[Jenje!]

My trainer was MIA today, so I got to hold a couple of horses for her massage therapist/animal communicator. Page has been out there for about two weeks now, so I decided to have her worked on.

This woman is really awesome... she's just the sweetest lady, and VERY good at finding trouble spots quickly and working them through them. The last time she was out (my first or second day working at the barn) I met her, and as soon as she saw me she told me that "my horse" told her about me. I gave her a bit of a look and said, "Neither of my horses are here," -- it turns out she was talking about Alli, the little yearling filly in the barn. She asked her if her mommy was coming out today, and she indicated me and said she likes me... haha. Actually it would explain a lot as far as how far she's come in handling, ect. since I got there (almost automatically actually).

Anyway, she worked on Page today.

I've always said that Page is a little weird in the hips... sometimes she gets a little stiff, and if you hold her hind legs up for too long she'll very politely take them away and stretch them... then you can pick them up again. She SEEMS fine to anyone (and everyone, gah) else and I've had a million people give me strange looks when I tell them that this is why she's slow to canter sometimes, ect. INCLUDING my farrier...

She found it today! YAY! It's a HUGE knot about fist sized on the right... she really had to "dig" for it to find it (I didn't say anything about it) but when she did... woooowwwieee. She tried to do a flank push on that side and Page FLEW backwards. We had to lean her up against the stalls on one side to get her to let her push hard enough to release things a bit. She held that hind leg out until it let go, too. Poor baby.

So am going to be working on that a good deal, it'll take time. The therapist confirmed what I've always thought about Page... she holds in pain and doesn't show it, so even when she DOES hurt herself (which is rarely) you won't necessarily know anything about it, ever. The horses that we did before Page were wiggling their lips and stretching their necks in response to being massaged... Page wrinkled her eyes up and just stood there. You couldn't see any of it in her face at all.

I asked her if Page had any idea what had caused the original injury over her hips and she described to the T what happened YEARS ago with my friend's son... he was/is really ADD and ended up kicking her really hard several times. She cantered off with him, he fell off and she started really kicking up her heels. She ended up falling down, sliding a bit and kind of twisting up over the saddle a little. She was NEVER lame or even a little off. Obviously she got lots of time off and hosing anyway... but evidently that's what caused it... the therapist described everything about it and even mentioned what her mane looked like at the time (I had butchered it with scissors trying to get knots out of it, so it was about four-five inches long and cut straight across -- awful!).

It was funny... Page is SO easy to get along with. She's really a very sweet mare. But when S started talking to her, she cocked her ears back and got this wild-eyed, panicy, REALLY suspicious look on her face... and repeated that any time she would talk to her again. It was so strange. She said that she's very unsure about having someone in her head. Also that she's unsure about the barn/horses there, doesn't "fit" yet (she doesn't) and that something about the roof is bothering her.

One of the really funny things that she told me is that Page misses her pears... She's never gotten pears from anyone but my grandma, and that was five years ago. FIVE YEARS and she was "drooling" thinking about them.

Anyway, an interesting experience... it's nice to know that I was right about her hips and have a plan to get them fixed up!

[CowGirlUp1833]

wow....well, that would be interesting for sure. I can't decide if I think a/cs are for real or not....though, it would be fun to meet one regardless.



Glad your girl is feeling better!

[Jenje!]

Yeah, I've always kind of been on the fence about it... interested but not convinced, y'know? I was more into the massage aspect of it, and had seen how good she is, so I was willing to pay for that.

But watching my mare's face while the woman was "talking" to her... she was definitely reacting, it was crazy. And for her to be able to describe that wreck she had in my mom's saddle YEARS ago and the thing about the pears -- and bananna peels, I think I forgot to mention that -- it was pretty interesting. My grandma used to stand on her back (well "front", the house has been moved) porch and feed the horses pears, bananna peels, and other random fruit stuff that she was done with... Page LOVED the pears and bananna peels but HATED banannas. She'd spit them out and eat the peels. She said Page was showing her a bananna but had mixed feelings about it? Was like, "I like it but I don't..." haha.

[honeydoozy]

I'm always a skeptic about these things - but I have to say, that every experience I've had with an AC (with my own horse and others) has been... inspiring... to say the least. I can't say that any one of those interactions are suspect, and all of them brought up stuff that was impossible for the AC to know or even guess at.

SO... there *must* be something to it....

[Jenje!]

Funny little update...

One of the things Page "said" was that my side reins needed to be lower... she said it in kind of a confusing way and I didn't get it until the therapist said, "I'm hearing a jingling noise..." -- the snaps on the side reins jingle a bit against the bit. Her way of putting it was, "They're hitting me here... they need to hit me here."

I had kind of forgotten about it after making a mental note to lower them a ring on the surcingle. My trainer has been back from Regionals for about a week by now, but I've been sick and haven't been working Page... today I threw the surcingle on and she looked at me funny and asked why the side reins were up on the rings instead of down on the "girth" of the thing... uhmm... right where Page told me to put them.

It's funny... she'd been going REALLY well up on the rings, stretching over the top of her neck and beginning to be so much more balanced. But we worked her today with them down on the girth and she was FANTASTIC.

[momof5]

That is very cool Jen.Your mare sounds sooooo sweet.I need a mare like that.My mare is sweet but in a different way she dont like to be worked at all.She like to be left to be pated,brushed,and hugged on.