So I put him back out in the field yesterday….he came in with a cut on his fetlock :wall: Looks like someone has trodden on him and broken the skin at one place, it’s not serious but means he’s in again today. Have told them he can go out again tomorrow as the field is actually drying out. Somehow.

As expected the re-addition of treats to the straightness training has immediately taken us from ‘Nope I’ve done haunches in in my life and have NO IDEA what you’re talking about’ to ‘Oh you mean HAUNCHES IN! Why didn’t you say? I can totally wave my bum around! Do I get more treats for four tracks?’. :doh:

Well, that was interesting :-/

He started out very keen and happy to trot over the tiny x-poles. Max height of anything was 40cm so he could step over anything he wasn’t sure about. There were some fillers and things next to the fences but he had a look at things and didn’t refuse anything. We did the whole 8 fence course once in trot, he offered canter a few times, ears pricked, seemed to be having fun. :db:

Then we had to wait for Rosie to do the whole course so we were standing in the centre. When I asked him to move again thinking to just hop over a couple more things he had a weird bucking fit. Wouldn’t trot, lashing out with the right hind. Managed to get him trot to stretch a bit but he was suddenly very unhappy. 😥 Hopped off and put the fences up to the proper height so Rosie could do her schooling rounds and he was quite chilled but really odd for him to suddenly not even want to trot when he had been going really well!

Ah well. He was ok to load, not stunning but quicker than last time, totally chilled in a new arena he’s never seen before and we did the whole round without incident so overall I’m pleased. I just wish I knew what the problem was so I could fix it :wall:

Well. As suspected Bute trial made no difference that I could tell. We’re a few days into the Succeed so I’m hoping this helps but honestly today’s experiment was a worry. Had a lesson and we did some canter. Not tried much canter for a while but we asked for a bit. This was met with…significant resistance on the part of the pony. 😥 He bucked and when I pushed him a bit he ground to a halt, bucked and then backed off from even trotting properly. So we dropped the reins and called it a day.

I think the plan for the moment is to probably back off from ridden work. No canter, no schooling unless no other option, concentrate on straightness training and a bit of hacking until he’s been on the Succeed for at least a month. Osteopath will see him during that time anyway. Take it back to basics for a bit and hope the Succeed does it’s job if left. Obviously he’s also stuck in at the moment with the mud fever so that will give him a chance to be back out and moving around. Keep your fingers crossed this is just a blip :-\