Elementary, my dear Gogo

Man, July just was not a good month for neither Gogo nor I was it? We are still dealing with the fallout from that, but I am thankful to say that the future is very sunny, and everything seems to be coming back together. Life may have imploded for me in July, but August is already looking way up, and September looks even more promising from where we now stand. It's not all back to normal yet, certainly no, but there is progress, always progress.


One of the things I do best in this world is honing in on a horsey problem and sleuthing about to find all possible answers to the issue, especially the physical aspect of things. I am a full believer in ruling out the physical issues before addressing the mental ones, and at the same time take full responsibility for all of them at once. If my horse is skittery under saddle and spooky, does that mean she's Lymey? High? Ulcery? What did I do to contribute to the problem, and what can I do to fix it? My horse is spooky and jittery on XC? Did I hang on her face, knock her in the teeth, chase her to a bad spot, slam on her back, overface her, scare her otherwise? Do her hocks hurt? Is she Lymey, ulcery, high? What did I do to contribute to the problem, and what can I do to fix it?

I never wanted to be a vet. No, I had no desire to play god and kill horses necessarily (or unnecessarily), or cut them open, live or dead. What I HAVE always been interested in is rehab once a problem had been diagnosed, and watching the progression being made. I thrived on taking care of my stall-bound Metro, day in and day out. Meticulously, I brought him back as best I could, and spent all my days wondering how better I could do it. That story ended sadly, but it didn't kill my enthusiasm for therapeutic work. In fact, for some time I wanted to open and run a rehabilitation center similar to KESMARC but with a homey feel, turnouts and such. That idea has long since been abandoned due to the enormous financial undertaking that would require... but discussing my future career options is a topic for another day. The point here is that I live for this kind of stuff. I want to make things feel better.

On Thursday, I had my first really successful dressage ride in two weeks. The preceding week had not been successful in the slightest, and Monday and Tuesday were quite awful as well. The Doxy has had 11 days in her system now, and I'm not feeling particularly as though it has made all that much of a difference. I will still give it another 5 days, and if there is still no improvement, I will pull her off it and save the rest of the Doxy for another time (not that I hope I ever need it ever again!). No need to waste money and eat at her stomach for nothing. Wednesday, it took a very long time to warmup, but I just let her do her thing within reasonable limits, and eventually, after endless 20-meter circles at the walk with occasional halts and reinbacks tossed in, she quieted and moved out without anxiety. We worked on transitions, improving the quality of her movement within movements, shoulder-ins, leg yields, and relaxation. We also worked a fair amount of counter-canter going left - we did several high quality shallow loops, and even went across the short diagonal to maintain counter canter halfway through the short side. She was lovely going left. Going right, I had almost nothing. She traveled very, very crookedly, her haunches way in at all times, and it was a struggle to straighten her. I decided it was foolish to try and do more than simply improve what I had to work with, so we left the more difficult stuff for another day when she's feeling better. This is still why I suspect hocks though. She was not being directly disobedient, she just didn't feel like she could do more beyond putting all our collective wills into simply traveling straight. That was the only real issue I had though, that right canter. She moved out very well the rest of the time, no other hesitations, and I felt very much like I was riding well too.

Yesterday, given how good she felt on Thursday, I opted to go ahead with my original plan for the day, a XC lesson with Ann Bowie at Mystic. All I wanted out of the day was to see how much of this is a rider-caused issue, and to give her some confidence back if I was causing her any reluctance. Ann was very helpful, and we got quite a bit of simple but effective schooling in. Ann made sure to pick apart the pieces of my equitation that are likely contributing to the issue, mainly in the way my energies and balance are centered up higher in my body than they should be. Instead of directing my energy to my legs and having them solidly on, I tend to make too much of a move with my upper body instead of letting it smoothly roll. About 6 strides out, she had me transition from a forward canter/slow gallop to a more collected (term used loosely) canter, and I sat down and put my leg on solidly. This, at first, had the effect of lengthening her instead of shortening her because she had also had me make every effort to have more neutral hands - i.e. not pulling back in ANY way to make adjustments - which, I think, was stressing her out because it's much harder to go pelting at a jump and hope you make it over than it is to bring yourself back before a jump! I had to really think about sending energy forward but capturing it in the contact without restricting her. With equal legs on both sides and equal reins on both sides capturing that forward energy and rolling it into a bouncing ball (that's the best image I had in my mind, a bouncing ball of energy rolling forward with nowhere for the energy to leak out of, such as a slack rein or a weak leg), she adjusted herself perfectly and gamely and calmly went to every fence. THEN, and only then, did I feel major improvements in my equitation over the top of the fence. But before, when I WASN'T perfectly perfect like that, she found the weak spots and she told on me. She bolted sideways away from the ditch the first time, the same ditch she loped over in May. She did the same at the white telephone polls. She chipped in, or she took things long and rushed. I had to REALLY focus and it wasn't until the last six or so jumps that I really felt like I got exactly what Ann wanted me to do. Then, everything fell much more into place. It was really odd to see how randomly spooky she still could be though. I walked her towards one of the teeny little upbanks they have there while on a loose rein, and when she got to the base of it, instead of walking right up it like she has always done before, she stopped, snorted loudly at it, and backed quickly away with a rather terrified expression. I walked her forward again, and after a little bit of quiet coaxing, she hopped up it from a walk on a loose rein (it was about a foot tall... she's walked up banks approaching three feet tall no problem, although they were often times unintentional when I was taking a break and not paying attention!!) That kind of behavior was still very odd to me. We weren't doing anything out of the ordinary, challenging, fast, or confusing. Just your run of the mill walk, like she always has done before. On the other hand, she did chase after a herd of deer that I pointed her at in order to clear them out of the field, and she cantered through a flock of geese standing around grazing in front of a fence, the only sign that she had noticed them manifesting itself into one single, perfect change right in the middle of the group. All in all, the lesson was very good and very helpful, but I will need more of them before I really feel like everything comes fully together and I really can give her the kind of ride she needs. When we got it right though, it was perfection and harmony.

