To ride dressage is to dance with your horse, equal partners in the delicate and sometimes difficult work of creating harmony and beauty.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Recovery road

This afternoon Rick wanted to get the other three horses out on pasture for a little while before the rain starts again tonight, so I haltered Russell to keep him from moving around too much and led him out for some grazing as well.
Things were tense at first; he was being a bit of a horse kite until he realized he wasn't going to be separated from his buddies and he was going to get to stuff his face. No evidence of discomfort, even though I cut his banamine dose in half again this morning. If he stays comfortable at the 250 lb. dose, we'll wean him off completely in a few days. I think that's pretty fantastic, considering it's been less than two weeks since his wreck.

Happy horse, happy owner. Praise God for answered prayers! :-)

5 comments:

Kim said...

I didn't know you had three other horses. Glad Russell is on the mend.

Michelle said...

Yep, Rick has a 25-year-old cutting horse that is sway-backed and losing condition, but he was Rick's "dream horse" so I'm sure he will die here. Then there's Ollie, one of Rick's patients when he was born. Lots of health problems in the first year or so; the owner finally wanted to just put him down. Rick protested, so she just gave Ollie to him. He is line-bred Smart Little Lena and does not have a good mind, so he didn't work out for a mount for our son as Rick originally planned. Actually, none of us like to ride him, but Rick is emotionally attached so Ollie will probably die here, too. Breezy is a 20-something pony that we got Brian a couple summers ago so he would have a safe mount (see Ollie above) for our horse-camping trips. None of those three get much attention and even less riding, but they leave no room (or budget) for a new dancing partner for me.

TBDancer said...

That Russell sure is full of surprises, isn't he? I bet he continues on the road to recovery with his TC fracture. Bones always heal faster than soft tissue (with peeps, too), but fingers crossed it's a continued "Happy horse, Happy owner."

Leigh said...

I'm delighted to read about Russell's progress. I know it does your heart good.

Tina T-P said...

Glad to see he's doing better. T.