Holy red mares, she's sound!

Yes, MY mare. Amber. I rode on one of my famous 2 hour breaks from work.

I started off walking. Scared to trot. Scared to check to see what level of pain she was at today. I've been kind of stressing over the "what ifs" when the chiropractor comes.

There was no fuss, but her ears were cocked back in a more or less annoyed way rather than her paying attention. I finally plucked up the courage to trot. There was little fuss. In seconds she was back to her old self. I put her on a loose rein. She felt wonderful, and Casey said she looked great, and was almost putting herself on the bit at times. She's super out of shape. Like, 10 minutes of trotting had her drenched.

So my plan is to walk/trot for the next 2 weeks with a lot of transitions, halts, circles and such. Next week maybe adding the odd ground pole here and there.

Then we will see where we are, and add canter, but doing pretty much the same otherwise. And just wash rinse repeat until she's in better condition.

I'm a little butthurt that my stirrup leathers need to have holes punched. Oh, god, why are my legs so stubby? The last hole is a perfect dressage length for me. Except I have no support in the close contact with that much stirrup length. So my legs feel awkward.

Somebody ACTUALLY sweated today! OMG! OMG!

I cannot possibly put into words how absolutely thrilled I am. Walking around in circles is not fun. Even though conditioning isn't exactly super exciting at first either, it's better than walking and walking and walking. And there is a goal in mind, other than just trying to get her doing something to work off some of the calories she's getting in the grass.

She's not really put on any weight, and I don't really see a grass belly either. It's been almost 2 weeks. Her hooves are also changing. Her soles have all exfoliated, and are no long pancake flat. Her frogs are starting to expand. Over the last 9 months, her feet have changed a lot and vastly improved. The hinds are more rounded, angles are better, and there is no weird "bluge" in the hoof - and no, that wasn't an abscess. That was just her hoof growing like this ( on the front. The fronts are mostly the same, except more round. The quality of her soles and frogs, even after the crap they were just two weeks ago, are much better.

I learned what "black sand" is today. Amber was covered in it. When I hosed her, it looked like freaking motor oil running off her. Gross. Casey said it seems to make their coats shiny (when brushed off, of course)...but ew. I would prefer my chestnut not covered in black spots.