Polly headed off to the trainer’s in mid July. First it was stupid hot, then the nearby fires meant they weren’t working them so much due to smoke, all this to say – it’s been slower than we thought it would be for reasons completely outside everyone’s control. They did 3-4 weeks of ground work and long lines, then backed her with really no issues.

And then they started trotting, and it all went sideways.

There is something going on in her hind end. They hauled her out to their local vet, who did thoracolumbar, hock, and stifle x-rays – ruling out kissing spine and anything super obvious. Great. I believe they injected left hock and left stifle, and I left her up there so they could do a month of consistent strengthing work in the Pessoa and over cavaletti.

For history, I did not get a PPE done on the unbroke, pasture-kept 2 year old when I bought her. I don’t regret that, it was the best decision with my thought process at the time. It does mean I don’t know how far back this goes. I’ve had chiro and vets out to assess the horses over the years but Fetti’s always been top priority as the most likely problem child, and instead keeps coming up fine. (hahaha.. ok, this sentence did not age well, and I only wrote this two weeks ago!) My favorite vet that worked with Fetti never got back to me about when he was coming back (sometimes I feel like this is a me problem, as it’s kind of a theme in my horse life) and I never had him take a good look at Polly. I had a chiro adjustment done on her a few weeks before she left, and they mentioned an imbalance where she wasn’t engaging her right hip. I knew she was more protective of her right side but also assumed it was a result of me not working her on the right enough, as I default to left..

So a month later, trainer gets back on, she’s still lame with a rider. We head back to the vet for next round of diagnostics when they can get it scheduled in.

My originally planned ending on this post was a very first-world problem of possibly having two semi-retired horses for the foreseeable future. That idea wasn’t fabulous, but it was my worst-case scenario, and I’m committed to both horses, and that’s where it goes if it goes. That obviously went and blew up. This leaves me in the awkward position of what should be a nice pretty transition, and instead I’m looking to throw more money at vets to figure out how to end up with one riding horse. More to come on this whenever there are actual updates and less of me wallowing in potential misery.