The rain cleared, the wind died, and it is glorious again. Highs in the 60s, lows in the 30s, perfect riding weather and yet I am off for a week of non riding. My glorious Gold Rush Shuffle plans didn’t make the Thanksgiving tradition cut, but I wish all my friends going the very best of luck, and my ride manager friends great luck on this first time ride, as well. For me, it’s hooves, hay, house cleaning, and off to the coast for familial birthday and Thanksgiving festivities come Wednesday. I’ve got a bridle customization and 2013 season wrap-up post yet to share, if any of you other folks end up nearer a computer than a horse this holiday week.

 Hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving!

J rode Chief, her cute Half Arab Pinto that I conditioned up for her over last summer. Her boyfriend has taken him over and done a few more LDs on him since his first last fall, and they are a great pair. He was too busy to ride though and J and I have more than an hour’s haul between us so we finally got wise to just drive to each other’s town and share each other’s 2 endurance horses that need to get ridden anyway.

 J&Chief

Great footing, fun spaces to zoom around, natural water, perfect temperatures, a fun horse. What more do you need?

Sedona looks like she wants to give me some other finger 😉

Glad I wore orange, there were lots of hunters parked at the trail head and on the way in but we didn’t see anyone but a few hikers out on the trails.

The horses did really zooming around for about 10 miles in their heavy coats. I haven’t ridden a non Arabian in a while and Sedona is a really fun ride. She is small, handy, FAST and sure footed; she reminded me a lot of riding the Connemara ponies in Ireland, actually. Next up we see how J feels about Blaze’s wonderfully bouncy trot!

 I’m still fiddling with my Indian bridle/sidepull rope headstall I bought used recently (pictured above with orange noseband). Scrappy and I both like it *but* it seems to have a major design flaw or two. First of all, there is no weight underneath his chin on the crossed straps with the rein rings, so there is no way for the pressure to relieve once the weight of the reins/pull of the reins pulls those crossed straps tight. It makes the noseband stay very tight, and even tighter when you clip the rings to both rings to lead with, because that is the only way to do it, since there is no ring under the chin either. I’m not comfortable with how tight it stays around his nose, so after some brainstorming with N, I am going to enlist my husband and see what we can come up with. The current idea is a clamp-on ring and then vet wrapping tiny oval fishing weights along the ropes under the chin, however much it takes to have some drawback and release that nose pressure..we’ll see–and there *will* be a blog post! In the meantime, I decided to really try my luck and ride him in his big ole halter…

One of the joys of being around Scrappy is that he is hilariously expressive and easy to read. As soon as I mounted I knew that he knew he was only in a halter. And he was fresh. And there was a tiny red devil on his shoulder whispering naughty ideas. Willow seems to love new trail and was at her best, boldly striding along, which was nice because Scrappy was conversing with his devil for most of our eight mile tour of the lake. He never did anything truly out of place, but the debate in his brain was clear to both N and I, and it was hilarious. He’d start to jig a little, hump up his back, and when I checked the reins on his halter he’d shake his head and trot faster. Another check on the halter and he’d slow to the walk, the little angel on his other shoulder soothing him back to Scrappydom. We did fine in this little personality juggle until the cowbell we heard turned out to be on a herd of goats, and then we briskly turned in the other direction and marched away before the little devil really took over. Scrappy isn’t a goat fan, by the way!

N and Willow

Camp Far West Lake

This is the perfect time of year to be out in this area, and the ride site will be great as long as it doesn’t rain. The short section of dirt road into the horse camp is iffy at best and rain won’t be kind to it. 4 x 4 is always a good idea, especially going to winter rides. The footing is phenomenal and I won’t be surprised if some people ride some of it entirely barefoot, though there are some sections of gravel road and some really nasty big sharp rocks down by the water line (not likely to need to ride that bit though..).

Along with the lake there are natural streams, many of which are currently dry but there are a few flowing and if we get some rain in the next week or two more may revive.

Scrappy and his devil and I all survived the ride just fine, of course, and here he dives lovingly back into his hay bag after that strenuous 8 miles…. 😉

…And on into sleep eating…zzzz

Gold Rush Shuffle should be a lot of fun and is the last ride of the 2013 AERC season, with Day 3 actually falling into the 2014 ride season, unless you ride all 3 days in which case it can count for 2013. We’ll be hanging out and riding there Thursday-Monday, hope to see you all down there at the end of this month!

I’ve noticed that in the last few months Sheza has been running around like a nutter enough to self trim her hooves a bit. At least, there wasn’t the insane sloppy toe growth within a few weeks like previously. Anyway she was certainly due for a maintenance trim and a fall de-worming today, and then since she was being such a good girl that I causally slid on a near weightless English Wintec saddle–courtesy of Nikki’s LoanNTack–and let her wander around with that for a while.

Startling the old hound

 Just can’t get over her stature..

 Her mane does pretty well whatever it pleases, while fortunately Sheza herself hasn’t been as willful lately. Said mane is long and luxurious on the bottom right half of her neck, and then flips sides and is scrubby and half length on the upper left half of her neck, as pictured below. Mmm whatever! It’ll grow..

 Hey mamma, look at me now! 

 I didn’t even put stirrups or a girth on it, just keeping things super low key. I did pull the saddle on and off a bunch and set it back up there from each side repeatedly. She raised her head and tensed a little at first movement of the saddle each time but immediately relaxed and kept snuffling for goodies. She really is quite sensible for a Haat gal!

 Mom and baby sniffed today without squealing, thank you ladies

 Finally after wearing it for 10 minutes she realized she could still turn her head, and had to itch her sides furiously where all the floppy straps were hitting her. As for the saddle itself she just didn’t care.

 Almost disappearing..

 Love that short back and big powerful butt! She is built better than momma

We walked all about and she was very polite and overall just acted grown up and sensible! The worst I saw today was some shuffling about while trimming right right front hoof, but so minor. She started to resist when she saw the de-wormer syringe but I confused her switching sides quickly and she munched the wormer down passively.

 I taped her at a hair below 14.3, as tall as Scrappy and well on her way to taller…and Boy are we are such the same color RED, it’s classic.

 Having a chat with my gal

 Heading home to mini Napoleon who was screaming and doing his cardio classes the entire time! What a big, gorgeous red thing my filly is. I may forgive her for growing to 15 hands and beyond 😉

The wise and all knowing Rippiedoo Wiener dog says, “That is one smart filly!”