Well, I don't know if anyone actually reads this blog, but I remembered it and figured I might as well finish it up. First of all, Jessie is doing great, he's just doing great at my parent's farm. He was wonderful after his hock injections. We had a bunch of lessons in December. We started working on the travers. We could do a mean collected canter (and even baby canter pirouettes). Flying lead changes were pieces of cake. Kim thought we would be showing Second Level at some point this summer.
After Kim left for Florida I kept riding. Jessie reintroduced two friends to riding, despite confidence issues, and my heart nearly burst with pride from watching him carry them safely through their first rides, demonstrating that once again, rideability is *very* important. The Black Stallion fantasy is nice, where your horse can be ridden by no one but you, but in reality, it's not a good idea.
Anyway, things were going great. Jessie was great, I was great, building new horsie friendships and everything. And then he came up lame. We spent a month trying to diagnose him, and the closest we came was that he injured his cruciate ligaments, like the horsie version of the ACL, but not just the "A". He had his hock and stifle injected on that side, which helped a little, but not a whole lot. So he went to live on my parents farm after almost two months of lameness, where he's recovering nicely.
Due to his age and my goals, I decided to leave him at my parents, rather than bring him back to work. If we could easily afford to board two horses I would bring him back because it would be nice to have a second horse that any intermediate rider could ride (and my husband could learn on, even) but it's just not a good idea, financially. So, he could be started back under saddle now, strengthening that stifle, but it's not prudent, so he's enjoying himself. I still miss him, and going through, reading these posts brought back a lot of memories.
So, I just thought I'd share what was going on with Jessie, in case anyone was reading this blog, I know that I hate it when blogs don't update at least once a month, lol. However, I did buy a new horse, Sophie, and started a blog about her, located here: http://ararabella.blogspot.com/ so feel free to continue following my dressage journey there. And of course, check my website: http://www.jesterjigger.com/ for continuing updates (at least in picture format).
Thanks!
