Pillars and Poles

 Today was a work day but I had a 2 hour break in between patients due to a last minute cancellation. Instead of being annoyed, I was grateful that I could sneak home and do whatever. I was tempted to rest because I think I'm still a bit flu-ish, but..I was feeling pretty good at the moment and had been lazy most of the weekend, so... I opted to go do something with the ponies. I wasn't committed enough to try to sneak in a ride, but... I decided to do groundwork. 

Lyric was grazing close to the barn so I planned to snag her. But then by the time I got the halter and snacks, she had migrated up by the arena with the others. Oh well.. we'll be better off in the arena anyways. I still haltered Lyric first. I set up some fun pole thing and then we got started. 

We did a lap of pillar work and she was good. I tried to get her to rock back and engage her pecs but stay relaxed in her body. She was good. We did a bunch of pole things... the raised end poles... the fan of poles..... then we weaved in and out of the poles like a maze. We also did the shallow serpentine over the poles. She is not so good at this. But I figured... she's not very supple laterally, so hopefully this will slowly help her. And she definitely is shorter strided than Dan because she had no troubles doing the fan and had to reach a bit for the more perimeter edge of the fan. Which is a good exercise for her. I should also play with slowly stretching the poles out so she has to reach!

I decided that I wanted to fit the other two in, so I finished up with a tiny little bit of trot. I was going to trot her through the fan poles and we didn't really manage to do it. She kept breaking to the walk and I only had the lead line and no lunge whip. So.. I let her walk and didn't push it. But we did trot a few circles without poles. Unfortunately she looked a tiny bit lame tracking right still. Ugh.... So, I ordered some predef and sarrapin and will inject her brachial plexus. If that doesn't work, I guess I"ll have to start saving for an MRI of that foot. Although I will probably do another lameness work up with Barrow first. Sadness. 

But she was good and enjoyed all the treats. :) And hopefully this will help her topline and core strength. 

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