Smooth as Silk

Very interesting development this week!

I started Ben on Pentosan - he had his first shot last week while I was away. He was ridden twice (Tuesday and Wednesday) and then had a 4 day vacation.

Yesterday marked the end, and we went for a ride. I didn't know what to expect...would he be excitable, having not done much for 4 days - standing around in the cold, wet weather? Would the Pentosan make him excitable? Or would he be grouchy, which is often the case?

I wasn't really looking forward to the ride, I'll admit. My body was a bit sore - fair amount of knee pain from my travels. I figured I'd lengthen my stirrups and just let my legs hang, and if all we did was walk around, so be it.

Turns out, Ben was fine. He was not excitable- not even when the horse sharing the arena with us got all fired up on the longe.  He was as level headed as could be. Love that horse!

And it gets better... after our long warm up walk, I picked him up into a a trot...and immediately something felt...different. Normally, our initial trot work is herky-jerky bouncy until he has a few minutes to lube up. But this time was different... I realized I was hardly moving up there - even with my longer stirrups.  Wait, what?!  Is this the right horse?

It still took him a bit to really warm up, but I was absolutely shocked at how smooth he was. His canter seemed a bit harder to warm up into...but his trot...wow...so either in 2 rides he learned how to move completely differently...or the first shot of Pentosan had something to do with it. My money is on the Pentosan.

He's got 3 more weeks of loading dose, then once a month there on out. I'm quite keen to see what happens from here!