It has been a little while since a last did an update on how Bumble is getting on. To recap where we last left off, he had just been to the vets for a number of investigations, all of his back X-rays came back fine, as did nerve blocking his stifles. However I mentioned to the vet I wasn’t happy with his feet and so we decided to X-ray those as well. This is where we think we found part of the problem and agreed that he need to have corrective shoeing all round. Fast forward 4 months down the line, he’s just starting to pick up more work, we gave him 10 weeks of just hacking and gentle lunging,  having these shoes on totally changed the angles of his feet and the way he moved, his body essentially had to learn how to walk again, so he need the time to adjust. I have definitely started to notice a difference in him already which I didn’t think I would this early on. His walk feels like it has a little more power, I’m finding that when I lead him in and out he’s keeping up with my pace. His trot work was always quite good, he tracked up nicely, but it was a little short. Gradually I have seen his stride length increase and with that he’s covering more ground with a little more impulsion. His canter has always been his weak spot, and it was the reason he went for the investigations in the first place, he couldn’t maintain even half a circle of canter without disuniting. This has improved greatly, he can now canter 2 or 3 circles, sometimes he will disunite after this time but others not, but I am hopeful this will keep improving as he regains fitness and becomes stronger.

Now that he is becoming more comfortable with his new way of going he’s allowed to increase work and add in poles to encourage his hind leg movement and build up those all-important bottom muscles! Check in with us again in the next blog where I will explain what sort of pole work exercises we use.