I bought the pony; the adventures of Triss aka half-pint

[candyappy]

@Baysn_Blondes

I dreamt vividly about trotting her last night, and it felt so real I woke up excited to update this post and say we had conquered it, until I woke up enough to realize it was a dream. Hopefully that’s a good omen!

I think it is a good omen. Now you can do it for real.

[Baysn_Blondes]

So, it’s been nearly a year, I have the best update! After a full systemic rehab, I think we’ve actually moved into the light at the end of the tunnel. I just finished post-rehab ride 6 and we’re already trotting happy circles around the arena. Even the barn manager commented on how Triss has really come out of her shell in the past month or two. We conquered her fear of bits too, she even basically bridles herself now.

trimmedGX010048

It’s been a long, long road, and bless my farrier for reminding me how far we’ve come every time I complained that I felt like we weren’t making any progress. I wish I knew exactly what it was that finally got through to her, we did everything (chiropractic, robaxin injections, took her off all grain, spent most of late summer and fall handwalking and jogging the property, did pole grids until our eyeballs were crossed, started a physical therapy regiment, addressed any and every possible hole I could find in our training, refit our saddle, and learned to ground drive) but I suspect some of it was just time and consistency, not some magic formula. Where we’re at now doesn’t look like much from the outside, but there were times in the last year when it felt really hopeless that we were ever going to get here, and I am so, so proud of this little mare.