The Dreaded Tarp

I ended up riding Jetta today even though she still had some puffiness on both hind legs just above her fetlock. While I kind of see a little bit of head bob to the right, she's not reluctant to move (actually just the opposite today!) and tracks up just fine so I thought I'd get on to see how she felt.

Can barely see the small amount of fill on the outside (right side of pic) above her fetlock joint

First though was an introduction to the dreaded tarp. She was a little hesitant about it and snorty at first, though walking on it was no problem, just having it touch her was scary. Anything that she can stomp on is good in her book :) She accepted it pretty quickly and in no time at all I had it draped over her back and she didn't care. I walked her around with it on her and she was fine, so I scooched it farther up her neck to right behind her ears.

Obviously not okay. She took of running and pulled her lead out of my hand, ran into Queenie who I had tied in the arena since she was freaking out about her new neighbor horse that had just moved in and was being obnoxious. Queenie broke her lead rope while getting bulldozed by Jetta. Jetta then fell down, leaped back up and continued to gallop around with Queenie in tow, all while the tarp still remained on her back. Queenie was just along for the ride - We're galloping? Okay, I want to join too!

Finally the tarp fell off and both girls ran over to me, obviously counting on me to save them from the tarp monster. What a great way to instill confidence right? All of this had been viewed by the new trainer that just moved in (JB, that I took a lesson with once but didn't like her training methods at all) who looked on with disapproval. Whatever.

I was hoping to get a picture of Jetta too like this, but after our little incident I didn't dare take my hand off the tarp...

Once I got both girls settled down I had to reintroduce the tarp all over again. It took a little bit longer this time but by the end Jetta was fine with me tossing it over her back, though I didn't dare take my hand off of it just in case she decided to take exception to it.

Once on, she felt fine! She didn't feel off in the slightest and was very well behaved for having had the past few days off. I was hoping to go to the beach this weekend with her, but I don't know if I want to stress her tendons like that just in case, so we'll see. Otherwise, it's back to riding as normal and hopefully she'll stop this nonsense with the kicking soon. The stalls got rearranged so at least she has two buddies on either side - Queenie and the baby horse, Ellie, both of whom she likes so I'm hoping she doesn't think that she needs to have a kicking match with them through the stall wall. I'm sure the BO would appreciate it too.