About two-ish weeks ago, Nakai came up lame at trot. A Holy-right-hip-dropping-swinging-leg-out kinda lame.
Naturally, I have no idea what caused it. It’s likely he did something stupid in the pasture… and probably made things worse because he just loves to buck, kick, hop, and fart on the lunge line. I try to lunge him for a short 3-5 minutes, mostly to capture video and see whether his lameness was better or worse only to find myself death gripping the lunge line and growling at Nakai to knock it the hell off.
He had two massages in the following week and felt normal, so I gave him another week off and had an awesome ride over the weekend. Excited to have a job again after 2 1/2 weeks off, Nakai (as usual) put too much effort into the ride. I rode 4 miles with a significant warm up and extended cool down. He felt GREAT!
Monday rolls around and he’s off again. It’s not nearly as bad this time, but still noticeable.
Sigh.
Another massage. We agree it’s deep muscle and while the massage may provide temporary relief, it’s not doing anything to help him recover.
The chiropractor came out Wednesday night, 1.5 hours after my appointment time. Supposedly it was due to traffic, and while I understand that sometimes shit happens I told M that she better have magic hands or this will be the first and last time I use her.
Nakai’s lower back and hip on his right side were incredibly locked down and tight. She used 3″ long acupuncture needles and two muscle areas were so tight she had to wait for the muscles to relax before twisting them in fully. It was fun to watch; the chiropractor would run her hand along, find a joint that needed to be adjusted, and quickly snap it back into place. Nakai’s eyes would pop open momentarily before closing in bliss. He lasted just after the first needle before dramatically yawning, sighing, and licking his lips.
She reported that while he was sore and tight, there didn’t seem to be anything significant wrong and agreed with our theory of him having tweaked it in the fields. His pelvis, hocks, and stifle were great. I was instructed to give him another 5 days to 1 week off and then start walking him under saddle, starting with a very conservative 10 minutes and building from there. As long as he isn’t sore the following day she said to slowly increase the time walking with instructions not to let him trot or move out faster until he’s healed.
Of course, short of stall rest I can’t do a damn thing about how he decides to traverse the pastures. He likes to trot up and down the hill and I know he’ll do that regardless. The main concern is keeping his muscle tone. I’m disappointed but know it could be worse; I’ve been awfully lucky in the lameness department.
Silver lining? I was planning on starting to teach Mulder how to ride out with us this fall…and this is the perfect way to start…
That Spotted App 