I generally like the horse to learn that the right answer is always "go forward" and not to stop and stare, I have experienced what you describe in the first comment above in Gem as well. If she doesn't get to look at it, she will just let it build up and then use anything as an excuse to make an even larger depart...a shadow, blade of grass, whatever and it doesn't have a thing to do with the object she just spooked at but instead a build up of negative energy. What has been helping us is to work on our halting. When she gets nervous out and about I make her halt square and practice my salute (looks odd on trail but I don't care) and then ask her to move on. I'm not really encouraging her to sniff or stare at the object, but I'm also not ignoring the message she is sending me. Sounds pretty much the same as what you are doing with Q.

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    1. Daggon the similarities between Gem and Q continue! I remember how y'all seemed to find a better rhythm when you slowed things down a bit. That's a great idea about the halt/salute...may have to practice that some, too. I'm with ya on not necessarily staring/sniffing but moreso just waiting a beat to gather her wits before we go forward. I think she likes the reassurance of knowing I *will* give her that time to process and it's helping her relax and trust me more as a leader. I gotta have her trust before we can go anywhere and I think slow and steady will definitely help that.

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  7. Gotta say, Q is probably my favorite. :) I'm so glad she's feeling like her sassy self!

    Pig has quite a spook to get out of work. He'll get real spooky when he's uncomfortable somehow (it's easier to fake scared than show your lameness?! ...sigh), he'll also suddenly start spooking when he's tired. Since he doesn't really show that he's tired, it's often all I have to go off. Reacting to those doesn't help at all, just makes them worse. I learned early to just laugh at his silly and exude total confidence in the face of perceived danger. At the same time, if he was legitimately spooked about something he's not the type to be okay with you just ignoring and pushing past it. He had to have the scary thing explained to him and its non-scariness proved out through experimentation. Once he was satisfied he didn't have to save himself and me from the terror, he was fine with whatever the thing was.

    Silly horses. Sometimes the thinkers are the worst! Haha

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    1. Wow, Pig. But it closes so many loops to hear that... I've seen the tiredness spook in both your blog and real life and ... yeah. Way to be Pig Lol!

      Thinkers kind of are the worst. But at the same time, as irritating as Q is I absolutely adore her for some strange reason.

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  8. What a wonderful post. I am so happy for you

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  9. Yay! I'm glad she's back and doing so well. I'm happy for you and this also gives me hope for Nilla.

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    1. So much hope for Nilla!! It takes time but I'm sure she will be right as rain ☺

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  10. My mare had a suspensory injury as well. I'm in the midst of trail walks. More for her brain than anything else. Glad Q is doing well!

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    1. Best of luck with bringing your mare back from injury!

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  11. Wiggly horses are such a challenge when it comes to straight! I am so happy you are back to it with Q. One of my horses was injured in a trailer and had an extensive rehab that changing everything for us. She was really a very spooky horse before the incident and I was afraid to do anything with her. During rehab I could only do ground work for about a year and in that time our whole relationship changed. I ended up rebuilding my own confidence with horses during that time so although the injury was horrible, it was a game changer in a good way for sure.

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    1. I love this story! I hope Q and I can be so lucky as to turn our relationship around for the better, too. Thank you for sharing. =)

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  12. Glad she is getting back to a regular program again!

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  13. Really happy for you now that Q is back in work!
    I love Abetta saddles. They're the only synthetic western saddle I like.

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    1. I may end up with one in my arsenal in a few months haha. Hard to justify finding a used one though when i can use this one for free!

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  14. Happy for you that shes back in work, she is sooo cute! My horses aren't spooky at all...so no help there. I think racing helps with that lol. I agree that time is the best healer. I always turn them out until they are sound then wait another month or two to start them. Sounds like you are on the right track!

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    1. So many times I think horses just need time and we push them too much too soon. Time doesn't always work with our goals, but if it's better for the horse, we should allow for more of it to pass. Soooo much easier said than done haha

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  15. My newest horse had a suspensory and it freaks me out that she will break. So shes kind of been on turnout because I'm afraid if I ride her she will be lame and then I will cry. But shes been cleared by the vet. Oh well, extra turn out won't hurt.

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