Vet Visit - Phantom

 The old gray mare has been feeling a little creaky lately.

Phantom had her hocks injected last August. Her right hind felt like it had a spring installed. The left one just never seemed to take as well.

When winter hit, she decided she was an old lady and started moving as such. She always warmed out of it, but there was something consistently niggling there when tracking left. It felt like left front on a turn, and left hind on the straight lines.

It was so minor though, that I've just kept putting it off getting her looked at. She's been getting ridden once or twice a week for half an hour, mostly putzing around. Lameness was never obvious.

Until recently.

The Equisense agreed with what I felt.

Within the last month, I've noticed that she seems much heavier and stompier on her forehand when leading into the barn. Under saddle, she's also been a bit stumbly. It was finally time to deal with it.

Off we went to the vet clinic early last week. I picked what is likely to be the hottest day of the year to haul her over. Thankfully, she stayed nice and cool on my Boeckmann trailer.

Waiting (rather impatiently) to be able to unload at the vet clinic.

I told the vet what I'd been feeling and that I suspected my drama queen of a horse is either overloading her front end to get off her hocks, or she was lame in all four legs.

At first, it looked like the all four legs thing might be right. She trotted and he could see it on the left front, then the right front looked worse. We took her outside to a sand ring and she looked better on the soft ground.

We did flexion tests and Phantom looked far better than I anticipated. He said if he was doing a PPE he'd say she flexed like he would expect a 17 year old horse to flex. I'm okay with that!

He agreed that we should inject her hocks again and see if that would do the trick. He also gave me some Previcox to use as needed over the winter if she seems to be a bit creaky in the cold again. If I don't think she's feeling sounder after about a month then we might have to look more into her front feet.

I warned them that Phantom is not a cheap date when it comes to sedation, which meant she had a really good snooze after the procedure had been completed. Thankfully we were able to stay inside out of the very hot sun, but it also meant that she had many people laughing at her very loud snoring. 

Good thing there was a wall there.

I plan to hop on her today (Sunday) and see how she feels. Fingers crossed that she's feeling a bit better!

Question for Equisense Bloggers

Let me start off by saying that working all day, then heading out to ride two horses and not getting home until 11 pm is not conducive to getting blog posts written up.

 For those who have an Equisense sensor - how accurate do you think the symmetry measures up on your rides?

I'm trying to figure it out. Phantom has been feeling great the last few rides, but the symmetry score is not telling the same story.

Most recent ride. Overall score of 6.5. I rode with my faux-Equicube for the first part of the ride.

Now, I do think that she is getting closer to needing her hocks injected. But the only signal of this that she is giving me is occasional crankiness when tightening the girth (her hocks show up in her back). And her toe did break up a bit before her shoe got replaced last week, so she might not be feeling 100% of that foot.

Sunday's stretchy ride. Overall score 7.1. Note the spikes.

When I ride I move her around laterally quite a bit. A lot of leg yields, lots of changes of direction, lots of trying to bring the shoulder in. Have you found that days where you do lots of lateral work results in lower symmetry scores?

One of our June rides in a hoof boot. Overall score 7.6.

And do you end up with high spikes through your ride?

Note the spikes. Overall score 7.3. This was about a week after an Ichon injection (Canadian version of Pentosan). The high was 9.5, and dropped down to a 4.8 a couple of minutes later.

Just trying to figure out what this data means. I really need to add notes after my rides as to what I did and how it felt. But it probably means that I have a lame horse!

The Fish

The Equisense sensor works with an app that you can put on your phone to record the information gained from the sensor. Even if you don't have the sensor, there is a valid use for the app. They have a bunch of exercises available for free if you need some ideas for schooling your horse.

Some of the dressage ideas.

They are located under the "Learning" tab, and are broken down into Flatwork, Dressage, Jumping, Lunging, Hacking, Rider, and Cross Country (which is empty at this point). The exercises are similar to the ones in the 101 Jumping Exercises / Dressage Exercises series, but don't have as much information on how to ride the exercise as the books do. They are rated with a level so you can pick exercises to suit your current riding abilities.

Some of the jumping ideas.

