So Lexi had her scan on Tuesday. It's exactly as we thought - a grade 3 holosystolic heart murmur. She has a moderate leaky heart valve basically. At the moment there are no changes to her heart and we have no idea at what rate it will progress because this is the first time its been picked up on.
In 6 months, someone will come listen to it again and if its still grade 3 then in 6 months from then we scan. If the heart hasn't changed shape yet then we still scan every other year. Meanwhile we can continue as usual, eventing ect, and hope for the best.
I took her for some canter work Friday afternoon and she just filled my heart with how wonderful she is. She really is a dream to ride, feels like a Ferrari and so responsive and so gutsy. I also got a little taste for just how fast she is...I don't think I've ever really asked her to go flat out, but she made my eyes water at the pace she tried to go on Friday and even then I held her a bit steady as the ground was just a little soggy and I was in a dressage saddle.
I had a lesson bright and early at 7.30 yesterday. We did a lot of polework, working on encouraging her to correct her own stride to a fence. Basically I prefer a more forwards, momentous canter because that's how Squirrel always jumped best. A nice balanced canter felt a bit backwards to me.
Up until now I've given very little thought to striding for her - I didn't want to get stuck into fiddling too much, and jumping 90/1m she has plenty of scope to adjust herself if she's a bit off. Warren reminded me we're trying to produce a top end horse, and whilst that technique will work safely at Novice, especially on a horse as scopey as her, it won't help us get further.
So we set up 3 poles on a distance which made her reach and lengthen her stride to make the distance, and I had to focus on sitting up/back to support her and not let the canter lengthen. Also had to ensure I didn't let her fall in round the corners. She really got it by the end and I have homework to do lots and lots of it, with different variations.
Schooling this horse delights me, she learns so fast....its just me who needs to keep up now!
We're off to Portman for our first BE90 on Wednesday which is very exciting...
In other news, my partner has suddenly decided she wants to learn to ride and Squirrel has been teaching her this week. Unfortunately he went lame yesterday morning...the right fore. It happened intermittently a few times last year so I sent him to the vet for a work up in September. Although he was slightly lame in both fronts on a small circle on the hard, he was great the rest of the time and x-rays showed nothing. At his age they felt it was pointless to go further on something so small so we didn't pursue it. He was very lame on a small circle on the hard...I'll see how he goes for a few days. I guess he's just a bit old and creaky now and sometimes things go ouch. If it becomes more regular or isn't better in a day or two then we will investigate further.
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