Horses Have Terrible Timing

My horse has no concept of when important things are coming up. So he does stupid things like get hurt three days before we're supposed to go cross country schooling.

Luckily, its nothing tragic. Sunday I went to the barn later on in the day. I wasn't planning on riding so I just brought him in to give him a grooming. He had some hair sticking straight up on his spine behind his withers which I assumed was mud or something similarly sticky. So I curried it. And he flinched and swished his tail and leapt sideways. Well that can't be good.

Its one little spot, about an inch long, right along his spine. He is very reactive to it. I kind of just assumed it was a bug bite or something that he was being sensitive to. I know its not saddle fit or anything as it came on very suddenly and I also just had both saddles checked and reflocked two months ago. I left it overnight and went back yesterday to no change.

I can just lightly touch it with my fingers, or run a soft brush right over it and he doesn't care. Its only when you put pressure on it that he flinches and reacts. There is no cut, no open skin, no bump so its all kind of a mystery at this point.

In turn, Ben has had Saturday-Monday off which can't be any good for either of us. I put him on the longe line yesterday just to see if he moved any differently and he is perfectly fine. He is acting completely normal. I put my saddle on him yesterday sans saddle pad just to see where it fell. He didn't care and my gullet is far far away from being even remotely close to the area so he'd probably be fine for riding but I don't want to take a chance like that.

So the vet is coming out today in a few hours. Hopefully he'll just tell me that he banged it on a rock or something, that it'll be fine on his own, and that I can ride and xc school tomorrow. If we get the okay to ride I will give him a really good workout tonight to avoid too much silliness tomorrow. If not we have a backup date to school next month. I don't really think its anything big but I'm just stumped on what it could be and I'd rather just have the peace of mind knowing what it is and what I should do about it.

Sigh. Horses...