MM's shoer called me back late last week, and said he felt comfortable doing the Ground Controls. He looked at them online, thought they were neat, and said sure thing, let's try it.
However, since Strider is a little bit of a dancer for trims, and this process involves NAILS in his FEET, I didn't want the shoer to quick him or get a nail placed wrong. So I made sure to mention that this is his first time EVER to be shod. So, he suggested I get some Demosedan.
And then phase two started.
I'd called a few vets looking to get it in order to take the edge off. No one was calling me back. Or, I needed to haul him in to them so that they could give him a check up before they'd give it to me. I finally had a lightbulb moment and realized "Why not just call the original vet who JUST saw him and see if he'll sell me a tube?!"
DING DING DING DING!!!
Winner, winner, chicken dinner! It will be at the barn next week.
Now, I'm getting serious about figuring out what size of shoes I need to get ordered. And sitting down with my calendar to figure out how to shuffle in shoeing around/with my spring ride schedule and get them pulled off near/around the start of summer so he can run bare naked foot.
That part is turning into the trickiest part for me. But, after staring at the calender and realizing that I may have to do a reset at 5 weeks at least once, I finally found a schedule that doesn't have me right on the last few days of a 6 week cycle, and has them removed the week or so after our last ride. AND will give me a little bit of time prior to our first ride in them to really let him try them out and see how we do.
So, will talk to my trimmer tomorrow when she comes out to do the other two and get ideas about what size he needs, and then order him his shoes.
Turquoise. :) Because, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it with some color on our feet!!
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| Black and clear are too hard to find if they come off. I don't really do pink. But that turquoise! That's NICE! |
I'm actually a -little- bit excited about getting it done. Mostly because I'm ready to get back to REALLY riding my horse.
I wanted to ride on Sunday, and I specifically wanted to ride Strider. I turn up at the barn with the grandiose plan of riding on the Pecan Grove side where the trails are softer and there's minimal rocks.
Except the moment I opened the door, I heard them. Again. The dirt bikes/ATVs. Just lovely.
With Strider, I cannot ride him on the horse side of the property due to the hard pack trails and rocks. And, while I thought about bringing the truck, I didn't because my riding time was limited due to Joe needing to work and someone coming to the house at 1pm.
Well then, guess we're going round and round in the arena. Which he hates. Which I get bored with because I'm not exactly sure how to best utilize my time in an arena. So, we spent about 10 minutes refreshing the "Come Pick Me Up" cue. And then we rode. We did basic laps to begin with while he worked many of the bunny bucks out. We made sure that he didn't keep trying to duck out through the gate by doing lots of figure 8's at that end of the arena. We focused on going from "A" to "B" in a (mostly) straight line. We worked on the halt from a walk and a gait. We worked on backing up. Where he turned into a turd. That front end popped up. So then we did about 3-5 minutes of "Gait forward and whoa and back up." Lather, rinse, repeat. We worked on half-halts. For a solid hour we worked in the arena.
The truth be told, I feel like the front end coming up was just annoyance at being trapped in the arena. The bunny bucks are normal for him. Annoying, yes. Not dangerous, and he's done them for years at this point, so I'm pretty sure it's become neurological for him. Or just his form of self-expression. Whatever. Do I find it annoying? So much yes. I hate getting popped out of the tack like that. But, until I can either send him off to a trainer to evaluate what the heck is going on, or have a trainer come to him to figure it out, I just ride them out. No big deal.
And, after we finished our (little over an hour) of arena work, we went back to the mounting block and verified we could "Come Pick Me Up". Then I just started walking around and asking him for it.
The reality is he frustrates and annoys me. He has so much natural talent. And when the footing is soft, he has more speed (seriously, in the arena I could feel him stretching out some, so once those shoes on, I bet he really IS a powerhouse). And I know I'm the weak link in our relationship. And yet, I am always reminded just how much fun he really is. Sure, I have to ride each step. I can't really "zone" out with him. But there's something about him that just...resonates with me. And I am eager to see what kind of "new to me" horse I have once we have the Ground Controls on!
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