One Step Back & Three Steps Forward

As anybody who has been following my journey with Ace for long knows, Ace and I have been working very hard at forward. And we are making a lot of progress!

But first a sidenote …

Again, I’ve been busy and making time to work with my horse, just not making time to blog about it. It’s kind of exciting really … Ben and I are buying our first house! We are pre-approved for a mortgage and have been looking at houses. We’re going for a second look at one we love this weekend, and if it gets my parents’ stamp of approval we’ll probably make an offer on it. It’s super exciting! I’ve also had a pretty much one-track mind lately, other than the few hours I spend with Ace.

Back to the purpose of this blog…

I am thrilled to announce that Ace has enough of a foundation that after spending a month out of work, we were able to pick up right where we left off!

Before his injury, we had gotten in one week with some canterwork. After getting started again, we were able to pick it right back up!

I’ve been spending a lot of time working on sensitizing Ace to my legs. He now picks up the pace and does stop-walk, walk-trot, and stop-trot transitions just from the slight closing of my leg! It still amazes me each time he does it.

So, not only is he literally going forward better, he’s doing it metaphorically too in the sense that he had time off and didn’t regress in his training. How cool is that?

Here’s Ace on our first ride after his month off:

Notice the pretty green polo wraps on all four legs. They sure do add to the preparation time, but they give him some extra support and also protects him from brushing and scraping his own legs. I tried protective splint boots first, but they really annoyed him because they’d catch. These are less bulky and smoother, so they give him protection he can live with. He’s also been getting bell boots because he was overstepping and catching his heels. It makes him look so professional!

I’ll try to be more diligent with training updates, and I’ll be sure to keep you apprised of the house situation.