On Saturday afternoon I decided to check on Rose and introduce her to the indoor arena. She was adjusting well to her new digs, and Cody has established that she is the boss. Rose needs to learn how to live in a herd eventually, so I'm glad to see that she's respecting Cody's boundaries. I pulled her from her paddock and led her up to the barn, amid a ridiculous wind storm. Rose was completely calm about the wind and didn't even care about it. She was understandably a wiggle worm in the wash stall, as it is a new place and she hasn't had to have her legs hosed off in a while. She somehow managed to get mud all the way up her legs and on her belly. It was dry and crusty like concrete, so there was no way that a brush would remove it. After removing the mud, I put her in the cross-ties in one of the grooming stalls. She was still a bit wiggly, looking around at everything, and wanting to sniff all the new horses. Right about then Cody and her mom came out of the arena and went into the stall next to us. This settled Rose down a bit and I was able to get on with tacking her up.
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| Rose and I in our new heated indoor arena! |
As per usual, once i got her saddle on her she calmed down entirely and went to work. She was a gem in the new arena, bellowing whining wind and all. The only thing that concerned me was as soon as I asked her for a trot she'd have a coughing fit. I was planning on keeping this ride on the easy side anyway, but I wasn't expecting that. She had no other symptoms of anything, so my assumption was that it is a dry cough from the new environment. We are up at 4,600 feet, and everything is dry here. Dry ground, dry hay, dry air. I decided to give her Sunday off and just monitor her cough.
On Monday, my friend KH came to the barn with me to check out the facilities and watch me ride Rose. To my delight Rose was completely settled in and calm. She was entirely back to her usual self. She was also mud free this time. Whew! I tacked her up and took her to the arena. She coughed once at the walk and that was it. No coughing at the trot or canter. BIG RELIEF!
Happy trails and swooshing tails!
The two of you look lovely! Enjoy that heated arena :) Sounds like the cough was due to new envirnment adjusting.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see all your progress ahead!
Does she live inside for some of the day? A lot of stabled horses have to clear their lungs when they warm up, and it's pretty common to cough through the trot the first few times. Wetting her hay may help.
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