Ups and Downs

Whoa it has been way to long since I have updated this blog! It seems like every time I would think about updating this blog, I had a lesson planned so I would just tell myself to wait so I could post about that. But anyway... Well the good news there has been a lot going on in the past few months and almost all of them have been positive!
Well the biggest update is that Black has started jumping again! Little cross rails and cavalettis but it has been too much fun... My mom is gearing her pony up for a few starter events this summer so she wanted to go xc schooling a few weeks ago. I took Black to tag along and be able to ride somewhere different and last time he was there we just hacked around. I could tell that was all he was expecting to get to do this time too- but instead I jumped him over a few logs and mini coops that were around the same size at the cross rails he had been doing at home. Oh my gosh he loved it! He was having a blast. I even did a little ditch to a little coop and he got pretty amped up after that haha. He started locking onto everything that was close to him! I just love that guy. He makes every ride fun!

:)

Onto the not so fun stuff. About two weeks ago, I had a lesson with Phoebe and she felt Black was extremely weak in his hind end compared to the time she saw him about 3 weeks earlier. Both of us found this to be really strange since all I do is hillwork! We have a small ring but the corn fields around us haven't been planted in yet so I really only work him out there. Plus he had some stifle weakness last fall so I've really been working hard on keeping that in check and building his hind end for his dressage work and jumping. I had asked Phoebe in the lesson before if she thought he needed his hocks injected and she didn't think so but agreed that something needed to be done now. After talking with Dr. Cooper Williams, he thinks it may be his SI, his stifles, AND or his hocks that need some attention. Which isn't news to me. His hocks were getting injected every 6 months while we were competing and I have been told the last few years that they would all need to be done at some point. I guess this is some point! He is 16 this year and he raced, competed to the 2* level, packed my butt around a ton of trainings and a prelim, sat in a stall for 7 months, endured rehab and is now starting back jumping. That's a lot on joints. So Cooper came out last Monday and when I jogged Black for him he was a 3 out of 5 lame on his LEFT FRONT..... Like what the heck Black?! Leave it to Black to keep it interesting. Cooper ruled out his foot and we blocked up to his knee and he went sound. So we took some xrays and found some pretty significant arthritis in that left front knee. I remember Dr. Odian mentioning that Black may have some arthritis in his knees when we vetted him 4.5 years ago but we didn't really worry about it since we were more concerned with his kissing spines at the time. So the game plan is to inject the knee and then in a couple weeks we will reevaluate his hind end and go from there. I am actually waiting on Cooper right now! I'm way too excited because I haven't ridden Black in two weeks because he hasn't been sound on that knee. He was almost sound on it the other day but I decided it would be better to wait. It certainly stinks since he has been going so well, but it's only a minor setback and I'm sure we'll be able to get back to where we were in no time! I'm just thankful
he's here and I get to enjoy him :). That's all that really matters.