Hot to trot

This morning when I collected Max from the field, I felt his hooves first thing,. It's a first rudimentary check for laminitis. Not particularly accurate, but a place to start, along with checking digital pulses, watching how they walk and stand, just generally being observant of any potential red flags.

This morning, he had one front that felt a teensy bit warm while the other three were all cool. No major alarm bells there, he could have been standing in the sun, he could have been having a lie down with that one curled into him, it could mean nothing at all.

I mentioned it to YO and I will remain vigilant for the next couple of days, but if it continues, we'll move him to the "pony field" which has very little grass. Max does have a grazing muzzle, but he is Houdini at removing himself from it, so a paddock with very little grass is a better option for him.

I'm not overly concerned, but laminitis is something I don't want to enter his life, so I will do whatever has to be done to make sure it doesn't get a look in.

The best way to fight it, really, is to keep one's horse fit and at a good weight. This is hard to do with the Spring grass coming up, but if the balance of calories spent outweighs or is level with the calories ingested, you're on to good, basic preventative management.

So Max is going to get his gorgeous bum in gear and work!

Today that meant ridden in the school. Cool day here, though dry, and in we went for 45 minutes, which we will build on with other activities. Today, it was ten minutes walking in, 30 minutes of non-stop trotting, and another five minutes to cool down.

Oh there were protests, all right, but we got there, and we did some good work. Mainly, we concentrated on me, my balance, my seat, and we got some good results from that. I've been revisiting my book by Heather Moffett (Enlightened Equitation) and trying to fine tune my position, how I breathe, how I absorb Max's movements with my own, and it really is quite amazing when I hit the right stride with him. The fighting stops, the fidgeting stops, his head comes up, his ears prick up as he listens and it feels like we're floating.

It was an encouraging start, and Max, as always, was very eager to know at the end if he'd done well. Very well indeed. Because there were no distractions, I could correct him with the gentlest pressure from my hands... pressure, response, immediate release of pressure. Timing is everything!

Was told at the end that he wasn't sweating enough, but I will ignore that. He was sweating under his girth on a cool day, he is relatively fit anyway and could have kept going if I'd pressed him. I didn't want to press him because he's young and eager to please and I don't want to chill his groove when he's working well and trying hard.

We are building him up, not blasting him out, so we will approach this in the same calm and thoughtful way we try to approach everything we do together. It's meant to be fun!

And he doesn't have laminitis, I just don't want him to get it. It's worth keeping that in mind.