Serviceably Sound

Assuming I didn't jinx him by saying as much in the Good News/Bad News post, Tucker has on the whole done well in the soundness lottery.

Still a horse, though.

 

Three points of concern: hocks, lower back, and right shoulder.  But really it's all one thing.

The tendency to back-soreness first presented in the fall of 2010.  He passed with flying colors a set of aggressive flexions by a super lameness vet, who pointed out some conformation glitches that add strain to the affected area.  We acupunctured, put him back on the list for regular massage, and I replaced a dressage saddle that I was no longerloving on him.  Back in business!

 

Until last season when we started getting some stops that I just couldn't make sense of and when my horse who had previously tugged me around cross-country started turning into a kick-along ride.  He was moving well -- won the dressage couple of times, even -- and some days felt great, but when I went back to our lameness guy's practice, the hock flexions were mildly  positive. Mildly!  But still a progression from the previous go-round when they couldn't make him limp.

The back was sore again, though not as badly; hocks and backs apparently often go together.  And I was also that year seeing tightness in the right shoulder -- only sometimes, but often enough to catch my attention -- though it disappeared once he'd cantered and almost never appeared in the first place if he'd had a good gallop or jump school in the last week or so.

 

We did another round of needles in the back and injected the hocks.  I have Lots of Feelings about ethics and animals in sport.  I get why joint injections are a place where some folks opt to draw the line.  I ultimately decided that I was comfortable with using them to keep him comfortable in a job he enjoys at his current level of performance.  If I'd had the sense that he was mentally ready to drop down a level or be done, it would have been a different story.  Likewise if I'd felt the injections would be long-term detrimental.  And I would not have been comfortable injecting in hopes of moving him up a level or otherwise squeezing out more performance than the horse had demonstrated himself capable of and willing to offer.  But for this horse in this situation, yes.

 

Result: had the old Tucker back again.  Which did not mean we finished off the season faultlessly.  It was a weird year.  But he was using himself like himself again, getting off the ground with quickness and strength, and galloping like a fiend.

And that's where we are now.  I still occasionally see the right-shoulder tightness when we've been stuck in the indoor for a while but otherwise he feels within normal limits: basically good in his body and good in his mind.

But he's still a fifteen-year-old sport horse.  So.  What to do?

I am guessing/hoping/guessing that this level of wear-and-tear will be no big thing for a couple of LD rides and maaaaaaybe a 50 at some point if all systems seem go.  I am actually hoping/guessing/hoping that he may do even better with a shifted focus.  The issues show themselves most clearly when 1) he's been on a dressage-in-the-small-court-indoor program for a sustained period of time and 2) he's puts out series of extraordinary efforts in the rock-back-and-launch department.  I consider it no accident, frex, that we saw the back stuff for the first time after his idiot rider buried him under a bunch of newly-big-for-him stadium fences from a weak "nothing" of a canter...

 

I have some thoughts about some stuff I want to try with the dressage that may help, or else may not.  We shall see!

 

I hope that being able to up the frequency of our jump schools (over suitably-sized stuff, and we are talking once a week or every other week here -- nothing crazy) will keep his back loose.

 

And I am keen to see what happens with a more dedicated conditioning work, since also on my "no accident" list is the fact that the season he's felt physically most fantastic to date?  Was 2011, our long-format year, when I was really serious about doing our trot and canter sets and about getting a couple hours of hacking into him every week.

One more "no accident": that was also the season when my own crookedness was least apparent, result of spending all those conditioning sets with nothing better to do than think about, Where are my feet, where are my legs, where is my weight?

If he ends up needing a little help, I am happy to find someone to do some massage and/or chiro in our new area.  I'm also pondering Adequan, which I still one month into the loading dose cannot believe that my weird little old dog (also fifteen!) is getting before my sport horse has a go.  I would prefer not to inject again in the near future, and will apply the same set of rules if/when the time comes.

 

We're working full-time in the jump saddle right now, which is the one that I think  fits him better as well as being the one that I prefer.  We shall see how long it takes for my own joints to regret this!  But I figure people hunt in jump saddles for a couple of hours at a go, and mine will accommodate a lengthened stirrup...

My other physical-issue consideration is one that would maybe be higher on the list if I knew more about distance riding?  I honestly don't know whether it will be a problem or not.  But I do know that endurance folks seem to be Very Interested in a horse being a good drinker and Tucker is -- maybe not one of those?

 

It's hard to be sure.  He strongly prefers to drink from the paddock trough rather than out of the buckets in his stall and he's in a shared field, so I couldn't get a good read on his intake even if I wanted to be super obsessive about it.  Which I don't.  At horse trials he has traditionally refused to drink until after he's done dressage (or until bedtime, at overnight events), and on one- or two-hour haul-out trail rides he generally waits until he gets home and goes back in his field.  And he is a pretty serious sweater.

On the other hand, I've never noticed him having any issues as a result, including during sustained (for eventer values of "sustained") work in some unpleasant weather; he copes with extreme (for New England values of "extreme") heat much better than I do!  He does seem to drink what he needs.  Whether that will transfer to the middle of a distance ride, I haven't the foggiest.  Although I do at least have some glancing familiarity with electrolyting -- both him and myself?

 

So that's the scoop.  The work schedule we'll be trying is similar to the schedule that's worked best for him in eventerland, just with a little more of the stuff that seems to keep him in good order, and I look forward to seeing whether my crackpot theories hold water or not!