Never goes according to plan

Well of course, horses will be horses, and like most horses Bentley has to be as contrary as possible.

Meaning we didn't pass our vet check Friday night, so we weren't able to ride in the OCTRA ride.  In fact, we got a grade 3 lameness, which surprised me, I figured it would be grade 2 only, but I guess that just shows I need to read more into what constitutes a 2 vs 3.  So I knew we were not only out for Saturday, but Sunday as well.

The good side to our vet check was he was an absolute superstar otherwise.   A's all around, and a 40 heartrate.  This really surprised me for being so low considering the following factors:

• I had ridden him at a trot for 3 miles to try and work him out of the lameness, only had enough time for a drink in between
• It was his first vetting, so I figured he would be nervous causing his heartrate to go up
• We really hadn't been off the trailer for long, maybe 2 hours at the most
• All sorts of exciting things going on could have got him looking at who knows what

He was also so well behaved, let Dianne do the full exam on him including anal tone (where they stick finger in the butt!) and the gum check which he usually hates. Also trotted out like a pro, you would think he was a halter champ.

We had the head vet check him over and she was very complimentary of him too, there was no doubt with any of the judges that hes a fine horse and has a great future ahead of him once we figure out this lameness!  She had a few suggestions as to how we can more get to the bottom of it.

Our warmup ride went pretty well too.  He was pretty excited at first and was doing the strangest things at the trot... i cant even describe it, sort of a giant fake limp combined with bouncing up under me and trying to graze all at the same time.  After some more walking, we got a real trot and the bob was coming down.  Just not enough to hit the trail.  By the end, he was riding beautifully with lots of leg yielding and nice figure 8s.

I will blog about the other days in a bit, I am trying to get the photos off my phone, but the network seems to be acting up.


***Edit*** I forgot to mention that we also were testing Bentley out in the electric fence overnight for the first time.  While we were enjoying drinks and conversation, one little white horse and one big gray one shot out from the other side of the camper.  Oh darn! Hes escaped!  We learned later he wasnt the instigator, the little mare had zapped herself and possibly became tangled in her fence before taking off, but hes easily influenced and happy to rip through electric.  Darn!  We are going to have to go with a more expensive setup... plus some other fence nonsense I will explain when I talk about day 2 and 3!