It's been awhile since I've posted anything here mostly becasue we'v been working on the podcast and time has been at a bit of a premium. One thing that has kinda blown a tumbleweed in our path happened a couple of Saturdays ago. Ranae and I were riding in the nine acre lot by the airpark. We were both doing our loping exercises in separate areas. Jessie stepped in a gopher or squirrel hole and I could feel her sink. She's done this a number of times and I've learned to just drop the reins and get out of her way until she catches her balance.  Everything happens so fast and I'm not exactly sure what, but this time she dropped a lot lower than I had felt before.  My brain had actually started to plot the emergency dismount sequence. 

She did catch herself in time and, because I didn't feel she was paying close attention to where she was placing her feet, we kept loping.  A little later in the ride, at a trot, I noticed a head bob when she placed her right foot down.  I dismounted and checked for stones and tried to palpate for soreness.  I found one stone in her hoof and thought that was the problem, but when we trotted again, she showed me it was sore.  She didn't try to stop trotting, she just kept the head bob.

Sunday it rained and there was no riding.  I gave her some bute for a couple of days and had a chance to do some groundwork on Thursday.  The head bob was significant when we started and lessened as the session progressed.  We were working on LFR stage 2 and trying to get our rollbacks better in anticipation of team sorting on the weekend.

Our Saturday was very busy I went out to shoot some photos at a team roping north of town.  (The finished photos)  By the time I got home there was only time for a short ride.  After evaluating Jessie I couldn't really decide if this were anything serious.  She still had the bob at the trot, but I could not palpate any pain and she willingly went into a lope on both sides.  My general policy with my animals is to try and work them until something definitive is revealed or they show reluctance to move.  Since neither of these conditions had surfaced we went for a short walking ride.  We did a little bit of trotting from time-to-time and we even loped a few strides on each lead.  She did these exercises without resistance, but there was a slight bob at the trot.

Sunday was supposed to be team sorting but a weather front moved in and we got the day off.  With Easter this coming weekend, I'm not sure how much riding time will be available.  We hope to at least ride Saturday.  It does add a bit of anxiety to our loping to know that she could injure herself like this.  We're just going to have to find a place with an arena ;>)