Rollercoaster

Last weekend, I made a pretty amazing consignment find while I was visiting the tack store in St Louis.

NWT.

They had a brand new Ogilvy gummy pad, dressage cut, for almost $100 cheaper than the online price with shipping!!!  It doesn't fit under my jump saddle particularly well, but it was too good of a deal to pass up, and it does ~work~ with the jump saddle...it just kind of sticks out a bit.

Okay maybe a lot.

It's fine.  I love it.  And someday I'll have a dressage saddle to use it with.  I may have spent the rest of the week scouring ETT and the rest of the internet for a good deal on a used jumper cut one.  It makes a huge difference in the level of back pain that I have while riding, and it looks great (minus the sticking out part).

My first ride with this pad was most excellent.  By the end of the it, I was ready to write a post about how insanely proud my horse was making me.

He made friends with a mini - which is a pretty big deal, considering the fact that he's never wanted to go anywhere near them before.  They kept nuzzling each other, and it was ridiculously adorable.

Chalupa Batman!

He got through every aspect of a pretty tricky exercise like he'd been doing it every day for his entire life - he was confident, collected, and listening.  He was also the only horse in my lesson of 5 to get through everything without any refusals.  <3

pew pew

And he let a small child (the 10 year old that took Chalupa the mini to the Mini Event) cool him out on a loose rein. (I did walk with them the entire time, just in case - he's never had a child ride him before - but he was absolutely perfect.  He walked better for her than he does for me.  -_- )

Cow pony.

He was a complete rockstar.  At the end of the lesson, however, I noticed that right eye was looking a little irritated.

Squints.

He was keeping it open pretty well, though, so we decided to wait and see because it didn't seem to be bothering him much and his eyes do get a little goopy on occasion.  Unfortunately, by Wednesday it was clear that keeping it open was pretty hard for him, and so the vet was called.  Leo hates the vet.  She has scary needle sticks that she delights in attacking him with.  She's also an incredible human, and so so patient with him.  She was able to determine that there were no ulcers, and prescribed ointment plus bute.  

after two days of treatment

Unfortunately, it hasn't really started to improve.  This means that he may have a clogged tear duct, which means that when the vet is out on Monday, she may have to do some heavy sedation in order to drain it.  I really, really am not wanting more vet bills in my life, so I'm crossing all my fingers that it starts looking better by then.  

He's still pretty cute though.

I don't know if it was the weather (impending ice storm of doom that may or may not actually happen) or the bute, or something else entirely, but today we had the absolute least productive ride of all time.  He was on planet Saddlebred in a way that I haven't seen since I first brought him home.  It got to the point where I ended with lunging, because riding was getting us nowhere and we were both getting extremely frustrated.

worst lighting ever.

The flip side of this was that he actually stood completely still while I was putting the ointment in his eye, which had yet to happen, so at least there was progress in one aspect of our relationship.

Still love this.  And Leo.

I hope that you all had more consistently good weeks than mine!  And if you're in the path of the Ice Storm of Doom, stay safe!