Chiro Update, Still Dunno

Getting around to thoughts on the chiropractic appointment last month [Chiro, Dunno].

Before The Appointment
While I am a big fan of body work in general, I am dubious about chiropractic work.

Sessions I have seen in the past have involved violent yanking. It felt wrong to me.

Years ago, I had Mathilda & Previous Horse done. I was underwhelmed, both by the session and by the results.

There is the family anecdote about neck pain leading to surgery. A chiropractic adjustment would have been a dramatically bad idea, according to the surgeon.

Finally, I’ve had a dislocated finger. I don’t understand how a joint can be “out” and still be functional. I’ll allow this one as my ignorance, since I wasn’t interested in finding out more, see above.

Doc was coming to adjust the Stepping Stone Farm horses. I decided to have Milton done. We are still searching for the key to him. I had Rodney done as well. Two horses and a barn call fee as a trade-off for one horse and me having to ship to SSF. Worth it.

During The Appointment
I went over in the am to watch a few of the SSF horses.

Doc patted the horses. I always like that.

Sam had his ears up. Sam is a hard horse to reach. He never stands around with ears up, unless peppermints are involved.

Milton spooked at the portable block. Doc handled it well. He let Milton sniff it, moved it away, moved it back, moved it away, etc. When it became apparent this was not persuading Milton, Doc had me play human blinkers while he stood on the scary block.

Doc was not interest in taking a patient history. I guess he dealt with what presented in front of him? Doc didn’t say much one way or the other. I can be a problematic client. Too little conversation and I’ll accuse you of not being responsive. Too much conversation and I’ll accuse you of not focusing on the job.

Overall, the manipulations were on the order of prodding and pushing. They fit better with my sense of suitable bodywork.

There was a nice energy in the field for the rest of the day.

After The Appointment
Adjustments for Milton: SI on right side. Something else in butt area on left side. Left ribs.

Adjustments for Rodney: generally not much. SI on left.

Results: Hard to say. No miraculous changes to either horse. That would have been nice. As I wrote in the last post, we mostly walked for a long time after that day for unrelated reasons. Since then, both horses have been going well. Nothing spectacular, more on the order of things working out rather than not.

Correlation? Causation? My brilliant riding? Doc’s magic fingers? I really don’t know.

Bottom Line
I am having them done the next time Doc is in town. Still not a complete convert, but I liked it enough to vote with my pocketbook at least once more.

Update, Nov 2023. This was the only appointment with this doc. Don’t recall if we fell off his radar, or he stopped coming to this area, or something else happened. Net net, horses did not see him again.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Juggling The Options

I need a new word. This situation is the diametric opposite of a problem.

General Conundrum
With everything I/we want to do with horses, how do we decide what’s next?

Do we go somewhere or work at home?

If we ship, do we lesson, or school on our own?
Milton at Stepping Stone Farm? Long-line or ride or combination?
Jumping at Falcon Hill Farm?
Schooling at Full Circle Horse Park?
New place?

What is the weather?
Who has the best footing for conditions?
Who will be around to teach?
Is it a weekday or weekend?

If home, which horse? What order?
How much light do we have?
Do we have any interesting obstacles for Rodney?
Ride in the ring?
Walk laps? Ridden or in-hand?
Hill work?
Ground work?
Long-line?

Should I go off to an ASB lesson and give the home team a day off?
Does the obstacle barn have lesson horses?

And so on.

This doesn’t even include driving. Wait until that gets back into the mix.

General Rules
Go somewhere every weekend. Until such time as we can fully school at home, we need to keep moving.

Rodney goes somewhere once a month. Given the trouble we had getting him back on the road [Trailer Training], we want to keep him used to traveling.

Specific Conundrum
Last Sunday, we had a decision to make:

Take Milton to SSF. Work on cantering & trotting small jumps. I’m hoping to line up another jump lesson soon, and boy do we need practice. OTOH, one more session isn’t going to make much difference in our lesson.

OR

Take Rodney to SSF. Get him acclimatized to working away from home. This one’s gonna take time and repeat exposure.

Specific Rule
The dressage series that Milton and I did last year [Maintaining Our Firm Grip On Last Place And That’s Okay, For This I Cleaned My Tack?] starts soon. We decided that until Milton is done with the first FCHP show, ties go to Milton.

Leading to a new general rule,

Whoever has the next event – horse, rider, or driver – gets first priority.