It is a newer feature and the library isn't huge, but they are constantly adding to it. It's nice to be able to look for an idea while I'm at the barn if I feel the need for inspiration. Equisense often does a short video about one of the exercises and posts it on their Facebook page.

Some of the rider ideas - mostly core exercises. I really should do some of them. 

Facebook was where I discovered the Fish exercise.


I thought that it looked like it could be super fun, and have a lot of options on how it could be ridden.

Black = poles (10 ft), blue lines = trot, red lines = canter (bounce distances). My Paint drawing is not totally to scale!

I set it up when I was out late on Saturday night so that I could ride it on Sunday morning, since I had to get early rides in to beat the worst of the heat. It took a little bit of finagling to get the center all lined up, but it wasn't too bad. With 10' poles it worked out to 9' bounce distances down the middle, and also parallel to the vertical poles on the end and middle.

Here it is set up in the arena (that's Cisco's fat tummy on the left)

With Cisco, we trotted through one side of a triangle, with the focus being more on just hitting where I aimed him. It worked out quite nicely and we seemed to find a good spot pretty well every time. 

I did attempt the trot straight down the middle with him, but it was a gong show for a couple of reasons - a horse had just left the arena and he was sucking towards the gate end, he had spooked at something he saw out the door at the other end that we were heading towards, and narrow points of the triangles are kinda hard to do at a trot at the best of times. 

I don't think I would recommend trotting through the center, just leave that for the canter. 

By the time I got on Phantom it was noon and super hot and muggy, so I knew my ride on her was going to be pretty quick. I put my stirrups up a hole and just played over the poles. I haven't done any jumping flatwork in ages, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go when I tried to canter through the middle. 

It actually rode pretty good! 

I mean, there were only two times that I didn't see my distance so I panicked and threw my body at her and said "go" and she was all, "whoa whoa whoa, this is a turtle exercise. Just chill. I gots it." Not bad for not doing canter poles in like two years.

If you enter at the pointy end it's pretty easy for the horse to just slightly fall one way if they feel the need to give themself a bit more space, so you have to ride that part pretty accurately. If you come through the center, you can turn and have the option of cantering through parallel to one of the vertical poles or over the part where the tail joins the body (if that makes sense) and then turn and canter through the center again. 

I would recommend setting this up across the center of the arena so that you can enter from both leads. I had to set it up on a diagonal because of all the other stuff set up in the arena, so it was a little trickier to make sure I did it on both leads.

I really liked this exercise and I will definitely use The Fish again!

Trying to Make Sense of the Equisense

One of the things that I am hoping the Equisense will show is signs of lameness. The first ride that I used it on Phantom had a symmetry score of only 6.9, which correlated with the slight not quite right on her left front that I had been feeling.

The next ride she felt much more even. This was reflected in an increase of the symmetry score to 7.4.

The rides after that have increased again to between 7.7 and 7.9, often with a high point in the high 8's somewhere in the ride. She has been feeling pretty good in her body and the higher score reflects that.

The overall score for this ride was 7.9, with a high of 8.7.

So I was curious to see what her scores showed on the last ride when she had that bit of a tying up episode.

First, in my haste to get her over to the barn and get bute into her ASAP when I detected what was happening I failed to turn off the tracking. I think I pushed the button twice, so stopped it and restarted it. My actual ride was only about 34 minutes long, but the tracker ran for another hour sitting on my saddle stand before I figured out that it hadn't stopped.

Second, as soon as I realized what was happening I hopped off of her. So there really wasn't much time for the data to accumulate.

Here is her symmetry from that ride.

She hadn't been ridden for about 2 weeks, so that could account for the slightly lower scores throughout the ride.

All the blank time on the right was because I didn't turn the sensor off when I thought I did.

The low point was 6.1. This was before we cantered and before I felt any issues. I think that at this point of the ride I was giggling at sitting trot attempting to do a shoulder-in to lengthened trot on a ping pong ball of a very good feeling horse. It was not overly successful. Lateral work supposedly reduces your symmetry score so I think that ping pong ball lateral work = low symmetry.

