The Effect Of This "Good Lesson"

Laertes concludes lecturing his sister, Ophelia.
Ophelia:
"I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, as watchman to my heart.
But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
show me the steep and thorny path to heaven,
Whiles like a puffed and reckless libertine
Himself the primrose path to dalliance takes,
And recks not his own rede".

Horse last night severely limping. Both front legs. Could hardly walk at all. I thought he might fall down. Thinking double abscess or worse, road founder, grass founder, chipped coffin bone. Something... looked really bad.

And so, the author of two years of injury prevention posts and his own horse barely able to stand. Brought to mind Mr. S above "And recks not his own rede." (recks = reckon).

Is the most ridiculous lesson violating your own rules (see last post.) How does it happen? There's Bill Mott injuring my Derby favorite Honor and Serve, and the CA slant eye inevitably injuring his. You have it on this blog a few posts ago in a comment a first hand look at Mott's methods.

I can excuse Mott for basic ignorance. Myself. Different story. Due to my own fairly unusual awareness, I tend to get careless. You get away with this, you get away with that, nothing ever happens. You lose your edge and little stuff starts to pass you by.

However, as the rule stated in the last post--you just never get away with it. Bites you in the ass almost 100% of the time.

My own error in this case was #1 freshly shoeing the horse, and #2 sending him out to do riderless speed work on rough hard ground. I'd pared away the cushion of his sole and pronto sent him out for riderless speed work and max concussion. What was I expecting?

Of course, the older horse survived the very same workout, and I'd gotten away with this same thing numerous times. But, no excuse. Instead of being able now to go on with what was looking good, we have a lame horse.

And then, in the light of the 7:00 a.m. sun this morning, there the idiot is mostly striding out ok with only a slight limp that now obviously is only a bruise that will heal in 2-4 more days. We dodge a bullet that could easily have gone the other way.