Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Indoor riding and injuries

First injuries.  Riva is fine - you can all now breathe a sigh of relief.

     I would be the injured one - no, I did not fall.  

First, Cheers, our retired TB, nailed me in the thigh with a back hoof.  Luckily, he is only shod on the front right now.  Me, being used to Riva who gives plenty of warning before she even thinks about being naughty when being groomed, was going about de-mudding Cheers one evening.  When Cheers gets groomed, he relaxes (if you have a gelding, you know what I mean).  His sheath is over due for a cleaning.  Trouble is, we have to coordinate that process with a dental or something that requires sedation.  I took it upon myself to try and do a tiny bit of private area cleaning and Cheers fired without a millisecond of warning.  So I have a growing bruise on my thigh, sigh.

Second, I believe I pulled a muscle in my stomach or gave myself a small hernia.  Doc appt tomorrow afternoon if no improvement.  And I think I did it by tighening Riva's girth - you may now laugh!
Sara Ivie, my wonderful County Saddlery rep, informed me that I should have Riva's girth a lot tighter than I was adjusting.  I literally have to stand on top of the mounting block and heave upward to get to the proper holes.  This is the only thing I can think of that would have resulted in the bulge in my abdomen...sigh.  And I thought I was in pretty decent shape!

On to indoor riding - grrrrrrrr!  Riva is no happier about this change in scenery than I am, but wet cold weather has arrived.  Moving at a glacier pace is the Diva's answer to the indoor and forget round, soft, and into the bridle.  Something had to give and it was NOT going to be me!

Time for a trainer tune-up ride.  That is how Alexis and Riva spent Saturday night - which is supposed to be the Diva's day/night off.  Not this time, missy.  While the husband and I were enjoying Mexican food and margaritas on Saturday night - the mare was getting remind that she can work in the indoor as well as the outdoor arena.

I rode last night and saw improvement in speed and working with contact - not that Riva was perfect and made it easy for me.  No - still had to work very hard at it.  But once we had it - the work was decent.  I hope over the winter we can get the movement indoors that we can outdoors. Hey, we are at least better than last winter when Riva would randomly refuse to move forward!

 
Now look at her - only too happy to give a 'pony ride' to my sis-in-law!
 

12 comments:

Malin said...

OMG--- I cant believe it!!! Girths just suck. That does it, I am ordering a Belly Buster and if it works for me you can get one too.
Plus you were kicked? Holy smokes. Guess my grandma was right and " no good comes from fooling around with that thing." Lol
heal well and fast

SprinklerBandit said...

Ouch! Get well soon.

Karley said...

Aye!!! Feel better!

Henry loves his man parts cleaned- for real .. it's a curse and a blessing i guess ha!

S. Lauren said...

Sucks that you got kicked. :-( Glad you're ok. I wish horses knew when we are trying to help them!

Carly said...

Maybe Riva can give Bobby a lecture about how fun it is to do dressage outside, and Bobby can give her a pep talk for indoor work. I hope your stomach is ok!

AmberRose- Girl With a Dream said...

ouch doesn't sound like you have had a good week,u know when doing the girth up another good way is if u do it up as tight as u would to get on then get on and do it up when your on, its easier to do its what I have to do with Gatsby hes to tall for his own good

Mona Sterling said...

Ouch! Sounds like a rough pony week!! I hope everything goes well at the doctors.

Kate said...

That was not very cheery of Cheers! I hope your thigh and your tummy feel better soon. I also don't tighten my girth nearly tight enough :(

Malin said...

I came up with a home made girth tightening tool. I will try it soon and blog about it. Maybe it will save us both some hassle.

Hillary said...

Eek, I hope that you are alright!

Adventures of the Super Ponies said...

I am just now catching up on blogs. I hope you are ok!!! Poor thing. What a naughty boy. Is he a red head?

Achieve1dream said...

Ouch!! You poor thing! I know by now you're better, but I sure hope it didn't last long and that you didn't have a hernia.

Just curious why the girth has to be so tight? I've never heard anyone say it needed to be really tight. I've always just done mine enough to keep the saddle from slipping. You could try riding her around for a bit before you tighten it completely.... good luck!

P.S. I didn't laugh! I hate pain so I would never laugh no matter how it happened. :)