When life gives you lemons…

you make lemonade.  Or so the saying goes.  It’s basically everybody’s peechy keen way of saying “You’ve got a lot of crap to deal with, so deal with it.”  So you do.  And so when your horse is getting progressively worse and his back pain isn’t getting much better, you try your darndest to make him right.  You finesse your riding and don’t push him hard, you consult with your vet, you get acupuncture done to help the sore muscles.  And in the end, all that trying?  Well, half the time it gets you nowhere but at least you had to try.

And so that is how I ended up having to scratch Logan from the BN at Seneca this past weekend and today I sent off a very sad email scratching him from the BN at the AECs.  It’s hard to give up something you’ve been working for all year but in the end, Logan just isn’t feeling well enough to do it, and despite all my attempts to make him feel better, there’s just no way I can make it happen in time to do the event.  So, he gets to stay home and have a few weeks rest to see if we can get his back pain under control, and I’ll head down with just Little Gem to focus on!  The jury is still out on the ultimate cause of Logan’s soreness – whether its from saddle fit issues, kissing spine, lymes disease, we’re not sure at this point and are investigating all possible causes.  In the meantime he’s just hanging out and hopefully will start to feel better on his own!

So while that has been going on, the other horse I had entered at Seneca is possibly sold, so I ended up catch riding a horse at the event.  I rode him a couple of times right before and then off we went to the event, hoping it would work out alright!  The day was hot and humid, it felt like we were competing in July again, but I ended up riding the 4 yr old thoroughbred ‘Castano’ to a 5th place finish in the beginner novice, so at least the entire weekend wasn’t a waste!

Now I am packing up and preparing for another weekend at the American Eventing Championships!  This will be my 3rd year going and it is always a fun event to attend.  We drive down Wednesday and compete Friday through Sunday – updates to follow!