The problem with horses and their big muscles...

My most recent quietness has as a result of Vallu hurting his shoulder. I wasn't sure whether or not to blog about this, but why would I bother hiding it? A few weeks ago whilst training Vallu got badly spooked, and he jumped spun and landed badly, resulting in him going lame almost immediately. A few days of rest and he seemed a lot better, but still not quite right. Lots of turn out in his paddock, hacking out and just walk work seemed to be working in keeping him happy and pain free. The physio visited to check him out and confirmed that it was indeed a shoulder 'injury' that would take several weeks of rest/light work. So nothing too serious, but enough to cancel all of our plans for July. I guess Vallu wanted a summer holiday ;) 

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Because of the position of the 'injury' (I loathe to call it that because it makes it seem far more serious than it is) as in it's the big shoulder muscle, it does take a lot of time to recover. This is the problem with horses and their big muscles... At this point in time Vallu is not lame at all, he is just stiff and taking a slightly shorter step, but the stiffness will go away with time as the muscle heals. Although it has been a horrible and really stressful few weeks for me, at no point has Vallu behaved in a way that would suggest that he's been in any pain. He's still as calm and relaxed and happy as he was a month ago, so I don't think it's bothering him that much. And he seems more than happy with his increased time in the field :D Poor pony is going to get a shock when we go back to work.

My horse's health and well being will always come first and above everything else, and I will not push him back to work until he looks and feels better, and until I have the agreement of my parents, my trainers and physio that this is the right thing to do. My physio said that she's seen much worse recover in 4 weeks, and that because Vallu was in such perfect condition through the rest of his body and since the shoulder isn't too bad, it could only take 10 days to 2 weeks for recovery. But we'll see. 

At least we can still do walk work

Vallu was shocked to see that his long grass had been made into hay bales

So I've popped off back home for a few days for mini break to see my family and horses back home! Maybe after this I can get out of my blogging funk and hopefully have more fun stuff to blog about Vallu :)