Passed my L2 online with Hummy's brother

Finally made the descision to push on with my parelli journey borrowing my daughters horse Hero who is Hummy's brother. Have been playing with him when I can since we got him but it isnt really enough for me.
Eventually got round to filming my L2 online in April this year and we are ready for out freestyle when my injured hand has healed enough for me to bend my fingers!
Here is our L2 online.

http://youtu.be/IEHj3oUE_fo

Hummy's Recouperation Programme

Unable to lock Hummy up away from the other horses (no room in the barn during lambing and calving) the next best option for him is to start him on a ridden excercise programme to try and harden up the leg and increase the blood flow to the ligament with gentle sustained excercise in straight lines. Basically a programme of walking for increasing periods for about 3 weeks and see how he copes. If he is ok then to increase further and introduce a little trot work still all in straight lines. This will take a long time up to a year (he has already been off for nearly a year!) but I should be able to introduce work on line so long as it isn't small circles and turns etc. If he does't cope we will have to find some way to lock him up for 3 months and do the shockwave treatment.

Day one: saddled up halter on checked yields and rope arounds mounted half way. Hummy seemed fine so mounted properly. checked yields again and direct and indirect turns carfully and slowly he seemed fine just a bit impatient to go so we went. He was a real gentleman! A little unconfident in himself , would rather follow the others than lead but happy with me up top. There was heat in the ligament when we were done with ten mins road walk but I think that is the point the excercise increases blood flow which will create heat but aid healing. It was fine and not filled next day. He was really affectionate after.
Day 2: Saddled up another ten mins walk better than day one, more confident. Ligament the same.
Day 3: I can't beleive this horse he is so light I think stop he stops before i pick up the reins, iI think back up pand it is done! He hasn't been ridden for a year!.... Much straighter than yesterday and confidence back he was happy to stride out in the lead today. Again heat at the end of the ride but no filling later or the next day so things seem to be going as planned. Hummy is enjoying going out on rides again and is there waiting to be saddled up. I love that horse sooo much!

Some of my Artwork

Progress with Hummy's injury.

Hummy had his xrays and MRI scans today there was good news and bad. His R hock injury is healing well and he doesn' t currently need further treatment on it so long as it continues as is. Even though todays xrays showed a small fracture there, the joint and fracture is fusing as expected he has good movement there and we have reversed the bone loss he was showing 6 months ago. He is still getting mild pain on this leg though. However, the MRI scans showed that the tweak he gave the left suspensory ligament ten days ago was serious and the damage far worse than when it was scanned 6 months ago. So prognosis for full recovery still not good. Vet is now recommending that we lock him up with a companion away from the others. ie in the cattle barns with LS for 3 months and give him intensive shock wave theropy for 2 weeks to try and speed up the healing process. The way the vet explained it, the inflamed ligament is boxed in between bone and tendons and the swelling causes pressure as it has nowhere to go, this reduces blood flow and hence reduces/slows the healing process. The shock wave treatment stirs everything up again which increases blood flow to promote healing but he has to be kept quiet and relatively imobile for it to work. This is his best chance of ever being able to do any kind of collection/finess/dressage in the distant future. Got to speak to the vet again tomorrow, he is getting another opinion on the scans/xrays again to make sure his prognosis is the best we can do. He is not in favour of operating on the ligament as over the last 8 years they have had a better % of successes of horses remaining sound and working again without the opp but with a much longer recuperation period.

Hummy's Injury/recouperation

Hummy came up lame on his left hind originally with a little filling at the fetlock and a slight lump on the S ligament. He was confined but within a week he hd further injured himself by getting cast under the gate! Grr he had ripped up his front legs lots of skin missing and swelling but all treatable without a vet. However he was also now lame on the R hind. Vet called rather inconclusive diagnosis but settled on either ligament or tendon damage and we would have to confine him in a smaller area and treat for the above. At hgue expense we now have a lovely field shelter/ 2 stables and a very small paddock we can fence off. This was Hummys confinement for the next 5 months. He hated, it and we had enormous problems keeping him from rearing and spinning and all the things he wasn't supposed to be doing. I kept him on calmers etc, legs in support bandages and was hand grazing him daily, tried lazer treatment on both ligaments since the right one had come up as well. However, the L ligament was still going up and down depending on how active he was. Time for a second oppinion and further investigation. He went in for a full leg work up, resulting in the right hock being xrayed and both ligaments scanned. He had damaged both ligaments, although the right one was well on the way to being healed but more serious he had damaged the right hock joint with a compression injury. There had never been any heat or swelling in the hock! He had lost a lot of cartilage between the joints of the bones which was causing him pain and was in danger of fracturing the bones. Not a good prognosis and I was left not knowing if I would ever have a rideable horse back at the end or just a paddock ornament. David the vet was fantastic and said he would get a second opinion on the prognosis and possible treatments. The best prognosis being that the bones would eventually fuse so we would lose some mobility in the joint but he may be able to be ridden. The outcome was that we should inject the joints with Tildren and something else that would slow the cartilage growth, kill the nerve endings to stop the pain and help speed up bone fusion.

the diag show arrows where the joint was injected and the shaded bits are where the cartilage was damaged.
Hummy was turned out into the main paddock to rest and be a horse again (much better for his mind) and he actually is resting much more than he was in confinement. The left ligament is healing now that he is no lnger favouring the right hock. We are now waiting for him to be exrayed again at the end of January to see what progress has been made. In the meantime I am limited to just checking out his yields in walk and hand grazing him whilst the others get worked to prevent him from belting around the field when he is left behind. His attitude has gone through a huge adjustment and he just has to bite and chew on everything and everyone, he is so bored. The grazing out helps him but at the moment everything is about food. I want my old Hummy back!

Seven games and L1/2

Over the course of 2009/early 2010 we made great progress with our relationship. I attended some lessons with Lyla and Rachael which blew my mind. We had been concentrating on the seven games and I had't realised how bored Hummy had got. I just wasn't putting them to enough purpose and i realised it was time to halt my dressage lessons for a while. We had the time of our lives riding only with the halter freestyle for a while. I knew Hummy was claustrophobic with his bridle but the change in him after a few weeks riding with out it was amazing, we were hacking rounding up sheep and just gennerally playing without it and he was now comming to me in the field when i called. One of the things we were really working hard on was his canter transitions, he had a real hang up with right canter and in a bridle it was almost imposible to pick up. However in the halter he was getting better and better. I had started to play with the bowtie pattern and we were no longer trying to bog off with me every time I asked for R canter. He could do all the sideways stuff easily in the halter and collection was comming even freestyle now. But I still was not ready to put a bridle back on him. Our Liberty work was severely lacking although I had an amazing experience on a clinic with Rachael Moorland where we did more than I could beleive was possible with him right beside me. He still would not stay with me at home in the small paddock. I just was not interesting enough, however if I got more provocative he just bogged off faster. Definitely need to make a temporary round pen to progress this area of our journey. We go tto where we were playing at L 2/3 online and freestyle and were ready to film our auditions when Hummy was struck by injury.