If you think 20 meter circles are evil….
| May 21, 2010 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
…then I dare you to go out and ride a box. A real box with real corners and real straight edges. Then make it smaller. Make the sides and corners all have the same amount of strides.
You only get credit if you do this exercise in an arena or court where you can actually judge your straight line, or around cones or other markers.
Raise your hand if you would like to go back to the not-so-evil 20 meter circle.
In other news, Farley had her first jump lesson (and my second) today. This little horse has never jumped ANYTHING before today and was absolutely stellar. She was very strong and seemed to have fun. At the end we jumped this solid cross country jump (about 2 feet high) and when I took her around the second time for our final jump, she was definately like “WHOO HOO!” Ha! I’m thinking her hocks feel good….
Both of us felt like doing something different today, which is why I asked my trainer to do a jump lesson with us today. I knew we would canter a lot in jumping and it would help us both to focus on something else while cantering instead of doing our regular dressage lesson and picking the gait apart. And it worked! She was very forward, picked up the correct lead most of the time, and had transitions that were pretty decent.
And she actually JUMPED. What a good little horsey.
I forget, did you decide to inject her hocks?
I injected at the beginning of March.
One of the best thing I ever did for my horse, in my opinion. I got my horse back, she is so happy and so obviously pain free. Her way of going completely changed, her back feet have gone up a size in the renegades and she actually reared with me at my end of March endurance ride (NOT a good thing and I corrected it, but it showed me she felt pretty good!).
Good! I’m in the process of saving up to do an Adequan treatment as a preventative. I am working on getting various vets opinions about doing an injection per month for 7 months or doing them over a 28 day period as prescribed.
We ask our horses to work very hard for us. The least we can do is share our technologies with them to make them more comfortable.
In my vets opinion, he thought that doing Adequan 2-3 times a year (over 28 days each time) was more effective than one loading dose, followed by the one dose per month. It’s my plan to do the “loading” regimen (the several doses spread over the couple of weeks) before Tevis, and then wait and see. I might get away with injecting every year in February (before 20MT 100) and then adequan before Tevis (July) and not have to inject again until February. Since this is my first year doing hock maintenance I guess it’s a wait and see!
Good luck! If you ever want to e-mail me privately, feel free, although as I remember you have done hock injections before????? and so probably have more experience than I do!
So, hock injections, are not illegal for endurance competitions? I had assumed they were, guess I was wrong.
I have never done injections of any kind before. I used to have my old show gelding on Cosequin back in the olden days when it was the only joint supplement around. It really did work. He warmed up much faster when he was on it with much less popping.
However, from what I hear, most oral supplements don’t do much. And Cosequin-though it works- is actually more expensive than adequan!
So, I’m thinking I will do an Adequan session at some point. My next question for the vet (comes out tuesday for travel papers) is if it is better to do it before, during, or after the season.
SO much to think about!
Just a word on Adequan as I use it regularly for my endurance horses – for my aging mare (I lost her in January), here’s what we did. Adequan once a week for four weeks. Then we moved to once every other week for 6 weeks ( 3 doses?). Then I moved to once a month forever. It worked VERY well. My stiff, teenager was replaced with a springier version of herself. She competed for several more years that way.
For my 5 year old with no issues, we just went to once a month forever. He’s been on once a month doses for a year, but since he’s so young and “damage free,” I don’t see the same effects in him as I did with my mare. But I know I’m helping him to stay sound longer by using it.
Just my 2 cents worth …
The drugs themselves are not in the system for as long as you see the effect. There is a withdrawltime for the drugs before you are legal for aerc compition. After knocking out inflammation (the main effect of the drug) often the horse remains painfree for six months or even longer if ridden regularly etc. Kind of like having my knee injected-it feels good at first because of the vortisteriods, but STAYS feeling good long after the drugs are metabolized because the onflammation (which causes pain) is gone. I think with farley, our struggle wa getting through thelate winter when it was cold and hard to ride regularly.
I think you would be supriaed at the number of endurance horses that are on hock maintenance (injections). I sure was. Nobody likes to talk about it which is why I’m trying to be ver transparent.
My vet said thy the only two supplements that we felt ok reccommending were cosequin asu and platinum performance mj (I think the mj product is illegal for competition as it tests) but that his recomendation was to spend the money on adequan.