So Riley suffers from a mild case of contracted tendons. I started him on SmartPak SmartTendon (love, love, love it. Highly recommend) and had my vet come out to give me her opinion and she suggested corrective shoes for a couple of months and it should fix its self!
It blows my mind how simple of a fix it is! I would freak out every time something abnormal happens to his legs. Now I can just put shoes on him and semi relax on that issue. Which is good, cause I'm only 19 and I swear this horse is going to give me a frigging heart attack or something! haha
After getting the OK for riding from the vet I started his work out schedule Monday, with light trotting, mostly working on getting control over his shoulders and hip. Riley's big issue is dropping his shoulder. He just does not keep it up when I'm on him. Worked a lot on circles, circles, circles, and switching directions. Did the same thing on Tuesday.
Today I got on him and really worked on getting his shoulders and balanced. The moment he starts dropping his shoulder, and/or losing his balance his jog gets really bouncy and unbelievably hard to sit. My butt is seriously bruised from riding him the last couple of days but hes getting better. I was able to sit without bouncing all over the place. lol Anyways, I also worked on getting him to soften in the face, he was NOT having any of it though, he tries so hard to be naughty with his little bucks/ kicks, and trying to bite my foot but he just doesn't have it in him. haha He was finally starting to get it though towards the end of the ride.
My trainer was watching me ride and convinced me to try to canter him. Her logic was "Whats the worse hes going to do? Not canter?" which is true, cause Riley's really not big on bucking, not even on the lunge line. He bucked once when we first trotted him ever, then today due to me whacking him pretty hard cause he was not moving forward. So I took a deep breath and asked for a canter going clock wise (his better direction) it probably took us 5 times around the arena at a trot to finally break into the canter, and OH MY GOD! is he smooth!! compared to his bumpy ass trot I thought his canter would have been worse! But nope nice smooth rocking horse canter that I LOVE! Did like two laps hoed him, then tried counter clock wise. Think it took us 1 round to get him into the canter, stopped him then got off.
My body parts were like jello, I was so excited/happy/thrilled/relieved all in one. I just kept thinking, I broke this horse myself and I'm the first ever to canter on him. It's a great, great feeling. I could not love that horse ANYMORE then I do right now. Maybe canter classes wont be to out of reach after all?
On a side note.. My friends Appy gelding pretty much lost his whole tail due to her pretty much wrapping it all winter, granted she didn't have it wrapped EVERY SINGLE DAY of winter, just the mojority. She has a horse show this weekend. Ugh this is why I do not wrap tails, I just braid. ]:
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