Evaluating our current situation

So this moring on my ride I was doing some serious thinking about Lucy. She had seemed more upset about having to go out this moring then normal, or maybe its my imagination.

Some rides she seems a lot more happy about going out, and others she isn't. But all in all she still isn't getting that excited about going out for rides. Yes she will let me catch her now, but thats only since I started bringing her out for her grain in the morings.

I'm not sure how much longer I can push her out on the trail before we are both fed up and no longer want to ride. Even though my asperations are for endurance, that doesn't mean I am going to push Lucy to doing it, but I would like her to go back to being the same horse she was before she got sick. Or maybe she was like this before and it never bothered me, but I don't think so.

I am no longer worried about her fitness, I can see now that she is going to be able to come back conditionaly wise just fine, I think her breathing is getting better to and will improve even more when we start doing more hillwork.
No, its just her attitude that is bothering me now. And the tripping, which I think is a by product of the attitude. She triped even more then usual this morning. Maybe it was just an off day for her, the whole ride she just wanted to turn around and go home. Her condition was fine, in fact I belive out average speed was 3.1, fairly good for average.
But her tripping. She almost went down on both knees today. And there wasn't even anything there for her to trip over. She is just tripping over the ground or herself. I am pretty sure I am going to talk to Nancy about it. She has been tripping ever since I brough her back into work. At first it was just every once in a while, but even then it worried me since Lucy never used to trip.

Well it could just be that she hasn't had enough time to strangthen her legs and that with time the tripping will go away.

But back to the main subject, will I ever get Lucy back to being interested in going out for rides?

I know that she would make a wonderful endurance horse, becuase:

1. She has a lean body that doesn't carry any extra fat
2. Her skin is thin and she can cool herself off quickly and easily with lots of blood vessals next to the skin.
3. She has incredible endurance, I have only seen her tired on two occations in her eight years
4. She is good at holding her pace for a long time
5. She is good at learning where to pick up the trot and where to walk to save her strangth and not injury herself.
6. She has never had any sort of metabolic heath issues.
7. She has never gone lame from something other then a wound on her body
8. She does great by herself out on the trail
9. She is easy to get fit and stay fit
10. She has study legs and big strong feet

And the number one reason why she wouldn't make a good endurance horse:

1. Well she just doesn't seem to want to be out on the trail anymore.


Sigh.

I think I get to worked up over her little attitude issues. I think I should keep her on her current conditioning program and see how she is by the end of this year so I can decide if we are going to compete next year or if I need to change her to a different disapline or just retire her to pleasure trail riding.

Of course a lot depends on Kezi. She is currently on Naproxin again. Which of course means I have an overactive cheerleader on my hands again. Its so nice to see her sound, I just wish I could belive it is going to last. Dr. Peterson seemed to think her reaction was heartening and might lead to a recovery, but I don't think he understands that when she goes sound, she looks very sound!

Oh well only time will tell. I will cross my fingers.