Waiting to exhale

"Who you lookin' at?"

Lance really isn't scared in that photo; he's got his eye on a handful of hay I'd just grabbed. He already knew it was good stuff; he let himself out of his stall and grabbed the whole bale off the stack when my farrier was here Monday. I had lead Breezy out, so Houdini's stall door wasn't chained shut, just latched.  :-/

I've been hand-walking Lance for the last week, and considering how pent-up and squirrelly he's been in his stall, he's leading pretty well. None of the dramatic airs above the ground he demonstrated when I walked him at his old barn before bringing him here to live. He gets his final shockwave treatment tomorrow night. A week or so after that, Rick will ultrasound the injured ligaments to see how they look; I'm hoping he'll give me the green light to start riding a bit at the walk. We'll stick to riding out and about; schooling in our sand arena is OUT until it gets some rain to firm it up and stabilize it. I am convinced that riding in dry, shifty sand footing has been the main cause of Russell's and Lance's very similar, repeated ligament injuries. My vet husband poo-poos my idea, but Dr. Hilary Clayton has written about footing and I think supports my theory. We'll see!