202 was a busy year, and because of it, I was absent from writing. I’ve been working on slowly recapping the year little by little. I recently posted about June in Our Whirlwind June.
Our July adventures begin on the 4th. Our local GMO ENYDCTA hosted another schooling Dressage/Combined Test Show. This time the show was hosted at Larkin Hill in Chatham, NY. Larkin Hill is always a calm and beautiful venue. It’s relatively close to home. I originally got Tiger from someone who kept him here.
My friend and I left our farm concerned at how relaxed we were this time. So relaxed it felt like we were forgetting something. As we ran through our mental checklist, no, we got all of it…it just felt smooth.
It was just the two of us with Tiger and Nahe. We arrived, signed up, and warmed up. We rode our dressage tests, and we jumped our courses. After we spent some time simply relaxing. It was a very calm day, a great way to spend the 4th of July holiday. As we relaxed the show continued and the classes began to conclude. We strolled over to the table to see our results. Nahe and I not only won our division but we earned a dressage score over 70% and got the high points of the day for the Combined Tests!
Photo Credits Above to Molly Czub
In July we also had an appointment with our favorite equine chiropractor. During our visit, we noticed a soft lump on Nahe’s knee. There was no other swelling and no heat. He wasn’t sore. He trotted sound after a flexion test. My chiropractor is a vet but now specializes in chiropractic, dental, and acupuncture so she recommended our regular vet come out for XRays. I made the appointment and we proceeded with our normal programming.
In the meantime, we attended a Stephen Bradley 2Day Clinic. The first day was in the arena where we worked on maintaining a good rhythm and form.
On the second day, we were in the cross-country schooling field. We worked on logs and introduced banks and some ditches.
Nahe was incredible both days despite the extreme heat (90s!). He even tackled the ditch without much issue at all. In fact, Tiger was pretty apprehensive of the ditch. At our schooling event in June, he jumped the ditch with no issue. This ditch, however, didn’t have ground lines and he was concerned. It made for funny pictures though!
Later in the month, we had our appointment with the vet to XRay Nahe’s knees. I’ve always known them to be larger so I had XRays done on both. The XRays revealed moderate arthritis. We made a plan to begin Adequan injections along with knee injections. The vet advised that I do not jump 2’6″ any longer but it would be fine to conclude the season with my 2′ level. She added that this should be our last year jumping. It was sad to hear but understandable. We had a great year, I just wish I had found Nahe a lot younger so we could have had more time.
The Green Horseman 
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