Stretching sunday

I have started enlisting my helpers Sundays to ride Tillie for me at the walk and some trot so she can have an easy stretching Sunday. Tillie seems to enjoy it and I like that it gets her moving without working. Plus the students LOVE it and always ask to ride her :)

Tillie ready and waiting! 

We had a ton of rain Saturday night and found our ring in less then stellar shape with a lot of our lovely footing clumping together/washing and building up to areas of the ring.

Basically it was like soup....but by the end of the day it wasn't AS bad. But definitely something  I reported and it will need to be re-dragged and evened out with maybe more thoughts to solving this drainage issue. 

It ended up being another warm day with some odd weather...half sunny half ominous clouds with intermittent torrential downpours followed by warm sunny skies. I was in a t-shirt half the day and my winter coat the other half! 

Half sunny half stormy

 It produced the most vibrant rainbow I have ever seen....and the picture just doesnt do it justice.

My student on Tillie - doesnt she look thrilled

I was excited to find Tillie licked her breakfast clean! I am hoping the ulcer treatment is starting to work. After talking with P saturday, she suggested doing more prevention so I didnt have to treat and deal with the hassle of that every so often.

I also realized Tillie has some rain rot kind of buried under her coat (which is crazy cuz her coat isnt THAT thick) when I was brushing her saturday. I now think this is what is causing her back soreness and have started treating it...hopefully it heals soon despite all this wet weather!

I used Tillie in a ground lesson to teach this group of students interested in owning a horse how to approach a horse, give treats, do carrot stretches, groom, blanket and pick feet. She was such a STAR and loved the little kids. You could see her watching them (they were shorter then her belly!) and was so careful and polite. It made me just want to kiss her. 

Unfortunately, when helping the student practice blanketing I noticed  that her right hock looked slightly larger...instantly my hysteria sets in since that is her cellulitis leg.

I had a bit of a hard time determining where is looked big at first...I just knew it did. I literally ran my hands all over it (didn't feel any heat) and ruled out areas by comparing the two. The outside looked normal, the cap looked normal...the filling seemed to be on the inside just above the joint. 

left (normal) hock

Right hock

Part of me started questioning if it was lighting...but I swear there is/was some minor filling...The two pics above are hard to compare because its different angles/closeness. But I felt like I couldnt see as much definition on the inside of the right hock as I could the left. 

I took her out and trotted her both ways and she looked sound...but having experience the cellulitis and the entire year it took to get back to normal made me start looking for new scratches and check some smaller ones I found the day before...and even check for mud fever. 

I of course text a barn friend who talked me off the ledge and said if she was sound on it not to worry...so here's me trying not to worry!