Dawn Does the Floating Exercise, and Drifter and Pie Updates

Dawn's feet were a bit more sensitive today, although she was fine on soft surfaces.  We rode only at the walk in the sand arena.  We did more work on her standing still for mounting - it didn't take very long today for her to stand still.  Then we did some lateral work - leg yields, alternating directions, and some turn on the haunches, turn on the forehand and side pass.  My job was to stay quiet and oh so soft with my asks - Dawn always lets me know if I do too much - and her job was to stay calm and not rush.  We both did pretty well.  Since we were doing pretty good with it, I decided to start to put it all together and we started working on the "floating" exercise.  This involves traveling in a straight line, always traveling in the same direction, first walking forward, then doing a turn on the forehand, while still moving forwards, into side pass, then a turn on the haunches into backing, then another turn on the forehand while moving into side pass with the horse's head facing the other way, then another turn on the haunches, and voila, you're moving forward again.  All the rotations are either to the right or the left, and the objective is to have it just float, with no rushing or excitement - just smooth and soft.  Today Dawn and I were somewhat disjointed and jerky, with the movements still pretty separate and not yet flowing together, but she's got the idea and I expect she'll be thinking about it - it's likely to be considerably better the next time we try.  We finished up with a bit of shoulder-in off small circles, and some standing around work.

I put Drifter on the lunge line again to see how he was doing - he was worse today - the trot was very "hitchy" and he was really dragging the toe of the left hind.  I only had him trot a few steps in each direction - it didn't seem to bother him at all to trot, but I'd seen what I needed to.  We did ride for a bit at the walk, but didn't do too much - although he was sound, he felt somewhat weak behind and I didn't want to push things.  He and Pie will be getting at least the next four days off in any event - I'm tied up tomorrow and then I'm not supposed to ride them on days three, four and five of their Oroquin-10 treatment as they may have more neurological symptoms on those days.

Pie was pretty good when I rode him today - he's walking and trotting sound although he's fairly sluggish.    We went on a short trail ride with Charisma, and Pie led most of the way.  His demeanor and behavior were normal the whole day until evening, when he had another fairly serious colic attack - he was lying down flat and groaning, according to our p.m. barn lady.  She got him up and walked him for a bit, and then he felt fine again as if nothing had happened.  This may be a result of the treatment, as it contains an immune system stimulant, and if he already has enlarged lymph nodes, this may have irritated them.  We'll have to see what happens each day, but we'll be keeping an eagle eye on him.