Took his OR boots off once he was all tacked up and ready to go and something caught my eye - touched it and a load of pus oozed out - felt around his lower pastern and both legs were swollen and covered in scabs - basically he's got mud fever as a result of the OR boots rubbing. I never thought to feel under his boots yetserday when I noticed the pulses up in his legs but this would explain throbbing pulses as it looks really sore.
Took him round to the warm up and we did some walk lateral work and piris followed by straight into canter work - first a stretchy outline then picking him up and doing transitions within the canter, some lateral work, some simple changes, some squares then moving him on on the circle. Only did a little bit of trot afterwards as all felt good and very warm.
First test was P14 and he rocked it. We were HC as he shouldn't be doing prelim HC as rather over-qualified but as not been out in 3mths I wanted to do it and it's good practice for the simple eventing tests. Judge was List 5. He would have won by about 2.5% out of a class of 20.
Had a wander round the warmup again and then quick pick up - bit of walk lateral work and a little bit of trot then in for N27. He was a complete knob, spooking at the sunbeams, jumping them, dodging round them - just absolutely ridiculous. Some of the trot we got in between spooks was bloody awesome though - super elevated, yet round and soft. Spent most of the test laughing as no good getting cross at him when he's like that. Somehow judge still gave us 63.5% and we came 3rd out of 15.
Got him back to yard, clipped his pasterns and cleaned with dilute iodine then plastered in Aniwell antibacterial cream. No boots on so hope he keeps his shoes on! Debating whether to give him short course of abs - pussy pasterns are not nice! Pulses are still up today but hardly surprising. Had no worries over his soundness on the arena today.
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