Niki's been lunging him twice a week for a couple of weeks now, trotting each way for 5 minutes. Typically, he wants to lope a little first, but so far, he hasn't wanted to go crazy, so Niki lets him settle into the trot. A couple of things of note:
1. He has no stamina, so 10 minutes of trotting exhausts him.
2. Even though he's still lame, I can see that it's less about pain and more about muscle build-up. His leg and hip muscles look noticeably smaller on the left (injured) side than his right, and he tends to fling his foot at the ground instead of placing it.
When he's not being lunged, he's in a large paddock on a hill, which forces him to use his muscles, traveling down to his food, up to the gate, and midway to his water. The other day, he trotted up the hill to see me and he didn't look lame at all! Of course, his walk down the hill told another story...
I'm very heartened by his progress. I had no idea how tense I was until I went to San Marcos. Now it feels like there's a muscle in my stomach that suddenly relaxed.
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