I should have seen this one coming.

Well, this past weekend ended up being interesting to say the least. First of all, Cairo's surgery went great on Thursday,and she is on the mend. Her incision is already healing very well. The best news came yesterday, when the vet called to say the margins were clean and she is cancer-free!

Lucy had her clinic this weekend and I really have mixed feelings about it. The clinic ran for three days, and each horse did three hour sessions once a day. That is 9 hours of work in just three days, and while I think Lucy probably gained something from it, I do think that was a lot to ask of the horse. Clinics are a great way to introduce yourself to some new concepts but the idea of going to a clinic and having all of your problems magically fixed in a short amount of time is very false in my opinion. I really liked the clinician and thought his approach was very effective.

When I went to pick Lucy up, I was told that she was off just slightly in the hind end, which was not a very nice surprise. Of course she still worked for the whole three hours on Sunday, too. So now I have to figure out what is going on, how sore she really is, if it's an injury or a strain, and then decide what to do about it. Lauren jumped her on Wednesday and she looked fabulous, not off at all. I have watched the video of her riding that day about 8 or 9 times and I can't find any hint of unsoundness.

Lucy got Monday and today off, and she will get tomorrow off as well. She got bute with her dinner, too. I had a massage therapist out to look at her tonight to pinpoint where she is sore, so that I could have help deciding if this was a vet issue or not. The massage therapist determined that she was very, very sore in her hind end and when I told her about the exercises she did at the clinic (sometimes being backed all the way around the ring), she said, "well that will do it!".

Lucy enjoying her massage. My friend Maddy is
holding her for me :)

The massage therapist recommended that she should have tomorrow off, but we can go for a nice long walk in-hand to let her stretch her legs, so I will take her for a walk on the trails. She'll like that. Then on Thursday, she can go for a low-key hack. We'll do some stretching and easy trail rides this week, have a flatwork week next week, and if she seems ok then we will do some very low gymnastics in preparation for Equine Affaire. I also emailed the chiro to see if he can come out and look at her. If at any point she seems to be getting worse or not improving, I will have to get the vet out and cancel Equine Affaire. I really, really hope this isn't the case since I am looking forward to EA and it is all paid for. It would be very disappointing to not go but I will absolutely put the horse's best interest first.