Branson is a 20 year old Hanoverian with an uneven gait and low body condition, visiting on trial for the next few months while I see if I can improve his gait and condition. He's been through a bit of a patch - a bout with PHF (which is where the low body condition comes from - his previous owner was taking excellent care to put weight back on him), followed by this drastic increase in stiffness/uneven gait - but my goal is to improve his gait so that he can eventually become a beloved lesson horse in my program, and I truly believe I can reach that goal!
--
Day one with Branson went very well. He had the typical inattentiveness of any horse in a new place, but for the most part he was respectful and responsive, albeit not terribly sensitive. He is very unflappable, even to a fault. I'm glad he's not spooky - I've got plenty of "spooky" in other horses, so another spooky project would be a serious bummer - but he's got to be almost "re-sensitized" before he'll be ready to learn anything new! It took me a lunge whip with a plastic bag tied to it to get him to even focus on me, though I think that as he settles his focus and sensitivity may self-correct simply because he aims to please.
Below you'll find two videos. The first is of his very first lunging session, where you can see he is stiff but fairly even-tracking when going left, and considerably more uneven when tracking to the right.
The second video shows a (very short) clip of him at liberty, a few different times - each time more slowly. In this clip you can see he is capable of big, floating, "even" gaits but that his right stifle doesn't quite engage correctly. It almost looks as though he is twisting his entire right leg and hip outward to gain strength. I expect this to improve with some chiropractic attention and muscle gain.
My main concern with this week's sessions is learning whether or not regular, short, work sessions exacerbates or improves Branson's movement. Of course, this won't be particularly scientific since he will be getting his feet trimmed by a local barefoot specialist and his back adjusted by an equine chiropractor on Tuesday, not to mention he is still "loading" on his new joint supplement. LOL!
Scientific or not, it'll be fun to see how things improve, and to see what the chiropractor has to say about his pelvis/stifle and overall recovery potential.
No comments:
Post a Comment