Winter Comes Back to Stay

Fortunately, since I am in the South, it is not a terribly severe winter.  So far, all the precipitation has been liquid.  Even with several killing frosts, some flies appear when it gets warm, and then another killing frost hammers them.  Nights in the 20s F eventually get those nasty flies out of the picture.

Talking about flies, I have noticed something this year.  In 2014, I noticed that the population of the “buzz bomber” flies was miniscule, and it has been the same for last summer and fall, but in 2014, we seemed to have a normal bot fly population.  Last fall and this winter, I have hardly had to use my bot fly knife at all; which means that instead of scrapping hundreds of bot fly eggs off Mia, I have found maybe 15 bot fly eggs stuck to her coat this bot fly season.  This saved me a LOT of time when I groom her which is good since I need the time to deal with her coat fungus.

Mia is still shedding her undercoat like it is April instead of January, the currycomb gets clogged with hair quickly and I am constantly cleaning it when I groom.  I am just using my fingernails to get the coat fungus out and I find wide patches of fungus right against her skin in the dip behind her withers and on her loin.  At least I am keeping it under control.

I got a lesson on Wednesday.  Originally the weather forecasters had predicted the very low 20s for Tuesday night, but as the week went on the forecasts became a few degrees warmer and on Wednesday morning it was 30 F, well above my cut off low for riding.  I rejoiced!  It was still cold and windy enough so I put both the Back on Track and Shires exercise sheets on her.  Even so Mia was not willing to stand in the wind so my rest periods were rather short. 

Our lesson ended up being mostly a seminar, I had been reading a discussion on the COTH dressage forum on the sitting trot and I was telling Debbie how very different my seat for the sitting trot was from those dressage riders’ ideal.  Their philosophy seems to rely on keeping the pelvis immobile (going all the way back to the Duke of Newcastle.)  Dressage saddles tend to put the rider’s seat directly over the part of the spine that moves up and down the most during the trot (something Caprilli noted over a hundred years ago when he developed the Forward Seat!)  An immobile pelvis riding directly on the part of the horse’s back that moves the most at the trot seems, to me, to lead to the rider bouncing during the sitting trot.  Of course if the rider puts pounds of pressure on the horse’s bit he can use that to help reduce the bouncing (I’ve read recommendations that dressage riders have a contact strength up to 5 pounds.)

Since I do not do dressage this did not worry me greatly, but it made for a good discussion topic!  Debbie likes my sitting trot, I never pound the horse’s back, my seat bones stay “glued” to the saddle, I quietly follow the movements of the horse’s back (my pelvis is quite mobile), and she told me that was what the hunt seat equitation judges looked for.  I have not been doing much sitting trot lately (I am trying to reduce pounding on my brain) and I found out that I will have to practice it more.  When I was doing the sitting trot during the lesson, all was fine except that my hands were moving up and down some.  Not only that but the next morning I was SORE, the front of my thighs, the muscles around my hip joints and my butt all felt like they do when I have not ridden for months.  Obviously, I have neglected my sitting trot too much!  Mia’s stiff back also told me that I was not following her back as much as she likes me to.  This is my new winter project, to get my sitting trot back to where it used to be without pounding my brain too much.

Mia was still coughing a good bit, not the deep wracking coughs she had last fall but it was still irritating.  Debbie told me she finally had another possible job for Mia, some of her student’s mothers had expressed interest in riding some.  Mia is only good for walk/trot, she usually is not a terribly challenging horse to ride, but Debbie cannot use her much when Mia is coughing throughout the ride.  When we brought Mia back in to the barn I remembered I still had my stethoscope in my grooming bag, so we tried to listen to Mia’s lungs.  We were listening for rales, abnormal sounds in the lungs.  I first tried behind the elbow about where the girth goes, then back at her last rib a few inches below her back.  Way back I heard something, but it was not loud at all.  Debbie tried too, but we agreed that the lungs sounded pretty clear.  Since the veterinarian was coming out on Thursday, Debbie decided to have her listen to Mia’s lungs in case there was something that we ignorant laypeople did not notice.  Well the veterinarian agreed with us that Mia’s lungs sounded clear, and after listening to Debbie’s account of how and when Mia coughed the veterinarian decided it was not a bacterial infection (no fever, no odd smells on the breath, normal colored sputum.)  The veterinarian told Debbie to give Mia some steroids to reduce possible inflammation in the lungs and told her to observe to see if that did any good.  On another good note, the veterinarian said that Mia’s winter coat was in excellent condition, so all my work on getting the fungus out of it is paying off.

On Friday Mia had been on the steroids less than a day.  After grooming and tacking up we went to ride in the stiff, cold breeze.  Mia was more antsy than usual when I mounted, but nothing major.  However, the first time I walked her by the judge’s stand she “startled”.  I got her moving again and a few feet further down the rail she saw the ducks in the pond and she “startled” again.  Oh great, the steroids were affecting her brain, she had not “startled” at all for many months though she used to do it frequently.  So I just rode her in half the ring, occasionally venturing out a little bit beyond the judge’s stand until she got used to seeing the ducks again, but I did not press it any further.  When I first started riding her years ago it took many months to get her to accept anything different in her environment, and with her brain changed by the steroids I will just have to be patient about this again since this is not something I can change in one ride. 

I am thinking of going back to using my Stubben on her again, it tends to put me more into a chair seat but I have my RS-tor riding aid on it to help me land on my feet if I fall off.  It is also the saddle the other riders would be using since it is now “living” in Debbie’s tack room, and I want to get Mia used to it again.  Mia tends to do a whole body shake when I change saddles, which can be disconcerting to beginning riders!

Have a great ride!

Jackie Cochran