Because what is a post without pictures, some of the horses we’ve rehomed this year

Casa’s Spirit, now enjoying some letdown time before beginning her hunter career

Monkey King, now a trail horse

Champagneforpeace, now an eventer

So Fast Im Fuzzy (spoiler alert: he was not), now a hunter

I always feel odd saying I started off as a hunter, because I basically jumped speed bumps once a week on random school horses. Not exactly a remarkable career. But I love the feeling of all four feet in the air (on purpose!), and nothing makes me drool like knees to the eyeballs over an oxer full of fill. Preferably dark bay with chrome, of course. Omg a dressage person who doesn’t take every opportunity to bash the hunters what madness is this?!

I’ve tried to piece together Pearl’s past, but I’ve been fairly unsuccessful. I know she was bred by a dressage breeder but made hunter babies. Owners of her offspring that I’ve stalked gotten in touch with have said they were told the dam “did dressage.” So my sneaking suspicion is she was haphazardly taught to jump, and then magically became a “hunter school horse.” Her… unconventional style was a running joke with my college equestrian team. I freely admit to being barn blind, but I really feel like with better flatwork and gymnastics she could have been quite a nice jumper.

Our early efforts were… appalling at times. I used to post on internet forums and everyone was like “omg I am keyboard jockey you are going to have a rotational fall!!!1!!!”

There was one horrifying “clinic” where I played photog which basically turned into “let’s run Pearl at big fences and see if she clears them” day. The instructor was like “omgz she is so talented, you should sell her as a junior jumper on the West Coast” and I cried thinking she was going to leave.

Knees???

Legs? What do I do with them? Her gaping mouth is why I am always like I AM NOT THE RIDER IN THESE PHOTOS.

Courses? Who is organized enough for courses? Surely we should just set big singles and run her at them.

Aaaaand that is why you shouldn’t do that. It’s already been established that homegirl is a saint.

But she actually got super cute with gridwork

If still a little… overjump-y

And sometimes we were able to jump actual courses with jumps you didn’t need a microscope to see

Pardon my horrifying equitation in all these pictures

You get extra points for matching your outfit to the jump

And she clearly was… enthusiastic about it

And I’ll always wonder if she would’ve been one of those ones who sharpened up her style as the fences got bigger, or if she always would be of the “heave my body and don’t fold my legs” variety. Right around the time when she got Really Lame, I was working at a fancy hunter barn and the trainer asked me if I wanted to move her there and work for board instead of cash. I would’ve missed my Christy crew, but I probably would’ve hopped on that opportunity, since there is no way I would ever be able to straight up afford a program like that. I just really regret that I was never (as in literally not one time) able to take a lesson on my own horse with a highly qualified, well-respected jumping instructor.

She freaking loved to jump, and I wonder if she misses it as much as I do and I definitely am not a big enough nerd to have an “animal communicator” do a “reading” and she definitely didn’t “say” she wanted to jump more.

Sometimes she jumps imaginary jumps

She free jumped once and I was like will you have my babies plz

Sometimes (like literally a couple times a year) I am a bad Navicular Mom and let her hop over teeny weeny things because she LOVES it so much

Can you see the jump? Look closely and you might be able to find it.

And she throws a party for herself on landing, so I figure she can’t be hurting too bad

DID YOU SEE ME JUMP THE THING I JUMPED THE THING AND I WAS SO GOOD AT IT

Like, could her ears possibly be any more forward? And her tail flagged? So it’s our little very occasional secret. I would never actually School Her Over Fences, but she does worse to herself out on her own that I don’t beat myself up about it as long as she can walk the next day.

Dear lord horse why would you put that much weight on your poor front feetsies

So there you have it. I would chew off my own arm to make this horse sound enough to jump again. But as always, I am so incredibly grateful that she is sound enough for what she CAN do.

One of the many perks of working at an equine sports medicine clinic is I can say “You know what? We’re having a slow day; let’s go inject my horse’s hocks.” She hasn’t had her hocks done since spring 2013, and based on what I feel under saddle I was pretty confident she needed those injected. The vet I tech for is fairly soon out of school, and as such is enthusiastic about sharing knowledge, so we did a lameness workup (lungeing, flexions) for my own educational purposes.

We started off by watching a video of Pearl under saddle (she is sounder under saddle than on the lunge) and playing “tell me what you see.”

I see that she is short in both hinds, left more than right. I do not see any overt (headbobbing) lameness in front. He confirmed the shortness behind, and added that she is landing hard on her left front, presumably in an effort to unload the right front (the worse of the two). I need to get better at seeing these things, and have asked him to walk me through it a bit more when we are at farms.

Next we took her into the arena to lunge. I wish I had taken a video of her lungeing for reference. She looked pretty good for her… I assume having softer footing helps. I got a briefing on the AAEP Lameness Scale. Basically, a 1 is intermittent/hard to detect lameness at the trot, a 2 is consistent under some circumstances (ie lungeing one direction or another), a 3 is consistent anytime the horse is trotting, 4 is lame at the walk and 5 is non weight bearing. Pearl is a solid 2 right front lungeing and trotting in hand. She is also a grade 2 on both hinds, as she does not bring them forward (shortened cranial phase) and is quick off the ground.

