Maisie Isn't Mad and We Do More Trotting

Yesterday Maisie wasn't so peeved at me. My daughter didn't have time to ride her, so she only got ridden once, by me. Before I rode, I took her to the indoor and turned her loose to see how she was moving after her hard workout of the day before. I had noticed that her left hind was a bit puffy above the fetlock, but there was no heat or sensitivity, so I suspected she'd been resting the hind foot due to soreness farther up the leg - hock or stifle, perhaps - and it had stocked up a bit. She walked sound, and was a bit stiff at the trot, but not off. She also wasn't terribly energetic - I had to urge her to trot by swinging the lead rope - either she was still tired or had decided to conserve her energy.

When I got on, we did some loose rein walking to warm up and she felt pretty good. When we moved up to trot, she was slightly short-strided until she warmed up - just muscle soreness, I expect. We did some good trot work - she was able to maintain a forward pace without rushing. At one point when we were circling left, her left stifle briefly locked and she took a bad step, but she was fine after that. She's had trouble with locking stifles before, and the best medicine for that is muscling up. I expect her stifles were sore from the smaller circles she had to do when my daughter rode her the day before and she was a bit wild. Small circles are hard on stifles (that's one reason I don't lunge her very often), and Maisie isn't yet fit.

After we were done and had cooled out a bit, I got off and did some massage on the ligaments inside the stifles to relax them a bit, and also did some more pressure work on the muscle knots in the right side of her neck. Then we had a rinse off. It was a good day. Today I won't be able to ride - I have a visit with the endodontist to evaluate one of the teeth that was damaged when I was kicked in the face last June (if you missed that, here's the post about it) - it was pretty badly cracked but only has started to hurt recently. While I'm at it, I'll probably have him look at the other three teeth that had parts sheered off. It's a continuing reminder to me of how important personal safety is around horses.