Willig check up

Willig is still off on his right front. He appears sound going in a straight line, but on a circle (on a very hard surface - asphalt), it's visible to the naked (vet) eye. Three more months of hand walking (or riding, on the days I am terribly brave) for an hour a day. Since most of the last three weeks I thought "there is no way I can subject myself to more of this" I am going to have to dig very deep for the willpower to hand walk him for three more months. The silver lining - ok, there's two - is that 1) he was quite easy to jog in hand, thanks to the hours and hours and hours we've spent together walking; and 2) I have had lots and lots and lots and lots of time to "ride" my dressage tests in my mind by walking them on the ground with Willig. I not only know them, I have thought through every movement my body makes, every potential movement the horse makes, and how my body would correct it. Of course, when I'm on a horse it happens at lightning speed compared to when I'm walking it, but still - it's something. Dr. Revenaugh thought that the lameness was prevalent enough that if he went back to work now, even light work, he'll be lame again sooner rather than later. I agree, but am not sure he is going to recover. The three months is the outlier - if Dr. Revenaugh checks him again in three months and there's no progress, then he said he'd likely "revise his prognosis down" which I translate to "Willig will be permanently lame." I believe the best case if he finally passes his soundness exam is the 2 minutes per week of trot, up to 20 minutes of canter something agonizingly far away, like 16 weeks later. So Willig is looking at a long, long, long, slow recovery (if at all). Stay tuned in three months. And thank god for Charlie this summer. I cried already, but it would have been harder without Charlie to look forward to.