getting back on track (pun intended)

So… I sort of lied a little bit.

It was a lie by omission more than anything else, but still, a bit of a lie. The truth is that Cooper has had a couple of weeks off since the mini trial, with a couple of exceptions because he lives for causing Trouble™ when left to his own devices for too long. The partial truth is that it was to give both of us a break after our summer shenanigans—we truly were both tired, I needed to get caught up on work, and I’m supposed to be into the house-buying process before the end of the year (whether I find a house by then or not) which requires its own level of time investment—but it was also because, when Cooper dumped me in the middle of August, it wasn’t just him acting up.

He dumped me because he was back-sore and getting a tight distance into the world’s tiniest crossrail hurt. He dumped me because he was just trying to get the immediate pain to go away, and as soon as it did, he was standing there like, “What happened?” because he isn’t dirty or vicious in any way whatsoever and he was very perplexed as to how Mom ended up on the ground instead of on his back.

Before we really get into this, I want to get a few things straight: I didn’t say anything about this because I didn’t want to talk about it publicly before I had answers, because I think we all know how Horse People On The Internet™ can be. I didn’t say anything about this because I pay my trainer to criticize me and help me develop a game plan, and while some people in this world don’t deserve the title of “trainer” even if they love to use it, mine was a vet tech for eight years before she became an instructor and competed through the 5* level, so she’s not just making things up when she tells me what she thinks is going on or what I should do. I didn’t say anything because I knew I’d have people asking why I competed him at the mini trial knowing what I did know at the time, and I didn’t want to deal with that (again, Horse People On The Internet™).

The short answer for why on that last piece is because my trainer told me to not change my plan. She told me to see how he and I felt when we schooled, that it was Starter and the fences were tiny enough that we could literally walk over everything if we had to, to trot him into everything and not push for the canter anywhere other than the two circles in our dressage test unless he offered it to me himself, to borrow a Back On Track pad from my barn owner until I could get my own sheet in for him (which has since arrived, and he wears it for at least half an hour every day that I’m at the barn, and will be wearing it more than that as things cool off and I can hide it under his blankets) and use liniment on him if his skin would tolerate it (liquid liniment is fine, gel liniment is not), and to get him checked out by a vet afterward, so that’s what I did.

We went to the mini trial, we had a great time, he ate up schooling and our actual cross country course the same way he always has, because he genuinely does seem to enjoy it and he knows his job (I have truly never ridden a horse who locks on cross-country the way that he does), he didn’t have any significant reactions to any of the fences beyond his usual excited response (which is truly different from the pain response that he had in our lesson—there’s throwing in a crow hop to play when he’s feeling particularly proud of himself and then there’s the back-cracking buck that unseated me), and then I decided to give him a break. I wasn’t told to do that, my trainer didn’t tell me to stop riding him altogether, but I felt better about doing it since I was able to get an appointment to have him seen for a full lameness workup (even though he wasn’t actually lame) the first full week of September (aka, this week), which was really only two weeks off before we’d have answers.

As I said, I didn’t not ride him for that entire time—we took a couple of short walks around the farm (less than twenty minutes), and I put in two actual rides of mostly walk work and a bit of trot focused on bending and lateral movements toward the end—because he always engages in absolute nonsense if I give him more than a week off (see: getting the electric fence caught in his shoe last year, throwing a hind shoe literally the day before our vet visit this time) and I also knew he’d be excitable for his workup if I didn’t get him to burn off some psychological steam under saddle first, but I kept it simple. It was more about his brain than his body because I didn’t want to ask him for too much until he could be examined properly.

We had a vet out from the large local equine practice yesterday (I did not use our regular vet for what I promise are perfectly logical reasons) and I filled her in on his history of stifle issues and chiropractic nonsense (seriously, I still don’t know how he’s managed to throw things out to the degree that he has previously given that he was doing basically nothing under saddle during the times when he did turn himself into a pretzel), and then she did a lameness workup on him, which led her to… nothing. Nothing came of the flexions (I know, I know, they aren’t the greatest diagnostic tool, but he flexed a big fat zero on all of his limbs, and she didn’t feel anything off with his stifles). He toe-dragged a tiny bit on his right hind when I lunged him for her, but that’s also the foot he threw the shoe on, so she felt it could be just as easily explained by that as anything else. The only signs that anything was wrong were a) cross-firing in the back both directions at the canter, and b) how sore he was through the muscles of his back and SI area.

What she told me after the workup was exactly what I was expecting, because it was quite literally what my trainer told me she would expect three weeks earlier—her recommendation was chiropractic adjustment and ultrasound-guided SI injections (this is what I mean when I say my trainer is the one I trust to tell me what to do), but at the very least, start with the chiro. This vet is certified in equine spinal manipulation (this is why I wanted her to do the workup on him), so she adjusted him for me before she left. Much like the lameness exam, the adjustment revealed next to nothing. His spine was fine on palpation and he showed no soreness in the actual spinal area, just in the muscles around it. He was sore in his poll and the middle of his neck (not surprising given his contortions to try to eat grass outside of the fence of his field), and his pelvis was tilted ever-so-slightly to the left, but nothing was so egregiously out of place as to indicate that that was what was specifically causing his discomfort, and it wasn’t possible to see the pelvic tilt when he was standing or moving—she only found it when she adjusted him.

