She's a maniac, maaaaaaniac!

Remember how I was raving about how perfectly behaved my horse has been during this rehab? How angelic she's been, how perfectly sensible and sweet? How I've needed to wear spurs because she's just too darn lazy otherwise? Today, she set out to change alllllll that. And I have battle wounds to prove it.

It started out in a benign way. Gogo had her usual morning treadmill and was, as usual, a sweet little angel while I was tacking her up later that afternoon. When I went to get on her, she seemed a little up but nothing out of the ordinary, until we got to the far end of the outdoor. There, a squirrel went darting up a tree, and she about jumped out of her skin. Uh oh. I picked up contact, we settled into some real walk work on straight lines, and she settled. We had almost reached the 20 minute mark and I was about to get off and call it a day when suddenly, out of nowhere, a bunch of deer came crashing through the woods behind us. Gogo whirled around to face them with her tail flipped over her back, something she has never in her life done EVER, not even when being chased in the arena by Very Scary Things on purpose to make her have a Big Floaty Trot. Which never works because she's not interested in such things. I could feel her heart banging in her chest and went, oh dear this can only end in tears. Okay Gogo, just focus on me for a minute longer and we will just walk a big circle and then I will get off. She does a very big fancy walk around 3/4 of the big circle, and just as we are coming around to the end of it, she absolutely LOSES it and bolts. She only gets about a stride or two out, hits my contact, and rears. Hi-yo Silver rears. Apparently, my instict for getting out of her way is alive and well, because I twisted to the left and took the brunt of her head to my neck and ear versus straight in the nose. You can see in that picture, which was not of this particular incident, how she can really put her head in my lap when she wants to. Idiot. Well anyway, so now I have a throbbing head, and an aching hip that made a very ominous popping sound when I torqued it while twisting out of the way. I shifted back in my saddle when she was on the ground (and totally immobile again, of course), and it popped back into place. THAT can't be good. I was also disturbed to find a bit of blood with the ear injury... that can't be good either. I'm fine, really I am, but for real Gogo, you can't do that crap. You just... CAN'T.

I walked around for another circle, because I'll be damned if I dismount after that, and was satisfied and got off. With mare in tow, I took the pitchfork over to the pile of poop that she had left in the corner of the arena, and scooped it up with some difficulty. I went to turn around and lead her back over to the muck bucket, and she tweaked again, this time bolting forward, hitting the reins, and rearing and backing away at high speed, which sent the shit in the pitchfork sailing in all directions. Nice. She snorted and jigged all the way back to the barn - seriously, what demons posessed my horse today? - and then of course was totally quiet back at the barn. Me being in slight panic mode wasted no time immediately icing her legs and sticking her with Banamine right away. She can NOT pull that kind of crap with an injury like this. Metro reinjured himself bouncing around like an idiot, and he's in a hole in the ground now because of it. I am NOT taking any chances anymore. Her grace period is over, and if there is no abnormal swelling or heat tomorrow, she's getting Aced before I get on. This period in her rehab is extremely important and so many things can go wrong right now. I'm on pins and needles every day worry about those legs. We will see what they look like tomorrow and whether or not I will give it some more time before I get back on. I am trying to keep it all in straight lines, or reallllly big circles if I have to stay on a curve for more than a few moments, but I've been walking her on contact because she tends to sloppily weave like a drunk all over the place if she is on the buckle. I can keep her straight on contact. But I don't want to push it and do too much too soon. I don't know. Poor Gogo. And my poor head. It's quite possible that I'm just going to back off and give her two more weeks of nothing but treadmilling. There's just no sense in letting her do something stupid and being back to square one, or worse. She's far too nice of a horse for that. Maybe if I get rich quick at my new fancy job and she looks like she'll be out for longer than I had originally planned, we can have Gogo babies instead? We shall see. She's a once in a lifetime horse, so I really have no reason to be anxious about a healing timeframe.





Oh Gogo.





And by the way, tomorrow is the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the Eventing-A-Gogo blog. That, my friends, is incredible.