The bridge incident and setbacks...

So even before our 1st bridle less ride I think I didn't mention that about a week after we got home from our clinic in June Duck went lame on her left front and it has been kind of a comedy of errors since then. About 2 weeks of rest, one vet exam including a nerve block and a horse chiropractic visit later we were ready to roll again, until the bridge incident.

So I have to preface this by saying that the play area is by the big pond. We have a bridge, pedestal, trailer, barrels and the pond there to play with. It's great but the storms we kept having in July kept blowing the barrels into the pond. So we had 6 swimming barrels. After a couple weeks Liz was kind enough to "fish" the barrels out of the pond. Thing is, they were on the FAR side of the pond. Liz asked me to take the farm's Kubota to go get them. So I did. Then I set them all upright on the off side of the bridge so they wouldn't roll down the hill into the pond again.

The next day Duck was doing much better and I was cleared to ride. So I saddled up and had a few hours to ride. I had signed my boys up for a 4 hour camp Mon-Thurs that week. So it's Monday and I figure I'll head down to the playground. Everything was going really well.

We'd been playing with front feet on the pedestal and then the trailer. So then I figure we'll go over the bridge which we've done several times before. Well I figured the barrels would be just fine over there. I had a fleeting though that I should move them. Of course I ignored it...

So Duck had put her front feet on the ramp a few times and so I asked her to go over the bridge. Well she got on at an odd angle and ended up with her front feet on the tall flat part of the bridge and the upright barrel under her belly. (she is nowhere near tall enough to have that fit under her, even with her front feet on the bridge). She didn't panic although I was feeling really tense. She sat there for what felt like an eternity. Then she lurched to get her back feet on the bridge. She tried so hard but her back legs came up short and she ended up scraping quite a bit of hide off her back legs. Needless to say I didn't get to ride all week, and was still letting her heal the next one as well. Too bad I didn't go with my gut instinct to move the barrels...

There's a good reason to listen to your gut right there. I was lazy and Duck paid the price. I haven't been back down there since. I want to rubberize the sides so that will never happen again. It's just plywood, but it still scrapes pretty bad when they hit it like that.

She's almost all healed up now, but it has been several weeks. Meanwhile I think I lost a ton of leadership points grazing for weeks at a time.

I've been getting a lot of feedback from her that she isn't enjoying what we are doing. I've been trying out the 45 ft line and her confidence hasn't been great on it. Our liberty that had been so good when to pot as well. And I am trying to figure out where it all went bad and rebuild. Of course it doesn't help that she has round pen phobia. She just wigs out in there for liberty so I am always playing in the big arena.

We have ridden a couple more times bridle less, but generally there are other riders in the arena so I have just been dropping the reins, not taking the bridle all the way off.

Our other issue lately is that we're real heavy on the forehand, and she is constantly tripping because of it. So I am needing to look into how to get her to shift that weight back some.

But the last couple weeks with school starting I haven't done hardly anything with her because of a bunch of other commitments but am going to try and get back into it next week again.

I could sure use A LOT more arrows in my quiver right about now!