Her reasoning for recommending that we inject the SI was the fact that there was nothing noticeably wrong anywhere else, and if he’s sore there (as indicated by the cross-firing in the hind end), that soreness is going to radiate along the muscles of his back much like lower back soreness will make everything else hurt in humans if we try to guard it instead of treating it. The recommendation wasn’t to make injecting him a habit, especially considering how young he is—it was to adjust, inject, see what happens once I bring him back into work, then adjust again in two to four weeks.

If he’s doing a lot better and no longer presenting what indicated the SI soreness in the first place, and he stays that way, then great, we’ll then see how long we can stretch injections out between proper, consistent work and regular (read: minimum quarterly) chiro adjustments. If it helps for a little while and then he starts presenting with soreness again, then she said we’ll have to start looking at other things, namely lower in his hind end or checking for kissing spines, but she didn’t feel it was practical to start there given how he was presenting. I’ve had multiple friends who had to inject their young(er) Thoroughbreds once and then didn’t need it again for years because their horse was comfortable enough that they were able to properly strengthen the muscles and stabilize the area, so I’m obviously keeping my fingers crossed that that’s what happens here, but only time will tell.

She wasn’t able to inject yesterday, as she was originally supposed to have a tech with her but scheduling changed such that she didn’t, so she squeezed us in today (and didn’t charge me a farm call fee for it, bless her). I was told I didn’t need to be there—he was so blasé about the workup and the adjustment (read: he was nervous when she was adjusting him but didn’t express that in any way other than wide eyes, and while he did move away when she palpated the sore areas, he didn’t try to bite or kick or anything) that she said she had no concerns about handling him for the injections—but it was up to me if I wanted to be, which I obviously did since this was a brand new thing for both him and me (shoutout to my boss for being so accommodating of my horse-related departures during work hours—I try to not do it often but she never has an issue with it when I do).

He took it pretty well considering how sore he was—he definitely wasn’t thrilled about having long needles stuck into that area to get down into the SI, even with being sedated, but he didn’t lash out or anything—and he was a nice loopy boy when I left him (my barn owner is around, he’s not totally unsupervised, and the vet said the sedation would wear off within an hour or so—regrettably, I had to go home to continue being employed to afford all of these things for him). Our instructions are now to give him normal turnout with no riding for the next five days, though ground/in-hand work is fine, then do a couple days of light tack walking, and then start bringing him back into full work slowly somewhere between day seven to day ten post-injections (so essentially next weekend). He’s also getting a muscle relaxant twice a day for the next six days to help loosen him up even more, and I’m going to get him scheduled for chiro round two in a few weeks.

As long as he stays comfortable, we’ll keep going and building him up, but if he doesn’t, then it’s back to the drawing board. I’m hopeful that this is going to be the thing that allows us to really start moving in a positive direction, but check back in with me in three to six months to see if it actually does work, ha. This does mean that we (sadly) won’t be heading to the Daryl Kinney clinic in a couple of weeks, because I’m not going to throw him in there when he’s just barely back in full work, but I’ll go audit like I did last year and hopefully next year actually riding in it will be possible for us and we’ll be less of a #hotmessexpress by then (assuming she comes back, I’m hoping she does). I need to remember my sunscreen this time so that I don’t turn into an absolute lobster again.

I know there are people who are going to have Thoughts™ about all of this for a variety of reasons, and you know what, fair enough. Should I have done this sooner? Probably. Life with horses is a great big pile of “I wish I’d known this three [hours/days/weeks/months/years/decades] ago,” and this isn’t any different. Am I fortunate to be in a financial position where I can say fuck it, I’m giving my horse whatever he needs to be comfortable without concern for the cost? Absolutely (although I do think I’m going to delay starting the whole house-buying process for another month or two, just to make sure that we don’t have to dive into the world of full-body horsey x-rays and whatever other bills that could bring with it). I can’t go back and make this happen any earlier than it did, but I want him to be comfortable and happy and I’m doing my best to make that happen, and I’m just hoping that this is that final missing piece of the puzzle and he can go frolic without concern for his back being uncomfortable (and also that he doesn’t forcibly eject me again, once was enough).

I could just keep all of this to myself and not say anything about it, but I didn’t start keeping this blog to only share the highlights or pretend that I never make mistakes, so… here’s a low point and hopefully a solution, and if we’re lucky, my next update will be a positive one.

In the meantime, shoutout to the people who’ve been listening to me go back and forth on this since I talked to my trainer about it when I wasn’t comfortable saying anything about it publicly—I’m sure I was annoying and yinz are the real MVPs. Shoutout to my horse for being a saint who had the vet telling the tech today about how well-behaved he was for his adjustment even though he was obviously highly uncomfortable. Shoutout to my trainer for absolutely nailing her educated guess three weeks ago and then sending me a bunch of wink-y faces in response when I messaged her yesterday to let her know that she was right (not that I ever doubted her in the first place, but hey). We’ve got good people around us and that alone is priceless. The SI injections, however, were not (could’ve been worse, though).