Lame

There's been a several developments the since my last post.  Tuesday when I got out to the farm, things were hopping.  Despite the previous day off, I decided to just get on Alex without lunging.  After a quick warm-up we went right into our lateral work.  Alex is just getting better and better at his leg-yields and shoulder-ins, I'm so proud of him.  After we were mostly finished working, my friend E brought her horse into the arena to lunge.  Since Alex has never been ridden anywhere near a horse being lunged, I knew things could get interesting.  Boy was I right!  As soon as E's horse started jumping around, so did Alex...jumping leaping and groaning.

Fortunately, with a little trotting and stretching he got over himself :)

Unfortunately, as we completed our ride, Alex also felt a bit... off. 

Yesterday I got notice from County that my saddle was coming back and would arrive on Friday!!

So tonight I went out ready to ride, fingers crossed that I was just being paranoid.  As soon as he started trotting on the lunge... I knew...he's lame.  I did get into the saddle just to be certain but it was still there and do a little lateral work at the walk, which was so awesome btw.

After un-tacking I went and got the hoof testers.  Sure enough he flinched, right front, inside down toward the toe.  No temperature and he's still walking sound.

So now we wait.  I'm prepared, I have all the supplies, he's already had some UlcerGard, but I need to wait and see if it continues to progress.  He did this to me back in April, I freaked out thinking abscess and then he was fine in three days.  Monday, we'll know and it will either be time to pull the shoe and start abscess protocol or the storm will have passed. 

If it's not one thing...it's another.