The last trot symmetry score was 7.7. This was after canter, which often has a higher score, and was mainly just trying to just slow the f down. Then she slowed down to the icky poky trot, and within about a 1/4 of a circle I had dropped down to walk. I think that the symmetry score didn't register for that icky trot because it probably wasn't long enough, and it wasn't on the straight line that is required to calculate the score.

So I would have to say that in this particular instance, the Equisense did not pick up on the upcoming issue through the ride.

If it did, the scores were minimally lower than what they would be on a normal ride so it didn't set off sirens. To be fair to the Equisense, Phantom might not have displayed any symptoms until I felt it and then I didn't give the sensor enough time to track it, or she may have been symmetrically stiff. Unfortunately, under these circumstances I'm not willing to let things go long enough just to see what score she gets.

Friday Night Barn Night (part 1)

I am one of those wild and crazy single girls who is happy to spend my Friday nights out at the barn. I often have the place to myself (not that I don't have the barn most other nights to myself, but Friday is a pretty sure bet).

I was hoping to ride both ponies on Friday night as I had gotten out of work a bit early. Phantom was up first.

I moved her trot intervals up from 2 minutes to 3 minutes. I know - she's working so hard. I starting her back on a bit of a rehab type program, after she had heavey type issues last fall, most of 4 months off, and then tied up at the beginning of January. She's lost a lot of strength, so I just want to take everything slow.

She's been starting off a bit uneven, I think on the left front. Not noticeable to anyone watching, but just a little more up on that shoulder on left turns. She seems to work out of it, so I have been trying to ride her through it without overly stressing about it. On this day, she didn't start this way. She felt nice and even at our first trot.

And interestingly, this was supported by the data from the Equisense.

Friday's ride - overall symmetry of 7.4. The high mark was 8.5.

Previous Sunday ride. Overall symmetry 6.9.

I found this quite interesting. She felt more even to me, and the data supports that. 

However, a different problem showed up. She was really stiff laterally on the left rein. Which is totally opposite to how she normally carries herself. Usually the left is her hollow side, and her shoulders bulge to the right. On this day, as we were trotting up the long side on a light contact at the beginning of the ride, her body was curved to the right. Huh.

There was a load of new sand for the arena footing piled up that had to be investigated.

So a big chunk of this ride was some gentle bending and softening to the left, and lots of leg yields. It got a bit better, but I don't feel like she ever really softened. 

The short bit of canter that we did felt horrible. Short, choppy, not forward, tight back, blegh. So I did another 30m circle each way in 2 point and had her roll along a bit more. Note to self - I really need to do more 2 point. 

Unfortunately, by the time I was finished riding Phantom, I was too cold to ride Cisco. He still got some exercise, which I will show tomorrow.

If anyone is interested, here is the other data from the Equisense. Get used to seeing lots of it.

Horse #2 Session #1

Since I hadn't planned on riding on Sunday, but ended up riding Phantom, I decided that I would just lunge Cisco. He hadn't done anything for five days, there were dressage lessons on all afternoon, and when I was ready to do something with him it was mid-afternoon and I had only eaten a muffin all day. And it wasn't a Costco sized muffin. So I was not up to hopping on.

I haven't lunged him very often in side reins. I think I've done it maybe twice. It's something that I want to start adding, so it seemed like a good time.

He was a twit about standing so I could get him set up when we arrived in the arena (New horses to make friends with! I must visit them!). Once I sent him out on the circle, the side reins were left long, but surprisingly, he seemed to be reaching for them. I might have to start riding with a long rein and see how that works out.

He wore the Equisense while I lunged him. Because he was on a circle the whole time, there is not a score for symmetry (need to trot for 20 seconds on a straight line to trigger a symmetry score).

Here are his lunging numbers:

I lunged him for just over 20 minutes. 73 transistions seems really high, but I guess it would include all the times he fell out of canter. I did ask him for a lot of transitions, but not that many.

Workload - You can see all the transitions here. They were generally quick transitions - trot, walk a couple steps, back to trot. He had some nice trot transitions - he didn't keep a frame through them, but had a bit of lift in front. And when stepping into canter, he literally stepped into canter. Nice and soft. 

