In the last month or so Andy hasn't done a whole lot. Last week there were a few sets of trotting poles left out in the outdoor ring so Andy and I started trotting over them. He's never been over trotting poles and was a tad concerned that I was leading him to attacking poles but after going over twice he just calmly picked-up his feet and trotted over. Superstar pony! A friend of mine set-up a raised pole (about 6 inches) at the end of three trotting poles which he promptly knocked down. She then set it up as one half of a cross-rail and he hopped over that easily. When she put up the other side he picked up his legs, cleared it calmly and then kept on trotting.
The next night we decided to see what his jumping skills consisted of and setup a small shoot with a single fence. He walked, trotted and cantered through the shoot with just the pole son the ground. That didn't seem to bother him any so we put up a cross-rail. He trotted and cantered over that both ways without issue so we set the jump to a vertical. Once again that wasn't an issue. We then raised it to 2'6 and he cantered over that a couple of times each way. Breaks were given of course and he got lots of praise and pats - mostly from his mommy who was videoing the whole thing. What an awesome guy.
Last night he came in out of the paddock with very swollen hind legs. His hind legs are always a concern for me because of his previous injury. I called the vet, mainly because a horse had come in from the paddock on Friday with the same symptoms. Andy had a bit of a temperature (101.5ºF) and had loose stool which the other horse did not have but with Andy being underweight he is more likely to get sick. Poor pony. He has some meds now and we are waiting to see how he reacts to them. I'm not sure if I can ride him or not for the next few days. Here I was hoping to go hacking - but I'd rather have a healthy horse of course!
Aaaand a video for your viewing enjoyment. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqNTO8ia3-k
