Wow! A Tough Day!

I cut half the grass today and left the rest to tomorrow morning when it's cooler.

I am a good horse, honest!

It got up to about 23C and I decided it was time to put a few miles on Alpine. She came to be haltered OK, led to the paddock OK was groomed with no problem and went through all the compliance checks that I normally do before trusting this old bod to the saddle. Everything was copacetic until I went to put my foot in the stirrup. At that point she kept moving away. I am well past the years of vaulting into the saddle!

We did some more ground work and I tried again. Foot in stirrup, weight on foot, ready to swing the leg over and she blew up! Straight forward at a gallop, then into a frenzy of bucking. Shortly after the first buck, I departed. I really had no chance. I landed on my shoulder then my hip. Fortunately, there was no damage except maybe some big bruises by morning and of course there was the pride that went out the window.

I got back up and we did some paddock work for about 45 minutes. She behaved . I did not take her out on the road way. I will save that for tomorrow.

Looking at the positive side, only 85 more involuntary flights and I will have earned the right to be called a cowboy! You are supposed to have 100 to make it so. On the negative side, this bod doesn't bounce as well as it used to!

It really hurt!

Tucker was walking lame for the past few days. I had just trimmed her and found nothing wrong. By today she could not weight bear at all on the right front leg. The vet showed up at 5:15 pm and proceeded to dig away at the white line. The hoof tester showed severe pain all over the place. After going in about 1/2 inch, he found an abscess complete with black gunk. Some more digging, a huge shot of penicillin, preceded by a knock out injection and she could put some weight on the foot. While she was "out", I soaked her foot in Epson salts and water and sprayed her up with fly spray. She will be in the paddock on grass for a day or 2 until she clears up. Tomorrow and for the next 4 days she gets 4 grams of Bute per day.

Boots was a real trooper during all this. He ignored the other two horses and just lay and watched Tucker. He even slept on the front deck overlooking the horse paddock. Dedication!

I can hardly wait for tomorrow! This has been a good one to have in the rear view mirror.