Lesson Recap / Hoof Care

I finally found someone to get a weekly lesson with - and it's someone I've known for a number of years which is great. She's been riding and competing her whole life, but just took the plunge and got her coaching certifications and insurance recently.

While not as accomplished as some of your coaches out there in blog land, she's great with starting youngsters and has a nice quiet approach. Her own horses go really nicely under saddle and she's started more than a few jumping. Perfect for where we're at, and we're going to get along just fine, I think. (Dressage girl at our barn is my second option, but so far I've only met her the once - she's been temporarily living on one of the islands off our coast and can't make it to the barn very often)

Our lesson this morning with Bridget went just fine. We worked on all the basic baby horse stuff -transitions, bend, forward, etc. As I predicted from Friday's ride, Bridget was a star today. We need to up our fitness though, as poor pony was pretty tired after about a half hour of work (and one beautiful canter!). We spent another 15 min or so walking and doing a few strides here and there of leg yields, spirals, and baby walk pirouettes, all of which she was excellent for - she`s really got pretty solid with moving off my leg in the last little bit.

So, that`s the good news. The bad news (and the reason Ginger stayed home today) is that Ginger`s farrier came yesterday to trim and noticed her right front hoof has quite a bit of separation going on. It doesn`t look like white line disease yet (fingers crossed very very hard!). I had noticed it and thought it`s a mechanical issue because I feel like this farrier leaves the toes too long and Ginger`s fronts flare a bit, but farrier says it`s from something else (stress/diet/and or sweet itch reaction). That makes me super nervous, as I was thinking it was just a trimming issue (which is bad enough) and we're already so, so careful with her diet and management, since the breed is prone to metabolic issues and founder. Farrier did back her toes off quite a bit yesterday to relieve the pressure so we'll see. I feel bad for saying it, but my gut still says it was those long toes, and I'm hopeful a couple of more good trims will get things back to normal. Ginger is obviously a bit ouchy today.

My normal farrier, who I've had for 25 years now (I was one of his first clients way back when I was a kid!)  is amazing, so I may have to be the 'mean' person and get him out for a second opinion. Even though Ginger hates him, she might just have to deal :) He came out and trimmed Bridget and was super complimentary about her and her feet, which is nice to hear. I really trust him and it's a bit stressful to me that I don't trust Ginger's farrier when we're having issues with her feet.

Sorry for the lack of pictures - I've been super busy!