Milton, SSF, trot jump

Rodney, home, pass-thru obstacle

Like I said, the exact opposite of a problem.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

A Dog Can Dream

On My Mind, Miscellaneous Visuals

 


 

American Saddlebred Horse Association of Alabama
Alabama Hunter Jumper Association
The Alabama Obstacle Challenge Series
Birmingham Dressage & Combined Training Association

Process notes: In an ideal world, the streamers would be fluttering in the breeze. Currently, graceful curves are beyond my skill set. Geometric it is.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Still Recording Every Effort, No Matter How Small

Jumping Diary

 

Milton

Trot

 
We had several Eeeek-a-bug moments over this, but I went with him (kinda), he landed quietly, and came around to do it again. Part of the problem was steering. I could not get him to turn into it, so we would swerve out to the right and end up over the larger – relatively – side piece. He utterly failed to have a hissy fit on the far side of the jump. Yay!

Canter

 
I felt the need to massively override this, including biting for the big one on one of the passes. At a pile of poles? Milton said, ‘Ah, sorry Boss, that’s not there. I’ll just trot through this, if you don’t mind.’ Good boy.

The next day, at home, we set a crossrail with lower sides. We got a better line in. He trotted up to, hopped neatly over, and cantered quietly away. I almost believed.

Rodney

Walk & Trot

 

Previous Jumping post [What Happened To All The Jumps?]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Can’t Go Over It, Gotta Go Through It

Overcoming Obstacles in Our Way

 

Good Verbs: Carry, Back-up, Open, Cross

Carry. Flawless. Picked up fleece quarter sheet, moved it to another part of the ring. Rodney could not have cared less. Laid it over his withers. Held it out to the side. Mox nix.

Krinkle Karry. Well, okay, if you say so. Including the time I dropped the bag & it landed against his lower leg. I asked him to move away veeeerrrrry carefully. No need. No biggie.

Back-up. Beep. Beep. Beep. Minor head tossing midway through, due to my asking for too many steps at once. Ask, wait, praise, repeat.

Open. First session we got as far as opening the latch, backing up a step, walking forward halfway thru, and then handing off the rope to the ground crew. Second session, managed entire maneuver. Technically. Lots of this way, no, this way, nevermind, I can reach the latch from here. Needs smoothing out. Rodney doesn’t want to dock alongside. He doesn’t violently resist but I can feel him leaning away. Plus, major learning curve for the pilot on how to maneuver horse through pattern.

Cross. Tarp? Pfffft. Piece of cake. Although there was an acrobatic, three-legged leap with the remaining limbs the first time he put hoof foot on plastic. Fortunately, he was in-hand. After that, whatever. We did open it to the full width, requiring several steps to cross. No problem.

For the sake of accuracy, I will mention that we had a long-line/in-hand session between the two mounted ones. We did some krinkly stuff, worked on the gate, & fiddled with pool noodles. Interesting to see how hard it is to insist with long-lines. Since the goal is to ride the obstacles, I am only documenting obstacles once we try them mounted. My blog, my rules.

Not So Good Verbs: Canter, Jump, Travel
Read the Alabama Obstacle Challenge Series paperwork. Probably should have done that earlier.

Canter. Oh well, if he can work at all, see below, he can canter. This one will simply take time.

Jump. Nope. Since it is being jumped by riders in western tack, any jump is likely to be quite low, especially in novice classes. We’ll walk over it and take the hit in scoring. If we could jump, we wouldn’t be doing this.

Travel. Went to Stepping Stone Farm. Rodney was great about the trip itself, yay. He was better about standing next to the trailer and eating hay. Under saddle, he was awful. He’d throw his head up and stare wildly at an errant manure pile. He’d ignore his rider to obsess over horses in the nearby pasture who where doing absolutely nothing. All of this at a walk. Less said about the trotting, the better. My hands were sore the next day from wrestling with him. We’ll keep going to SSF until he settles. When, if, he settles, off to the AOCS barn to find out if he can generalize about working from home or if we have to go through this all over again.

Outstanding Verb: Pose
Stood like a statue while I played photographer. Well, I missed a through-the-ears shot of the tarp because he thought I was aiming him at it, so walked over it rather than waiting in front. Can’t complain about that.

Previous Obstacle post [Because what I need in my life right now is another barn and another discipline]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Getting Dressed, Harder Than You Would Think

Adventures in Saddle Seat

 

 

I’m having trouble dressing myself lately.

Saddle Seat
Pants over socks. The extra-long ends of the pant legs drape down elegantly over one’s jodhpur boots.

Jumping/Dressage
Socks over pants. A smooth layer of sock makes it easier to pull on/zip up tall boots.

Picture me standing there, riding pants in one hand, sock in the other, wondering, Okay, which of these goes on first?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott