Y’all, I continue to believe that Gastrogard is a miracle in a tube. A really really overly expensive little tube, but ya know. At least it works?

Last Friday Presto went for his first XC school post-ulcer treatment. He was quiet, calm, well-behaved, and didn’t so much as blink or hesitate at anything. There were no shenanigans. There was no tomfoolery. He did snort pretty hard at the big blue ramp when we trotted past it in warmup (we’ve jumped that thing before, bro) but otherwise like… extremely low on Fuckery.

We hopped over some warmup jumps, and he was definitely forward-thinking and go-ey, but not being rude. I pointed him at the ditches and as soon as he locked on, he took me right to them. We popped over the small one, then the medium one, then the big one… no shits given. I just basically grabbed mane. He jumped the medium one on an angle, and then we came through the Novice half coffin and the Training coffin. Still – he took me right through, if anything he was more on the side of overly enthusiastic. Didn’t even so much as peek. Absolutely no sign of the hesitation or spookiness he was having pre-treatment.

Then we went to the smaller banks, were he proceeded to be quite professional about hopping up and down them all. Again, very ho-hum, in all the best ways. After that we headed to the water, and again he was like yes obviously I know how to do all of this I am SEASONED. He finished with a little course jumping over the roll into the water, coming around and hopping down the bigger drop into water, and then going back through to jump the rolltop in the water, then cantering out and down the bigger banks on the side of the hill. It was like… perhaps the most boring XC school we’ve had maybe ever.

It was really really encouraging, mostly. It’s like an entirely different horse. I feel like I have my super happy XC boy back. I chatted with my trainer about a plan, and entered him in the Training division for the schooling HT next week. I think it’ll be a good ease back into showing, let him feel really good about himself hopping around there, and hopefully come away ready to continue where we left off. He’s got another week and a half of gastrogard and sucralfate and then we’ll re-scope to see where we’re at and what we do next with regards to the ulcers.

Argo had a chiropractic/acupuncture appointment last week and the vet ended up working on him for quite a while. He’s kind of a funny horse to work on because he’s just so sedate and even-keel that you don’t get a lot of reaction from him, or if you do get one it might be a little delayed. It takes some times to figure out his “tells” in the bodywork. Smooth brain and all that. So she took her time poking and prodding and adjusting her way around, looking for specific problem areas as we talked about him.

She spent a lot of time around his SI, and went straight to that area first with the acupuncture needles. SI pain/wear-and-tear is so common for racehorses, and he does have a little bit of that trademark lack of muscle tone over his loin/slight hunters bump that can indicate SI issues.

She told me to let her know how he felt the next day when I rode him. My main takeaways were that 1) he went in front of my leg more quickly and stayed there without as much effort. He’s a kick ride kind of guy, but I wasn’t having to try so hard. He seemed more comfortable using his booty and moving forward in general. 2) He wasn’t landing as toe-first as he was before, and he tripped zero times. Like zero. It was a marked difference. Stumbling or being a bit stabby can also be signs of SI issues. Our conclusions were that yes, we were probably on the right track by focusing on the SI as the origin of a lot of his tightness.

So my next question to her was: do we continue to try to build up the area over time with exercises, adjust his shoeing, do more frequent body work and acupuncture, etc, or do we go ahead and inject it first in an attempt to provide immediate relief and then work on building it up correctly. She basically said that depends on what I want to do, but if it was hers she’d probably just cut to the chase and inject it, since it’s likely been a source of discomfort for him for quite a while. I agreed – I’d rather go a little bit more invasive/aggressive when trying to fix something that clearly isn’t new, in the hope that he’ll feel more comfortable sooner. So she came out this morning and injected his SI. We’ll see if it makes a difference for him, fingers crossed!

I did pop him around his first little course on Sunday, just 3 single verticals, maybe 18″. He was very ho-hum about it and even did a lead change when I asked. Super good dude.

Let’s see, what else… OH – guess who’s birthday it is?

Henry is 17 today, can you even freakin believe it? I mean, he doesn’t really act it, but… seventeen. He’s just as sassy as he was at 7, don’t worry about that part. He got some birthday cupcakes earlier – no ride today because he scraped his hind pastern yesterday and was quite convinced the whole limb might have to be amputated (he’s not gotten any more stoic through the years). Good job weaseling out of that one, old man.