Day 3

I am still loving these Draper Wraps. I am so thankful to one of my dear friends for sending them to me. I have been seriously at my ends wit with this leg. But I feel we are on a great track forward to getting this thing 100% 

Day 2

So I cannot say enough about these Draper Recovery Wraps. There has not been a single day in the past few months were his leg would not be super fat by the am. Never painful but it's always fat. I unwrapped him this morning to find a just about normal leg!!!! 

Photo 1 is of his leg thus morning when I removed the wraps.

Photo 2 is of his legs when he was brought in for the day. As you can see it actually swelled back up some during the day even though he was outside.

Photo 3 is of the nonhealing wound.

Photo 4 is a comparison of yesterday and this morning to show the Draper Wraps awesome work.

Day 1

After a long overdue vet visit we are working to get rid of that fat leg once and for all before it gets worse and becomes painful.

The plan is to apply ivermectin topically under a draper recovery wrap. This will be during the night while he is stalled. In the mornings he will be unwrapped and vetricyn is applied. This will be day 1 through 3. Day 4 through 10, I will replace the ivermectin with liquid DMSO and keep the rest of the plan.

So here is day 1 before our first treatment and wrapping.
And one photo showing him wrapped. Yes I only wrapped one leg via the vets recommendation.

Dressage? I believe so!

With our soundness, I have decided we are going to take a step away from jumping and take a few steps deeper into Dressage. We are going to focus solely on Dressage from here on out and see where that takes us. I've been lucky enough to clinic with a fantastic dressage trainer and I am loving what we are doing so far. I've never seen America look so great! He seems to be a natural. It also doesn't make him as uptight, nor does it make me nervous. Who knows whether we will make it to any levels but we are still at the very bottom right now. I'm very excited as I feel like this could finally be our niche, as well as really help us fill in some holes we have in our training!

Feet Update - to the July trim

Oh the challenge of trying to correct years of poor trims....

BUTTTT, with a fantastic trimmer, anything is possible. Club foot, underrun heels, negative palmar angles and we are still on such a fantastic track to total soundness and long lasting feet!


We'll start with the front right
The left hand pictures are from January. This was when I had the natural balance shoe with pour in on this foot taken off.
 The right hand side picture is from after our July trim.



FRONT LEFT - this was the super problem hoof. underrun heel, severe and a negative palmar angle. This one we removed a wedged natural balance and it had pour ins.
We are getting there. The sole is becoming more concave, which is great for his comfort. He already has significant heel on the left foot. His entire hoof has shifted back. I'm super excited about our progress!!!! NEXT STEP: build up that topline!

Up to July update!

So this a long overdue blog post as a lot has happened since my trip to Colorado! Riding-wise, not as much as I would like. Which made a huge difference in our progress with his feet. Me not working him definitely put a damper on how quickly his feet have been strengthening. I also took the chance and stopped putting the Keratex on a couple times a week and I saw a huge difference in that as well. I wont be doing that again.

On top of my laziness, I could tell something was off, which was further pushing me into lazi-er-ness. I decided that I needed him to see the vet. But first I tried a chiro, well to be fair she was a kinesiologist (sp?). Wasn't quite my cup of tea but I could see how the practice could be beneficial to others. So since that didn't make quite the improvement we needed, we took a trip to the vet.

It was a bit scary, the words Lymes Disease got thrown around. We did lameness examines, lunged him, flexed him, did a blood panel and a Lymes test. I left being told that HE HAD TO BE WORKED. As long as everything came back normal, more than anything he needed to be exercised and needs to be moving. He also told me to buy some boots to make him more comfortable through his transition to being barefoot.

I got the results and luckily no Lymes

That was not something I was looking forward to dealing with. His blood panel wasn't as great. It was not detrimental by any means but his red blood cells and his platelets were low. There could have been multiple things that could have led to this.

I consulted with my nutrition gurus and we decided to half his MSM and I realized he was not getting the full dosage of TNT (especially for his size). TNT was brought up to spec. He popped out some dapples soon after making that change so I knew things were evening out.



I had another chiropractor out. My favorite one. She worked on him, gave me suggestions to help him get back into shape as well as some good exercises. He was way out still in his si, his withers, his right shoulder as well. He had a couple of other smaller areas but those were the big ones. After a few days I saw a huge improvement in him. Our awesome trimmer came out a week or two after and I resumed Keratexing his feet. We really seem to be on the up and up.

I believe Derp agrees!

