The Never Ending Roller Coaster Ride

That's what life has been. A never ending roller coaster ride. Another trip to Devonwood and another show scratched due to lameness; nearing the end of high school and it's terrifying, among other things.

We hauled to Heart of the Valley and Lipton was fine. He schooled fine on Friday, a little hot, but sound. I rode my first even 4-1 on Saturday and it went okay. He was sound through to the end, a few bobbles in the extended trot, but nothing out of the ordinary as of late. He had one late flying change which caused the judge to mark all 4, including the 3 clean ones, as 4's and late. We went back down to his stall, stuck some polo wraps on him and let him sit for a few hours before our 3-3. We walked up to warm up for 3-3, I got on, and picked up the trot, and had a lame horse. Not a-little-off-in-the-corner-maybe-lame, but that'll-get-rung-out-if-it-goes-in-lame. We're talking L-A-M-E. We walked back down to the arena with a very sad looking Lipton, thinking that he had done something wrong, hosed him off, gave him an oatmeal bath, and used every treatment we had on his legs, shoulders, hips and back.

Bambi came out Saturday evening and looked at him and said that he had thrown his hips out agian. It affected his shoulder so much that it made him go lame. We put casts on his fronts and let him sit for the next few days until we could get a farrier out to look at him. He had very little support on his right front leg which was not helping with his lameness. So, we had the farrier out between when we got home and when his diagnostic vet appointment was and he decided to not do anything quite yet. He was only 2 weeks into his last shoeing and Jim (the new farrier) said that the feet looked pretty good and couldn't see a real problem in them.

Steve came out and did diagnostics on him, including foot x-rays and an eventual injection of the right front tendon sheath. His left coffin bone looks fine, but the right is almost level. For most horses, this wouldn't be a big deal. Well, Lipton's right front is made of eggshells and cotton candy (Thank you, Tracy), and so even the little bit of irregularity made him that lame. So the shoer came back out and put aluminum new balance shoes on him and his feet look amazing, and he's now SOUND. He felt FANTASTIC yesterday, but we're still doing everything we can to make sure he's okay and stays this way. I'm tired of him going from fine to not back to fine and back to not. Yes, he's 16. No, he shouldn't be this fragile.

I have 3 weeks left of my senior year in high school and I couldn't be more terrified. Excited, but terrified. I have to grow up, and frankly, I don't want to yet. I couldn't be more excited for getting to move out of my parents house come July, but all the responsibility that comes with it I'm okay leaving behind for now. In the last month I've had to make decisions harder than most adults have had to make. I cannot fully express the feelings I am having right now in anticipation of the next few weeks, on into the rest of my life. I want it to happen so bad, but I'm tired of working for it. I'm so tired of it in fact that the Taylor Swift song "Change" has truly become my theme song right now. I never thought I'd like a TS song this much, but apparently, I do. I'm ready for these things to change and these walls to fall down. I'm ready.

So I'm guessing I've rambled enough for now and should go work on my Portfolio project while I have interent access to look up all the FEI rules for Eventing and Show Jumping. Sigh. More work.