Ulcers (again)

Well, it was 40 degrees yesterday (December 18th) so of freaking course I had to trash all of my well behaved plans and get on a horse. I had planned to get on Bailey, but found her unwilling to rise from a nap in the dark so I did chores first, and then turn in. And then, because apparently I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided, randomly, to lunge Arya in tack. Which turned into riding her. And Bailey basically got skipped because my solar lights ran out of juice as we were starting trot work.

Whoops.

I had planned to give Arya some (more) time off to let the Nexium do it's thing (again) but guess what, guys? It's already doing it's thing. She lunged out nicely but seemed to not trust the ground, which was kind of half melted, half frozen. There was one spot where she kept pulling me out and then ending up on the slick spot, so we had to do some gentle reminders that we don't just pop our shoulder and fly sideways on the line. I was a bit nervous about my decision to ride once I made it- she seemed to be swishing her tail a lot as we went to get the mounting block and didn't want to stand nicely without being gotten after... but no fireworks.

I had been wishing that she would learn to walk and hack like a Denny Emerson horse and I think I might be getting my wish; she marched out pretty politely, and didn't dance around or get weird like she can when she thinks she needs to canter canter canter (Foxie was much worse about this) the minute you get on. She walked out and snorted and sighed, and didn't offer the trot. We did some trotting and again, she was good, if a bit tense. I can't tell if the tension may be protecting her stomach, not wanting to move out on the ground or if she's just... tense. She was, however, very rideable in both directions. She wasn't perfect, but she like... was willing to try bending and was mostly remembering what half halts were. I have low expectations, what can I say :D 

Her canter work was very conservative - she basically wanted to drop to a trot whenever she went through one area where she had slipped previously, despite having since broken the ground down enough that I felt she had decent grip. She's a cautious one! On the other 3/4 of the circle she was steady and good, with just some mild headbanging to remind me that she is a baby OTTB who probably hasn't willingly cantered in weeks due to the ground and she had feelings about it. Which luckily, she didn't act on. Maturity, people.

For a 20 minute ride, it was a good one. She's definitely still got ulcers; I think the tail swishing, and the way she reacted to being brushed tells me that, but she's definitely feeling better. I'm disappointed that the supplement and management I've been doing hasn't been enough; I did swap her to the Smartpak Leg Up Stomach pellets a couple of weeks before she started acting up, but I'm not sure if that means her previous supplement wasn't working, or if this new one isn't working. Or if neither of them work? I need to figure out how I feel about the supplement... hopefully I didn't just buy a year supply of something that doesn't work for her

I've been doing lots of math when it comes to Calcium content of supplements, alfalfa pellets and the two feed options (regular and gastric care Ultium) but I'm lacking so much experience with ulcers. Does anyone have a winning combo they'd be willing to share? I feel like majorly lack experience in caring for an ulcery horse, and these relapses don't exactly help my lack of confidence in this type of management. 

I also am taking note here and on my calendar of her behavior; our ride last night was marked with an open mouth/chomping a lot and an extraordinary amount of rooting to stretch down. It got quite annoying, but she really seemed to want to streeeeetch all the way down, and shockingly her short little neck can make my reins feel too short, like I need OS reins. Could it be a stomach stretching maneuver? The dog stretches when he eats too fast and his stomach hurts because it's too full (he has the weirdest problems)... or perhaps a reaction to walking like she's on eggshells for the last several weeks as the footing has been rutted and rock hard with no snow to pad it, despite cold temps. I'm hoping we get some snow once we go back to non randomly-tropical winter temps.  

Catching Up

First of all, thank you all for the support and sympathy on my last post. Your words brought me to tears, in a good way, and I had to hide in the bathroom at work because despite there being lots of bad things in the world, there sure are a lot of good things, too. And you guys are the top of that list.  

Things have been moving apace here at the farm. The first week of December we said goodbye to Bizzy. When hubby first declared we'd be moving next summer (there may be some changes there, but holding my cards until I'm sure) I reached out to CANTER, where I got her, and asked if they could help me re-home her or how to best go about finding her a new landing place. CANTER came through in a spectacular way, and Bizzy now resides at a farm in VA with a new job as a nursemare. I think she will do fantastically, and the chore and hay stress lightening now that I have one less horse to feed and care for has been nice (if bittersweet). She was kind of uncommonly mean to Bailey, and tried to kick her in the face in passing when Bailey was drinking right before her departure, so I was less sad to see her go than I could have been. 

I broke the tractor (aka blew the hydraulic fluid. Again) but a) fixed it, without having to ask Hubby for help/making him aware and b) also figured out why it's blown all of it's hydraulic fluid like 3 times now and can fix the issue. The problem being that I have to wait for the plug to shift because I stupidly put it back in without the recommended solution. Whoops. Hoping I can fix the issue this weekend. 

I've been working that side gig job and doing some photo work, including at a saddle fitting event that I brought Arya to. I was nervous leaving Bailey home alone, as this was a week and a half after Bizzy left, but she survived just fine without her sister, though she whinnied most piteously when we returned and paced the gate as soon as she saw us. Arya had been off and on good and iffy, and had a really bad day (aka she reared, but shockingly went back to work just fine, and ended the ride hacking around the pasture on the buckle) the day before the clinic, so I tried really hard to keep a lid on it when I did my riding portion of the saddle fit clinic. I brought both dressage saddles and while I was there for free, because #eventphotog, I didn't feel like I got a lot out of the experience. Arya did, however, not totally try to murder me while at the nice heated barn, and everyone thought she was very pretty. I was impressed that she didn't stall walk and actually took a nap while she waited for me to be done, despite being tucked into a corner stall with no other horses nearby. The fitters came to the conclusion that neither of my dressage saddles fit Arya particularly well, but I guess I don't 100% believe that the fit is as bad as they seemed to think. I am going to go back to riding in the jump saddle on Arya exclusively for a while either way as we know that fits her better than anything else.

I've started her back on Ulcer meds, as she seems to be having problems again, but I'll save that for another post - I've got a few stacked up that I've partially summarized into this one, so hopefully you'll forgive this wall of text! I've figured out how to blog at work (Yay!) but I can't include media except by editing posts on my phone (boo!) which sucks as Blogger no longer has an ap. Perhaps its time for a new platform? Idk. I do love blogger.