Colorado! and progress

Well, the weather has been ridiculous. I did get to go to Colorado, which is BEAUTIFUL! I had never been before so it was an experience.

Went Snowtubing....there was a lot of snow. :)

 

 Did I mention it's pretty there?

    

OH and they have a hella lot of breweries there to visit!!!! My favorite was Syntax. Absolutely delish liquors and mixed drinks!

And then I came home to....you guessed it....even more snow. See, we don't really get snow that much here. But we got 8-12 inches (depending on where you are). As you can imagine, it shuts NC down! We stop functioning. We don't know how to handle that capacity of snow. So it's put a little damper on my getting to ride, but it doesn't seem to have affected America much. Actually, he's doing really, really well. He has lost weight and he's looking nice and trim. Next step is to get that topline back. All in time! 

Here is a comparison picture of Last April until now. April is what he looked like before I started working with this trimmer. 

This may not look like a big deal to a lot of people but it really is. This is progress. The biggest thing is showing the comfort of his body. See how in the top photo he is closed up with his right side. That's how he always stood. I have so many pictures of him standing exactly like that. It was his comfortable pose. But slowly, he is standing more natural and square. He looks more comfortable. I am also wondering if getting that extra weight off of him is helping him to hold himself  up better as well. Hm......

Here's a photo from all last year until now....Look how huge and fat he is in the second to last picture!!!! Uhhh so glad I was able to get that off of him easily.

 

I love the progress of health you can see in this set of photos. He got healthier and healthier and the dapples exploded. Then he got fat and winter came. We had lymphangitis and a minor colic and digestive issues and no dapples. But now that we are back up and running. We are gold! Only upwards from here!

What is your ultimate goal in riding?

Last week, while mentally prepping myself for my first lesson in months upon months, I started to think of the questions my new trainer would be asking me. The history of my horse, what have we done together, how old is he, how long have I been riding. What is my riding history. And my favorite

What is your goal with riding?

For some, you would think this would be an easy and fairly straight forward answer.
-I want to get to 3rd Level dressage  - or-
-I want to get to 3' Jumpers and successfully -or-
-I want to compete in HUS world champions


oh no, not me. Mine is much simpler. Much less focused.

I want harmony. Sounds simple enough but what a process and intricate idea it really is. Because my goal is not aimed at one particular place in time. I want my horse and I to be harmonious. For us to be in sync and balanced. I want us to be as one. I want us to get to that place in our training where I can think, balanced and be balanced. Where we flow as one into the canter, balanced and methodical. Where we flow as one over jumps, landing on the other side and moving forward as if there was no jump at all. Harmony between rider and horse. It's simple but difficult. It takes time and trust and patience. Of which, I am have an ample amount. So I know that with guidance, we will get there.

That is all I want. Right now. :)

I believe our goals change as we achieve them. But for now, I'll aim for this!

So ask yourself these questions...

What is your ultimate goal? 

And are you riding with your horse, or are you riding your horse?

OFTF is off to a fantastic start!

I am SO EXCITED to share that we are on the right track. America is doing AMAZING! In fact, he is more sound now than he has been in literally months. No funky break over on that front right. He's not even tender footed! Granted, it will take some time to get his feet to where we need them to be but we are most definitely on the right track and he is doing great!

My trimmer is actually going to be doing a case-study on America so I should get lots of feed back as well! A few things she did mention:

• Derp needs to lose 100 lbs.
• He HAS to get exercise and lots of trotting. This will help with the 100 lbs. But lots of trotting. 
• He needs lots of stretching and bending. 

 So we have begun the process. He is back in work and is doing really well considering he has been ridden maybe three times in 9 months. From Lymphangitis to his mystery offness to the xrays and funky shoeing...it's been a while. We are also going to have a lesson on Sunday. I'm excited. We are only doing walk and trot but I could use some help making sure I am helping him use his body correctly. I'm pretty excited!!! I was feeling pretty down in the dumps about his soundness and was very concerned that that  negative palmar angle was going to be a very long and extensive problem. Or even worse that it had caused permanent damage. Luckily, i've found a fantastic trimmer who looks at his entire body and is helping me rehab not only his feet but his entire body.

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Here are the updated photos of his feet. He definitely needs to grow more foot in order for her to get everything in the correct place. But she did darn well considering he has no hoof on one foot and the other is wonky in the front.

 

LEFT FRONT

RIGHT FRONT

LEFT BACK

RIGHT BACK