A Real Ride

Whoo hoo! I think I'm officially back in the saddle! Of course Axel is still pretty sore on that front knee but it was time to venture out of the arena. Axel's true colors shone through once again. After essentially being on vacation for over a year (with a little work in the middle) I was able to throw a saddle on him and take him down the road. I left the baby with his dad and they went to a car show and I met up with the gals at the barn and we had ourselves a mini trail ride a mile down the road and back. Axel was limpy, he wouldn't eat his bute before we left, hey I tried! But over the course of a mile and half he didn't really get any worse. He was calm and sane. He stopped a few times in an attempt to convince me the ride was over but it was nothing major. Cody was also a rock star. Calm as can be, as far as I could see he didn't try to bolt or trot or even turn around. What good boys!

I ended up getting off half way home and leading Axel, I figured it just wasn't fair for me to make he go that long after having so much time off. He moved out pretty well after I dismounted, for part of the walk he was nearly dragging me, guess I gotta keep working on my running so I can keep up. If I could get him to eat the bute he would have probably been just fine for the whole 2 miles. Since it's arthritis I'm still going to try and keep riding, just nice easy walks of course. He needs to keep moving and I think if I can get him to start using his rear end again that will help take some pressure off the front end.

So all and all it was a good ride. I would have loved to go longer, I would have loved to do some cantering, I would love for Axel to be 100% but it's just not going to happen. Depending on how he's doing and what the vet says next spring I might have his knee injected again. It's not expensive and it helped quite a bit last time, I wonder if there's any cumulative benefit to having it done every year? It'd be nice to keep him sound and working for the next few years until we move out to our own farm and he can retire with Cody. Of course with all the excitement of finally getting out again I forgot to take photos til we got back, whoops.