just keep swimming

BANK ON GREATNESS AND SARAH STAR

Greatness danced on his toes, swinging his rear away from me. I turned him in a tight circle, then kept walking. I knew how it must frustrate him not to be allowed to gallop for a few weeks, but his legs had been showing signs of stress lately and we needed to correct that before he was hurt. The four year old stallion's performance had been lacking this year due to the pain, so now we were minimising any track work and swimming him for three out of five workouts a week. The other two were just light exercise - no galloping. It had become a struggle to keep him from taking off on me, but Greatness was generally well behaved and it had always seemed to me that he didn't like to displease me.

We arrived at the equine pool, and after clipping the stallion to the line we used for swimming horses and removing his usual one, i lead Greatness slowly into the water. He gave me a look, but he was used to it by now and went it without any trouble. I walked at the same pace as the horse swam. He breathed slowly but heavily, snorting a little here and there. Good boy I said, praising him for his good effort. After a couple more minutes, we reached the other end of the pool and his feet started to touch the bottom again. Once he found his footing, the stallion launched himself out of the water and up the ramp.

I lead him away from the side of the pool, and lead him over to where I could tie him up and towel dry him. The grey horse shook like a dog, grunting and then snorting once done. I smiled lovingly, then proceeded to rub him down. It wasn't so long before he could race again.