sacroiliac joint

Last week, my friend Emily came to visit.  Emily is brilliant. She’s a professor who teaches thought-provoking classes like one that delves into how lessons learned from epic ancient poetry can help defeat despotism. We first met at Vershire Riding School in 1973. When we see each other, which isn’t often, […]

Slo-mo Gait Evaluation

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We think that the neck injections have had a positive effect! I say “we” because I’ve been asking for outside opinions. The first day back on (after four days off to let the drugs stay put and work), I had Steph, my “jumping instructor” watch Tonka go. She said he […]

Neck Injections Progress?

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A horse has a lot of complicated moving parts, and often, when things aren’t right in how they’re moving, it’s because more than one piece has gone awry. Back in 2017, Tonka started twitching his head. Then he said it hurt to move. After a litany of diagnostic tests, we […]

Horse Neck Injections

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In my last blog, I wrote about how I felt that something wasn’t quite right with Tonka. He wasn’t lame. He was still letting me on (when he’s really hurting, he doesn’t), and he was game to do what was asked. But something was amiss. Was it how I was […]

Self-doubt Leads To…

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On Sunday, Tonka and I went to a dressage schooling show. There will be no photos of us with a ribbon. Our score was one of the lowest that we’ve ever gotten – a 61.25 % I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care. I like those blue ribbons. […]

When A Low Score Is A Win

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Tonka has been going well, and so I’m planning to take him to a couple of dressage shows later this summer. We’ll be doing First Level, Test 3. We’re used to having a whole dressage ring to ourselves to train in, but now we’re at a hunter/jumper barn, where there […]

H/J Cross-Training for Dressage

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It’s drilled into us dressage riders to go forward. Sometimes, though, in order to get those big strides, we have to slow our horses down first because impulsion can’t come without balance. Tonka is a case in point. His front end and his hind end go at different speeds. Tonka […]

Slowing Down To Go Forward

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This might look like a disobedient buck, but it’s not. When I watched the video frame-by-frame I could see that Tonka hopped behind for a stride. Like he had a glitch that needed adjustment.     This also might look like disobedience.  Dressage riders don’t like open mouths. It’s how […]

Vitamin E and Recovery

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Here in New England, it’s the beginning of horse show season. There are tune-up schooling shows to go to, and we dressage riders are mapping out which USDF recognized shows to enter later this summer. I like showing, and Tonka seems to, too.   We’ve certainly done well since entering […]

“Success” With Your Horse

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