But the continued odd spookiness that has really exploded into a problem in the past month got me thinking again. Gogo has been scoped for ulcers before and came out clean in situations where I felt SURE that she HAD to have them, and the odd weight fluctuations and jumping issues she had last summer all stemmed from her hocks and barn management problems instead of digestive issues. When those two things were addressed, she bloomed again. But, you still have to wonder. Spookiness at things that normally aren't scary is a typical ulcer-type symptom. So are things like going into the ring (or XC course) to do a round, and dropping a shoulder and having a right fit for no particular reason. She HAS been traveling a lot, which can really be hard on them even though she has to be THE best trailerer I've ever met in my life. I don't suspect ulcers because of management issues either - they get hay very nearly free choice, at the hours of 6am, 9am, 11am, 2pm, 4pm, and 8pm, and Gogo gets out on grass for about 6 hours a day (the best I can do, and the most she's ever had really). She's also on a very tiny amount of fortified grain a day: 2lbs of Gro N' Win, recently upped to 2.5 with the addition of another little cupful of Triple Crown Complete to counter the slight weight loss she's had. Or rather, topline loss. Her topline just... isn't looking as good as it was. There are a lot of explanations for that though, so you never know. Her attitude, however, has taken a slight downturn. She's much more sullen than she has been, and it doesn't seem to be corrected with fun things. A good swim in the river the other day was great fun while it lasted, but back at the barn? Very blah. However, I would like to note that after XC schooling yesterday, and today while getting her groom and handwalk, she was MUCH cheerier than I've seen her be in two weeks. Maybe she just needed to get out and run.

Could she be ulcery? Maybe. In the same way that she could have been Lymey, I suppose. I am not going to have her scoped and treat her with thousands of dollars of Gastroguard though, as my evidence is just not hard enough to really suspect it and my pocketbook is not vast enough to spend enormous chunks of money on possible whims. What I AM going to try, however, is something I got from The Barb Wire some time ago. This is a holistic alternative therapy, and given Tamara's gelding Aaruba's difficulty in responding to previous treatments and Tamara's serious knowledge on the subject, I completely trust in the way she raves about how good he felt after just three days of the treatment. All it is is just 1/2 cup of aloe vera juice or gel (I opted for juice as I felt she would eat it better), and a teaspoon of human-grade MSM. You can find these things at your local Whole Foods Market, or even Walmart. Is this curing the ulcers, or is this just helping tummies feel better? We wouldn't know unless we scoped before and after, which is not the case here. At about $2 daily, this is a far more economical option (Gastroguard is anywhere between $30 and $50 daily), and who knows? I've heard many good things about it, so it's worth a shot.


I finally have a hold on all the flyaway tethers that have broken loose from this hot air balloon basket we're journeying in. We've lost a little altitude, but we're retying them on, one by one. The Lyme tether is secured and no longer a concern. The ulcer tether is currently being repaired, and the hocks/eyes tether will be secured next week. The rider error tether is in my hands and is always a priority and a never ending work in progress, but it too will be secured, last but not least. And then, we will regain all our lost altitude with a vengeance, and break through the clouds to fly higher than ever before. It might be a campy little description, but it's an accurate one.


Gogo says, even with my tub of fresh water and my grass AND hay and my flymask and flysheet and flyspray.... I still want to come indoors.