UGH, MUD!

So Connecticut weather right now is very, very weird. It was a record high of 60 today, and I was going back and forth between giving her a day off and riding her. If didn't give her the day off today, she wouldn't have one from last Thursday until next Saturday, but if I did ride her today I'd get to work on my own (lesson tomorrow, lunging Wednesday, lessons Thursday and Friday, day off Saturday, jumping Sunday...). As it turned out, when I went to turn her out, I tied up her tail and hoped it would stay. At some point I peeked out to see what she was up to, and she was RUNNING the fence like a crazy woman, covered from head to tail in sticky, wet mud. Her tail had mostly fallen out, but remained in one giant, dreadlocked muddy snarl, and her little white socks had dissapeared. I left her out there for awhile longer, and she quieted down and stood around munching hay. When I brought her in, I picked her feet, took her right to the washrack, hosed off her ENTIRE body, and left her to hang in the aisle under a cooler while I fed (which made her VERY angry). I put some Vetrolin Shine on her (wanted to stop wasting my valuable Showsheen on her...) and went to investigate her feet again - and UGH, she damaged both her hinds when running around on the rocks out there in the muddy field!! Her LH had a small crack/damage to the white line near the corner of her inside heel, and the RH has what would be a full-blown quarter crack if she had had a weaker wall - it's about a quarter of the way up her foot and goes into the white line, so it's not a chip. I rasped off a little of the damaged wall to keep it from snagging on anything, disinfected both cracks, and am really just hoping for the best. I imagine if I keep the pressure off of the cracks and keep them clean, they'll just grow themselves right out, but still.

GOGO. WHY.

Needless to say after all that I did NOT end up riding. And as for the lesson tomorrow, Vicki just called in sick, so I guess I AM going to ride on my own tomorrow.

At least she got her Adequan and a good long handwalk tonight.