May 24, 2022
A couple of months ago I started riding Okie after a long break. Started off nice and slow and easy. I noticed when I went to put my foot in the stirrup he would start to throw his head up and down. Once I got on he would walk off fine, but soon as I asked for a trot he would toss his head and act like he was uncomfortable and wanted to buck. I tried using different saddles, doing stretches and giving him massages, but he was getting worse, not better. I had my wonderful vet, Dr. Steiner, do some acupuncture on him and she did find some areas of discomfort and treated him accordingly. Last treatment he reacted to one spot very strongly and bucked and kicked repeatedly , which had all the horses in the barn freaking out, Skippy even started braying loudly!. I had the vet come today to X-ray his back and the not so good news is it showed he has “kissing spine” in his thoracic lumbar region. ( Apparently it’s not uncommon in TB’s) For now I will just do groundwork with him and see if he can work through some of it. If not , he can just be my groundwork buddy and that’s cool too!
