So the million dollar horse wasn't feeling up to par on Monday. Let's say on a scale from 1-10, 10 being awesome totally sound at all three gaits (something he hasn't been since this time last year) and 1 being so lame he can't move at all, holding up one foot hopping around style. Before he had his injection I'd say he was at a 3. After the injection he was at a 7 (still lame at the trot, sound at the walk and really moving out). Monday he was down to a 5. Not nearly as bad as before the injection but not as good as a week after the injection. I really don't know what the deal is. Just ups and downs I suppose. The only thing I can do right now is keep going slow, get him moving around more and back into shape. If this is really just arthritis issues then more work isn't going to make it worse, he doesn't have a broken leg or anything, it's just going to maybe hurt. My thoughts right now are to keep him going at the walk until it's been a month. Then we'll put a saddle on him and work more at the walk. I'm going to pick up some liniment as well. Of course I'm impatient but in all reality if you limped around 6 months it would take at least a month if not much more to start feeling normal again. Jeff's niece broke her foot and has been out of a cast for a month or more and she's still limping and is a little gun shy. Why should I expect Axel to be any different?
So I did ask him for a trot to see what was up and he jumped and flung his head and cantered instead. Not the best day to ask for that I guess but you don't know til you try. So I put him out after giving him some MSM and grabbed Cody. Cody managed to stay stress free while I tacked him up in the cross ties. I decided to put out some cones before I got on to ride. I'm not really worried about Cody rolling or doing something stupid while tacked so I just let him wander while I set up. I put the cones down the centerline so we could work on weaving a bit and when I got to the end and turned around, Cody had knocked every cone down and was standing behind me. So after I reset all the cones I got on to ride. Cody was slow as usual so I grabbed the dressage whip for some inspiration. It seems like he doesn't start working until I ask for a canter and then he's on his toes. Which was the case on Monday but he's starting to calm down a lot faster after a spazzy canter. He's a little hard to motivate and when I'm riding alone I'm hard to motivate so I'm guessing that's no help to him. I should get someone to come in and instruct me or something.
We did weave the cones a bit but without impulsion it's a pretty difficult task. At first Cody decided he was supposed to walk up to each cone and stop. After we got over that idea then he figured out we were weaving. I probably should have put the cones a bit further apart for him. So while we were in the arena riding Axel was out in his pasture screaming his head off. Usually he doesn't care if Cody is gone but for some reason he was very unhappy with the situation on Monday. Of course his screaming makes it harder for Cody to concentrate on the task at hand. We made a few attempts at side-passing on the wall with no success and then we did a few tiny turns on the forehand. That was pretty much it for the night. And since it was a billion degrees last night I didn't go to the barn at all. So we'll see how everyone is feeling on Monday when I can make it out again.
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