Deciding not to ride - making the right call and trying not to feel sorry for myself

My season is going to hell in a handbasket!!!!

Not really, but that's kind of how I'm feeling right now. I normally don't whine or complain, I can't stand it. But I'm going to take a minute now, so feel free to skip the next paragraph if you like.

The last couple months have been a bit rough. We had our pump controller on our well go out. Fixing it cost more than our cars are worth and we had to empty our savings to pay for it. Thank God for savings. Then both of our dogs ended up with fatty tumors that needed to be removed, at least they weren't cancer. More things broke, insurance premiums were due and one of my daycare kids gave two weeks notice so there goes a quarter of my income.

I have to remind myself that everything that really matters is great! I know God and know that these other things aren't the end of the world. I have a fantastic husband and great kids, who are all healthy. The fires are not near my home. I also have a fantastic horse and we have already had three great endurance rides this season, including an absolutely spectacular ride at Sunriver. Life is good.

Despite this, I was still feeling a bit stressed and really looking forward to a ride. Then Santiam was canceled. Bummer. So I looked at the schedule and decided to ride a 50 at the Prater Mountain ride as a tuneup for Oregon 100. Then I started looking forward to that.

For me riding is part of keeping my sanity. I work 10 hour days with a bunch of little kids and although I love my job, it's a lot of work. Sometimes I just need time where it's just me, no body else needs something from me. Somehow taking care of my horse is different, maybe because she's a lot more quite. I love endurance rides because it's some time away. Away from my house and my giant list of things to do. Time to be in nature. Even if my kids come I have at least six hours to myself on the trails. There is nothing like seeing beautiful country on the back of a fit horse. It's great!

Things were going great till this Sunday. I took Bunny for a little ride and when I got home, the horses were loose in the field and I turned her loose as too. Syd, her half sister, was in Bunny's paddock.

Bunny and Syd have this sibling rivalry thing going on. They chase each other around. Bunny really doesn't like Syd in her pen, so Syd goes in there any chance she gets and Bunny runs her out, any chance she gets.

So Bunny lit out after Syd, hit a corner at a high rate of speed and biffed it. She slid on her side, at one point her feet were almost sticking up in the air. She slid right into the side of her big poly water tank. When she hopped up she took a few iffy steps on her right hind but then looked fine. She had taken a bunch of hair off or her right knee though.

I was super irritated with her. It was not good timing. I figured I would just leave her be that night and then in the morning trot her out and see if I thought she was sound.

The next morning she looked 100% sound. I trotted her out, lunged her both ways and watched her like a hawk. But her road rashed knee had swelled up quite a bit.

So I started to work doing everything I could think of and that I could find on the internet to get the swelling down. Ice several times a day, clay everywhere but the bunged up part, lots of antibiotic ointment to keep the scraped up part supple. I even tried a brown paper, vinegar and sage poultice and a baking soda poultice. The baking soda poultice brought the swelling down quite a bit.

Every day was a teeter totter of emotions. I was pretty sure the knee was just superficial and swelling was cause by the superficial damage. But would I be able to vet in, should I ride even if I could vet in and what about the iffy steps I had seen in the right hind.

Wednesday night I did some dressage with her. Dressage has many good things about it and one of them is that it allows you to do moves where you can feel each limb bear weight and cross or rotate. It's much easier to feel something off then just trotting along in a straight line. So we did the works, leg yields, bending, shoulder in, haunches in. Most of the time she felt awesome. She wasn't quite as eager to go as she usually was but she was still great. But twice I felt something in that back right leg that wasn't 100%. It wasn't lame. You could only feel it in moves where she was collected and bearing weight pushing off that right hind but it wasn't quite 100%.

I got got off of her, burst into tears, walked into the house and told my husband I wasn't going to do the ride. She could pass a trot out and this morning her knee looks great too. And there is part of me that wishes I was driving to Idaho right now. But deep down in my heart I know I made the right call.

I don't think there is anything drastically wrong with that right hind. I think she fell, slid and banged into a water trough and is probably a little sore. A little of time off and some body work by Kani and she'll be good to go.

Could she do 50 miles tomorrow? I think there is a good chance she could. But there is also a chance that in doing it she would turn whatever it is in her hind leg into an actual problem.

Bunny is more important than this ride. And in a month we will be good to go and hopefully complete another 100 miles at Oregon 100.

I have always said I would make this call if I had to. I have encouraged others to make similar calls. But let me tell you it was hard to do. I really want to be headed to Idaho right now. I really wanted to ride 50 miles tomorrow.

Instead my kids and I are having a “fun day” as they call it. They are going to spend some time riding Quincy and I am going to take them to a park to play. I am going to try not to feel sorry for myself but instead remember all I have to be thankful for.

And if this means that Aarene Storms and Fiddle get more miles than us this year and win the high mileage standardbred award, then I will be thrilled for them.

Well I have a fun day to do so that's all for now.

Next stop, Oregon 100!

When Larissa helped me take my August body condition photo she wanted  me to take a video. 

She told me it's for people who are sad and crying :)