My Horse Is My Therapist

An invitation to see photos of my horse, Annie and Me

You are cordially invited to go to my Facebook page to view a little photo album of pictures taken recently at Maple Row Farm. All the photographs were taken by 'the girl in the key necklace', my daughter, who has a very good eye for light and composition. And, most important, she makes her subject look good!

Annie is fine and looking good.

Ugh. Annie was lame today.

I'm feeling pretty down, trying not to worry.

After my daughter's rain soaked soccer game this morning I took off for the barn. Weather dictated an indoor ride which I don't mind as much any more. Pam has helped me get Annie acclimated to riding indoors ever since the show last summer. Besides, I knew I'd be meeting up with some barn mates who any more crazy about riding indoors as I am. We tolerate it better in company.

Yesterday's ride outdoors was cut short by rain. Annie was sound then. We kept it to walk–trot since I hadn't ridden her for a week. She was excited to be out; the air was cool and that often has the horses feel frisky. It was a pretty ride and even though I had to stop sooner than I wanted, I thought I had the next day to look forward to a long ride.

No such luck. Today, after a quick tack up and a walk-about to warm up, we went into a sitting trot. No problem there. Then we collected and I asked her to extend the trot and there it was – her head bobbing, her gait lopsided. It only got worse. I walked her about for a while longer, tried the trot again, nope, no good, then got off to check her legs.

I'm not expert enough to know from the saddle which leg is off or where the pain is in the leg. What I know is to look for swelling, heat, bumps or cuts, tender spots that she flinches at when touched or puffy pockets under the skin. I couldn't find any of that. I looked her in the eye and asked her if she was faking it to get out of work, like Ferris Bueller. Did she just wink at me?

The only safe thing for me to do was walk her back to the barn, wipe her down and put her back in her stall. I sent Pam an email telling her what was going on. Hopefully it's nothing. That's happened before. She feels lame one day and a few days later she's fine.

I'm going to cross my fingers, say a bunch of prayers, hope for the best and try not to worry.