Her flexions went about as expected– positive on both hind uppers (hocks) and very painful to the point we barely even flexed her right front lower (coffin/fetlock). Which sounds kind of bad, having your horse lame in three legs! However, this is where she was starting from, when she was at her worst

Headbobbing at the walk and very lame at the trot, so a solid 4. We’ve come a long way, baby!

The last videos I had of her lungeing are from this past August. Slight head bob going right, significant head bob going left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsRAiCyc4ow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5bEmU0tTwQ

However, she was nowhere near that lame under saddle at that time. Not sure if it’s bigger circles or she is carrying herself better with a rider, but I’ll take it. Again, I wish I had videoed her on Monday, because she really did look the best on the lunge I’ve seen in a while. She also looks a heck of a lot better free lungeing running around the arena like a crazy thing.

So, we settled on injecting both her hocks as well as her right front coffin. She got .5 dorm and 1 torb, for those keeping score at home. She definitely was due for her hocks– the joint fluid that came out was very thin/watery and tinged with blood.

I asked the million dollar question: Based on how she goes under saddle, would she get kicked out of the show ring? The answer was a firm no, which… says something about the show industry, but that’s for another time.

She had a couple days of rest/handwalking, and then we’ll build up to lightly hacking later this week. I’m excited to see how the injections help her. I feel like the last time she had her hocks injected I didn’t feel a huge difference, but I feel like I’m a much more educated rider and more in tune to her, so hopefully I will better be able to tell.

Just for funsies/if there is anyone else out there struggling with the same issues, here is the regimen to keep Pearl serviceable. I’m not sure which of these things actually help her in a significant amount, but she’s going so well I’m not about to change anything!

Shoeing: 3 degree wedge pads on both fronts, bar shoe and Equipak on the right front

Turnout: As much as possible (but not pasture board, because she would starve)

Meds: previcox (quarter of the 227 mg tab) daily, 500 mg isoxsuprine BID

Supplements: Actiflex, extra MSM, Bute-Less pellets (plus vitamin E and tri-amino for muscle, and a probiotic)

Maintenance: Pentosan every 2 weeks, Osphos every 6 months. We’ll see how often she needs her intra-articular injections, if she continues in work… my guess would be coffin every 6 months and hocks every 12 which… we’ll see if I can afford to keep that up.

Legwork: Back On Track wraps when she is stalled after working, ice in the summer when I have access to a freezer that works

I think that’s it! Like I said, I’m not sure how much is science and how much is witchcraft, but she looks great so I’m not fixing what ain’t broke.

Of course we had to dress up for the occasion

Before we got started, Christy remarked that from what she’s seen while she’s been teaching other lessons at POF, Pearl has been looking pretty nice. I think that was the best silver lining of all this chronic lameness bullshit. Because I was able to ride so many different horses (thanks to their generous owners) and keep on lessoning even with Pearl out of commission, I was able to keep progressing in my riding, and now I can ride my horse better than I could the last time my own horse was in work.

Yes, yes she is the cutest

It wasn’t like we were magically up to schooling tests the first time out. We did a lot of working on my position (my inner equitation princess is not speaking to me after she saw the pictures) and a lot of time getting Pearl to carry herself and not just cruise around. She is quite fit cardiovascularly– never was out of breath and barely sweaty at the end– but as Christy reminded me, her muscles aren’t that strong yet, so I really need to be mindful of that and give her breaks, because otherwise both of us will just keep going round and round forever.

Standing still is the worst though. Please don’t make me do that, mom.

Our biggest challenge was getting her to not curl under the bit when she got tired of a true contact. I’ve been riding her in a leather mullen bit which she seems to tolerate well enough (I rode with it under the hackamore no reins attached for a few months, and then gradually added contact on it), so I feel pretty confident that her fussiness with the contact is a training issue, not physical discomfort. Christy gave me some good exercises to work on, and I already saw an improvement the next time I rode her.

I’m trying to stay realistic. She still looks terrible on the lunge line, so I wouldn’t call her clinically sound. But both my vet and farrier saw the video, and my vet said she “looks fantastic” and my farrier proclaimed her “dead even,” so I am trying to reassure myself that I am not hurting her with this newly increased level of work. If she looks like she is going to stay this level of soundness, I will have her neck/hocks injected, because it’s been so long since I’ve had a 4 figure vet bill I just don’t know what to do with myself I want to be able to ask her to use her body as correctly as possible so she can get her weight off those front feet.

Best of all, having a lesson didn’t break her! I rode her the next day before the farrier (yes, my horse is almost 18 and needs to be ridden down so she can stand still long enough to have her feet done) and turned her out in the indoor afterwards, and she was none the worse for wear. Actually, she warmed up a lot less creaky, so I guess we’re subscribing to motion is lotion.

So there you have it. I’ll still hold my breath every time I trot her off, but if she can keep going like this, I’m the happiest girl in the world.