Upcoming treatments, and the future.

Amber's appointment for her second round of treatments is still pending. I am actually calling the vet in a few minutes to discuss things.

You can only hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

It's unlikely that she will turn into a pasture puff. But it's still possible she will have to retire from jumping. It's hard to say just yet.

I have decided that if she can't return to jumping, I will trail ride her exclusively. I looked into some prices, the value of my close contact alone would cover my ALL the tack I'd need for comfy trail riding. And then some. So tack swapping wouldn't be a huge deal.

Thing is, Amber is bored by flatwork for the most part. I could show her on the flat, but the time, effort, and expense would just not be worth it if she doesn't want to do it. The two things I am certain my horse is really interested by are trails and jumping.

So if she can return to jumping and the vet says we can compete lightly without issue or risk, we will do that. If it's risky, if it will call for a lot of work to keep her sound enough, or if she just can't at all...trails for us.

She keeps trying to drag me around the back pasture, but the grass around it is so tall I'm worried about snakes. And there is a lovely wet ditch around half of it, so it's a great place for them. I found a quiet neighborhood down the road I plan on riding her around, so that may be a good alternative for some out-of-the-arena riding for now. Hoping our buddies Melissa and Rufus will be able to go with us. Trail riding is so much more fun with friends. Melissa is still recovering from a bad fall though. She very nearly broke her arm, thanks to her project 4 y/o TB who tripped and fell on her.

Ultimately, if she becomes exclusively a trail horse, I will end up moving her closer to home. My dad has been looking at trailers. Ideally, I would like to find a good trail riding buddy that would go with me to different places that also wants to just do mostly walk/trot, a little cantering and generally just pleasure riding and taking in the scenery.

I'd really like to move her to my friend's barn down the road if all this happens. It's less than 5 minutes from my house and she just built a really nice little barn.

But who knows right now?

One thing I'm definitely going to ask the vet about is what she recommends for Amber's diet and turnout. Amber is stalled right now simply because she becomes a whale when she's out 24/7. Too much weight is no good for her joints, but a horse with joint issues would benefit from being out all the time.

I just wanted to update though. Not much has been going on to blog about. We've been walk/trotting lightly, and Amber is offended and annoyed with these workouts. But it's for her own good.