Fast Luna

May 112010
 

Luna decided that she didn’t quite want to get caught straight off tonight and started tearing around the paddock at a full gallop. Instead of trying to catch her, I got my camera. Lily seems to be feeling quite a bit better too, as she joined in. And Monte, the Paso Fino next door, was enjoying showing off for Luna. He looks like a fairy tale horse. I’m going to have to spend some time taking photos of him alone one of these days.

It’s very interesting watching Lily and Luna together. Lily is very much in charge of things. Luna tries to bluff her sometimes, but very quickly backs down. They seem to be a good match. I couldn’t really choose a small selection of photos, so the slide show is rather long. And if you make it to the end, I now know why the small water trough has dirty water in it…




Luna was no problem to catch when the running was over. Lily has already become bonded to Luna. When I first took her into the barn out of sight, they were calling and calling to eachother. I brought her back out so that Lily could see her. Lily never left the fence line watching while I worked with Luna. I can see that I will need to work them independently. I’ve never had a herd bound horse before, so it’s something new for me to work on.

I didn’t really have an agenda today. I groomed Luna, trimmed her feet and we had our first lunge session. She wasn’t too keen on doing full circles and would turn into face me. There were times when I was happy with a quarter of a circle and asked her to whoa. By the end, we had gotten a few circles each way, with me deciding when to stop. That was good and I called it quits.

Luna is sweet and a bit jumpy yet. With time, I’m sure that she will settle in just fine. I’m really starting to like her. She is pretty sensible, when not scared by something and picks things up very fast. This will be fun…

Luna taunting Monte

Heading out...

A new project

May 092010
 


I’ve traded Vinnie for Dove Tree’s Marcha de la Luna. Luna is an eight year old Spanish Mustang mare. She is well bred by Azul’s el Milagro el Asad and out of Unpa Kimimila Sanka Tanka, a Chato’s Shadow daughter. She had a foal by Paisano last summer and is now ready to move on to a new career as a riding horse. I’ve told Lily that she needs to help me train her. Lily’s quite good at working on my training projects in my absence.

Vinnie is in a superb home at Tired Dog Ranch as Amy Jo’s riding horse. I know that they will do great things together!

This is just what I need to keep me from being tempted to do anything with Lily right now. She needs the rest and I need a project. Luna and Lily know each other from a couple of summers ago when Luna was down to be bred to Paisano. The mares shared a paddock during that time. They became quite good friends. The also were together for a few months last summer at Tired Dog Ranch with their foals. Today, there was the normal squealing and posturing, mostly bluff though.

I’ll be posting about her progress as the summer goes on. She has had some basic training as a youngster, but not much has been done with her in the past few years, so I’ll be starting from scratch. There is a possibility that she may be for sale in the future, but I’m also open the idea that she might be my next riding horse.

The mares being mares

Resting and Waiting

May 092010
 

Lily at 3 years old

I was going to wait to post an update until our next vet visit, but questions are coming in from friends about Lily, so here’s the latest.


I went back and forth about putting shoes on Lily. I used boots for a couple of rides after the last vet visit. She didn’t move much in her paddock and when I ran Vinnie around to take his movement video, I could really see the contrast when she moved. She was in pain. It was subtle, but I could really see it in comparison to him. So I went ahead and ordered Ground Control plastic shoes and had my trimmer put them on her front feet. The do not have the concussion that metal shoes do and they leave room for her heels to flex. She was slightly better with them, but still not 100%. I wanted to see if they made her move any better. It was only very slightly better.

Since then, she turned up very lame in her left hind while out on a trail ride. I had to hand walk her back the last 3 miles or so, stopping to rest frequently and massaging her rump to help the spasms relax. Two massage therapists looked at her and we all thought that the most pain was in the muscles around her hip joint. When I went to load her to go home, she winced every time she tried to lift that left hind. I gave her some Banamine and that made it easier for her to load.

Lily last weekend. See how she is standing differently?

The following Tuesday, my vet had a clinic at the barn down the road, so I took her for another lameness exam. He did flexions and palpation. She resisted the flexions on her hind legs, but trotted off relatively even. She was very short strided though and stands with her hips tucked more than she used to. All these things are subtle and would likely be missed on a pasture horse or broodmare. I can tell when I ride her, as her gaits (all of them) are choppy with a hitch, not her usual smooth, reaching strides. It actually hurts my back.

Dr. Camp found that her hind tendons were both sore. DSLD/ESPA usually shows up bilaterally, so that could be a reason that she trots off evenly. Both legs hurt equally. She was still slightly off in the right front as well. We are going back to the clinic on the 17th for ultrasound of her right front foot and hind suspensories. He will also x-ray her hocks. He felt that she should have shown more improvement with shoes than she did. He thought that she may have a soft tissue injury low in her right front, possibly the insertion of the deep digital flexor tendon, or possibly hock problems, and he also admitted that she could be showing early signs of DSLD/ESPA.

So she is on stall/paddock rest, no riding…

She’s currently getting Thyro-L, MSM, Mag Ox, flax, whole psyllium and Equerry Plus supplements in a bit of Triple Crown Low Starch and I’ll be adding the herbs that are being used experimentally with D/E horses as soon as they come in the mail. I’ve been learning about D/E for the last year or so, as I had the suspicion in the back of my mind about it. This yahoogroup is a wealth of information. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DSLD-equine/

I certainly hope that it is something other than D/E. Something that is treatable would be really nice. If it is D/E, then I will be on a search to find out the source in her pedigree. I hope that research will soon produce a genetic test to see if a horse is a carrier or not. If our breed does have D/E in it, it should be discussed.