Our last show was the middle of July, and our next show is at the end of August with not a whole lot in between except some clinics and normal lessons. We’ve had heat indexes above 90 (and more than a few above 100!) for weeks on end, and if ever there was a time to give our horses a wee break before the end of season ramps up, it’s now.
Elvis was the victim of my own attempts to help him. In consultation with my wonderfully experienced sports medicine veterinary practice, even though Elvis was 100% sound and working like a rockstar in May, we decided to experiment with an aluminum hind shoe to help give him some support as he worked at a high level. We made the change right before his second qualifying show for the USEF Developing Prix St. Georges Championships, and he hated the change, and we had a very mediocre score. We all decided to change him back to the boring ol’ steel shoe he’d been in when he was next due to be shod, which was, of course, the week of his third and final qualifying show. Of course, 1,200 pounds of warmblood horse felt like the steel shoe was just SO HEAVY that he couldn’t pick up his own hind legs, and we got an even more mediocre score, and we found ourselves in 19th place in the rankings, and the top 15 in the country go. So that was the ball game.
Read the rest at The Chronicle of the Horse!