2021 Adult Camp Lesson One

 February turned out to be a total bummer of a month for riding and a bit for life in general too. So I looked forward to a weekend of riding at Sprieser’s camp to close out the month. Roscoe and I both had our Magna Wave PEMF therapy on the Tuesday before and we were supposed to have a saddle fitting on Thursday . Well the saddle fitting got put off to March, very sad, so I was going to work that day. That plan changed though.

On Wednesday my Mom messaged saying she had to bring Griffyn to the emergency vet. For the sake of friendship I can’t go into details about what happened, but he suffered a severe injury. My poor mother was traumatized and our small animal vet was not able to take him, nor any close by. My parents had to take him over an hour away to receive treatment. I went to the barn to take care of the horses and pick up Deliah. When I made it home, Griffyn was there pumped full of pain meds and looking like Winnie the Pooh in his red vet wrap shirt.

Poor puffy puppy

 We were in a wait and see mode as to whether he needed surgery to remove necrotic tissue. I immediately contacted my PEMF friend and asked to schedule a time for him the next day. She was great and even came to the house. Griffyn received 20 minutes and looked less inflamed and my sister said he did not whine as much at night.

Inflamation way reduced

My what big feet you have

Needless to say the stress level was a bit high in our family. That made the weekend a little iffy for me tummy wise, but fortunately did not result in a full flare up. 

One day his name will be spelled right

Roscoe’s first lesson was with my normal trainer and had quite the audience. My trainer watched as we warmed up with leg yields on the rail and shoulder in. She could see improvement which is always good to hear.  She had us work on our lengthenings. He is getting better even though he tries to canter sometimes. In a few months hopefully he will resolve the urge. 

Then she threw something new into the mix, renvers. I have heard of them in a vague way and knew only they were a four track movement. Beyond that I was clueless. We worked it at the walk first. Beginning in shoulder in and then changing the bend and aids to ask for the renver. This was definitely easier to accomplish with the mirrors. 

When I went away from the mirrors it was a difficult to keep him together. We did have our moments of correct movement that felt amazing. Most of the time I felt like I was rubbing my head and patting my belly. Especially when we tried it at the trot. Going right we had to play with small bits at a time because he would get stuck. She was okay with 30 seconds of stuck, but no more than that.

To end the lesson we let him stretch at the trot.  This was a mental and physical work session. One lesson done, two more to go.

He just barely can look out the window

Dealing with the digs