Boys, boys, boys

The boys have been tying my stomach in knots this past week!  Last Friday Phoenix was kicked by his pasture mate, a little 14.2hand QH/Arab mare.  She nailed him just below his shoulder and in the middle of his cannon bone on his left front.

I saw it happen, so I was able to pull Phoenix out right away and clean and wrap his leg.  I kept him in for a few days, with the leg wrapped, then turned him back out (in a different pasture!) to see how he would do.  He's sound at the walk, but off on both fronts, at the trot.  He still has a large lump on his cannon bone.  One of the other boarders at the barn, who graduated from vet school last year and has spent the last year in an internship at an equine surgical clinic, look at his leg and told me to get x-rays  since it's highly likely his splint bone is fractured.  So we have an appointment next Thursday with Dr. Ben. 

I had a lesson last night with Buddy and he was super lazy.  Jen had me get my spurs.  He was more awake, but a lot more pissy once I had them on.  We were having a pretty good ride, working on having enough pace and rhythm, when we went up a 2'6" vertical landing and turning right to a rollback when  Buddy slipped on the clover and went down to his knees.   All I could see was the ground coming at me and thinking "Oh this is going to hurt". I don't know how I stayed on, or how he righted himself, but he did.

Both of us were pretty shaken, but once my adrenaline was under control, we tried again but instead of landing and turning, we landed and stopped.  Buddy seemed sound, but he was very cranky so after a couple nice fences we called it quits.  Jen suggested getting him drilled and tapped for studs, so I'm going to call the farrier on Monday to see when he's available.