Body Talk

Rio felt off at my lesson last Sunday, so after throwing  him on the lunge real quick and realizing he wasn’t quite right I brought him home, gave him 3 days of banamine, and the rest of the week off. I sent his amazing vet, Dr. Mitchell, videos from the Sunday lunge, and she came to see him on Saturday. She gave him a thorough looking over, then we discussed where we were at and where we wanted to be. (P.S. Dr. Mitchell was featured on the Questions for the Vet episode for Amateur Hour podcast last year. Give it a listen here or search Amateur Hour for “vet” wherever you listen to podcasts.)

Starting weight. I admit it, the hunter princess in me likes fat horses. I actually think he looks great, but understand that losing weight is in his best interest.

Good news- he was considerably sounder then he was on the previous Sunday. It’s been raining a ton here so it’s possible he slipped and tweaked something and is thankfully already feeling much better. But, he’s not 100% in performance shape yet. Some of the issues he has  currently are due to lack of muscling, so that will come with more time back under saddle. The hard part about horses is one thing can be the primary issue, and then treating that one thing can cause secondary issues to spring up. In this case, Rio has had a ton of time off in order to rest his suspensory, but now he needs to build up his hind end muscles again in order to support his stifles and SI area adequately.

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