Camaro's Progress

In February, Camaro was diagnosed with a knee injury on the left front.  Not a major one, but one that was going to get worse if not addressed.  So, I addressed it. I had my vet write a detailed plan, including shoeing changes, and I followed it unwaveringly.

We had almost exactly one month out of the saddle, first only walking in hand, then progressing to long-lining.

Now, several years ago, when Camaro had a bout of laminitis, I had tried long-lining him as part of that rehab.  It didn't go well.  The surcingle didn't fit him well and tended to slide around.  Add to that his distrust of having his mouth touched (we were still working through contact issues he'd come with when I'd bought him about eight months before).  He just wanted to curl up and get tense and it was looking like a disaster waiting to happen, so I switched gears and we hadn't tried long-lining in the nearly three years since.

This time around, he not only accepts contact on the bit, he actually feels confident with it.  But, just to make sure we were on better ground than in 2020 when I'd last tried long-lining, I hand walked him with a bridle on, and reins in hand at his withers, the last two hand walking sessions before we were due to transition to the long-lines.

The first time I put him back into the long-lines (btw, his back is more muscled now than in 2020 and the surcingle fit him just fine over a western pad), he was a little confused at first, but in less than 15 minutes was marching around the arena where I wanted him to go.  No balking, no spinning, no curling his nose to his chest.  HOORAY!

In fact, by the time we got to our 5th long-lining session of the 7 that were prescribed, he actually seemed to enjoy this 'new' way of working.  He could 'feel' my hands on his mouth, and it was close enough to the feeling of contact under saddle that he didn't fuss or worry about the fact that I was neither on his back, nor standing at his head.

crappy picture, but juggling a whip, two lines and a cell phone

 at the same time while walking isn't easy

 

Last week we had hit the point in the vet's orders where it was time to saddle up and get on his back, at a walk only.  I think he was as glad to have me mount up as I was!  Although he definitely thought walking for 20-30 minutes was boring, and tried several times to break into a trot.  When that didn't work, he started hunting for bogeymen in his least favorite part of the arena--the door end.  Oh how I wished I could do circles with him, or at least lateral work, to keep his brain busy and lessen his thinking up things to booger at.  Instead, I tried to change direction fairly often, doing no more than two laps in a direction before changing it either through a big shallow loop (not to stress that knee) or by riding across the diagonal and changing rein.

This week, it was time for a recheck with the vet.  She was quite happy to see his progress.  There's still some rebuilding of ligaments in his left front leg to do, mainly in the form of having them work correctly and stretch back (or shrink back) to their proper place and function.  Hard to describe, but having gone through PT on my own knee in 2021, her description makes perfect sense to me.  Basically, he'd been a little off long enough that there was some restructuring of the supporting ligaments and then muscles because of him carrying himself not quite normally.  And over time, that restructuring became a problem.  So, we have to undo it, gradually, and rebuild strength in the proper alignment.  

So, for the next month, we are going to start with more walk sessions, but add back in some bending lines a large circle or two and a few consecutive strides of lateral work. (Not just for his leg, but to keep his brain busy too).  And then, towards the end of that set of workouts I'll have him step over a ground pole a few times each ride, so he had to give more lift.

 After that, the next step will be 5-7 rides doing some short trot bursts, totaling not more than 5-8 minutes out of each 30 minute ride.  Once that round of work has been completed, if all is looking well, we can add back in canter, one long wall at a time.

In the small picture, it's kind of tough watching several months of winter go by in a set-back to the training program I'd wanted to focus on.  In the large picture, though, it's good that we caught this, and the slower, more focused work will be beneficial in the long run.  We can work on basics.  We can rebuild Camaro's leg structure (including his feet, there will be a few more tweaks in the shoeing department) to be stronger.  And, even with all this, the vet thinks he can definitely withstand First level work and probably even go on to school at Second.  Especially if we keep him on a monthly dose of Legend, which seems to be helping not just with the knee, but also with his sore hocks.

Which is great, because in January, when this weird trot lameness first became apparent, I was beginning to wonder if Camaro's body was telling me that First level was too much for him.