Guarded

Lucie has kind of been off and on this past month. Over the past three weeks, she's started rushing at the canter and is stiffer than usual in her hind end. The exact cause of the stiffness hasn't been confirmed yet, but it could be a number of factors including her bedding, an abscess, and thrush. Yeah, you read that right, thrush. The horse with dry, cracking feet got thrush. And it smells god awful. It's just about cleared up, and fortunately the hoof conditioner that I bought is also antimicrobial. I've been applying it to the underside of the foot for two weeks, and it's clearing up, but I'm still flabbergasted as to how it happened in the first place.

Queen of causing really weird problems

All that being said, she hasn't had much riding time lately, which means a lot more time inside, so I'm guessing the stiffness is due to the circumstances. Plus, I have no idea how to manage an abscess. Let's hope there isn't one to begin with.

Oh we also got new footing.

Right before the thrush discovery, she had given me a quite tense ride. Walked and trotted fine to warm up, but once cantering, she was borderline unmanageable. After that, the trot had no quality. She was tense all over. Post thrush discovery, same thing. And the next ride after that, still tense but working through it and settling back into a trot much better. That was our last ride. She actually started the ride out so so so good and soft. Still more tense than I would like after the canter, but better for sure. My only theory is that she just needs to work out of it. She recently got more sand put in her stall as well, and I gave her a hand graze and a lunge yesterday.

Believe it or not, she started off super laid back to the left. As soon as we turned right, bronc time.

In summary, Tubby's feet continue to thwart me, but she really couldn't care less.

Big Bad Mare do Anger Trot