The big difference in the amount of time we spent going left was likely due to the time he spent walking right at the beginning as warm up, which was to the left. His left lead canter is also his weaker side, and the transitions tends to be a bit stickier, so I will often do a couple more on that side.

Stride regularity - it was nice to see that the trot was a 6. His canter tends to be erratic, but not in an unbalanced, scrambly, quick way. It's more of a very balanced, super slow canter, that I need to keep sending forward.

Elevation - Phantom had an elevation score at a canter of 15.9cm. I am surprised that Cisco's is lower at 15.5. Maybe it's because he was quite relaxed, so was a little longer and lower in his frame, especially with the sidereins on. Maybe this number is indicative of the difference in the training levels. It will be interesting to see how this number changes. 

So that gave me preliminary numbers for both horses.  

We're still in the midst of some fairly cold weather, so it might be the end of the week before I can ride again. But then it looks like spring might actually be here - there are a bunch of days that the temperature is supposed to get above freezing. Phantom doesn't think so - I don't think I've seen any hair fall off of her yet.

First Equisense Session

I wasn't sure if I was going to ride on Sunday when I went out to the barn. I expected it to be a bit too chilly. For some reason though, it felt much warmer than the temperature stated. So I brought Phantom in and tacked her up, and broke in my new Equisense.

How much snow did we get this weekend? Enough to bury a hood. A hood that should have been on Cisco's neck.

The first challenge I had was figuring out how to put the sensor holder onto my girth. I use the forward girth-groove type of girths, and I had a really hard time getting the holder to sit in the right spot. I tried it with and without the extenders, and it was either too tight, or too loose. Well, crap.

And then I put the girth on the horse and realized I had it on backwards. Oops.

The right way. Notice the slight curve by the buckle so that the sensor sits nicely behind it. 

It fits much better when it's on the correct way.

On Phantom's Total Saddle Fit Stretchtec girth the sensor didn't sit snug against the girth. I could fit a finger between them. I'm not sure if this will cause problems as it is supposed to be tight. On Cisco's Prolite girth, it was not a problem.

Phantom's girth and tummy.

Here are the readings from our ride:

Our ride was a little under 40 minutes long. We are still on a rehab program, so we did 5 x 2 minute intervals of walk/trot and a wee bit of canter. A big chunk of the 59 transistions we did were trot/halt/trot transitions we did towards the end of the ride (and which she did really well).

Our symmetry score was 6.9. Ugh. 

A couple of things could be going on here. During either the second or third trot set I did a bunch leg yields, in a few steps left/few steps right pattern all around the arena. And there was some shoulder in during one of the later trot sets. Lateral work affects your symmetry score negatively.

The other reason could be because something might be going on with her left front. I keep feeling it at the beginning of my ride, one of those subtle feel-but-can't-see types of things. She seems to work out of it. I'm trying not to be overly paranoid and haul her off to the vet about it. I usually get her hocks injected in May, so if it is still happening at that time I'll get her looked at. 

Low was 6.1, high of 7.7

You can see that her symmetry does get better as the ride progresses. The low point is likely the section where we were doing the leg yields.

Workload - nothing surprising here. I use my Garmin running watch to alert me for intervals, so they're pretty even.

Ok, so I admittedly walked an extra lap to get this score. But in reality it was 49 / 51 before that. My breakdown by gait isn't too bad. Probably a side effect of doing intervals - it's likely a little easier to make sure you spend an equal amount of time on each rein during the intervals.

Stride frequency - this is a number that is individual to each horse, so I'll need a few rides to get baseline numbers before I can make any evaluations.

Regularity - nothing surprising to me here. Phantom tends to be poky at a walk, and then she jogs when I shorten my reins and ask for more walk. I've always had issues keeping her canter rhythmic. Today she was a bit tight in her back, and I was tight in my lower back, so I wasn't sitting well in the place she wasn't giving me.  Her trot has always been her strongest gait (and mine).

Elevation - I think I am pleasantly surprised at the canter number. She's a very level built horse, and does not have an uphill canter. I was expecting it to be lower, not that I have any baseline numbers. 

That is how ride #1 with the Equisense went. Cisco was lunged - I'll post his session tomorrow.