Well I'm blowed!

Jazz came in last night sounder again and was completely sound this morning. If there's an abcess in that foot it just made itself more room again. The sore spot on the heel was gone too. I am going to work him as normal and if he goes unsound after trotting on the road or jumping, then I will have to get it x-rayed just to make sure he doesn't have a hairline fracture of the pedal bone or something like that. The symptoms are all spot on for an abcess, but there is only so long that you can wait with a there-one-day-gone-the-next lameness like this.

Meanwhile, he did a good session this morning. He got a bit stroppy at one stage and I could have backed off and let him calm down, but I decided not to. If he was with a pro, they would be provoking him into fights so that they could prove to him that he could not win. (I've been in pro stables and seen them do it.) So I held tight when he pulled at my hands when I flicked him to ask him to move into the rein. I flicked him again when he kicked up his back end in annoyance. And I held onto the rein until he gave, when I let the contact go lighter as his reward. After a few minutes the tail-thrashing stopped and he worked exactly as I had asked him to, and we had another psychological rebalancing of power between him and me. He looked pleased with himself when we had finished, as if he knew it had been wise to do things my way and was genuinely happy, not just resigned, with his end of the bargain.

Zippy was sweet, back in the barn a-gain because of the rain outside. Lovely, lovely walk and some decent trot too. Not too much because of the lack of space. He's really got shoulder in now, and travers too. Too early for most horses, I know, but he doesn't find any difficulty doing it, so we play around with it for something to do.

I feel more positive today, though with the Jazz foot thing I have no idea who will be going training this week, him or Zip. They are a lovely, lovely pair of horses. But I wouldnt' have said that at 9.30!!! I couldn't catch them this morning and they wouldn't leave the barn of their own accord - they were in the maddest mood I've ever seen. FOUR times I left them to it and went and did something else (the stables are clean!) but I still couldn't get near them. They were having a wild time (as they are doing again out in the field now!!). Finally I appealed to Jazz's stomach - always a sure thing - and got a headcollar on him when he couldn't resist a bucket of food. I left Zippy, still wild eyed, in the barn and took Jazz out. And of course when I got back Zip was all calmed down and begging to have his feet picked out. The cats are a bit odd too - has anyone else got animals that seem to think that it's spring already???

C

ps Foot fetishists update - The foot Jazz has been lame in has a big scar around the pastern and it has always been the worst shape of the four, with a flat sole, a heel that creeps forward and a toe that grows longer than the others. This morning, the sole forward of the point of his frog chalked up and fell out, leaving a marked increase in concavity and a much better shape to the sole. This is, I think, the result of the new attachement since the operation reaching a point where it is offering such support to the pedal bone that it has raised the sole off the floor. It looks good.