The first clue that yesterday’s grand plans turned into a very short ride is that I don’t have a single photo from it! Actually, the first clue is the title of this post, and I meant to get a photo of the little scrapes that ended my ride prematurely, but I didn’t.

How about this photo then? My morning computer assistant Kodiak, as scandalized by some of the a.m. Facebook fare as I often am:

“she said whaaat?”

One possible solution to his sudden ouchiness after first hind booting the other day was that he was hitting his legs with the boots and just needed to go in splint/ankle boots for a while. With that in mind we trotted Scrappy around barefoot and booted on all four for each other. More good trot out practice for Scrap! We quickly realized there was no way he was interfering in the boots as both barefoot and booted he lands very wide in the hind, I’m talking at last half a foot between where his hind feet land.

 Here is a close up of Scrappy’s wonderfully/terribly botched Rushcreek brand. That’s supposed to be a 3 leafed clover above his number..

 Overall, we had a very fun and successful ride. The details are, about 6 miles out there is a short, steep downhill. Scrappy seemed hesitant and took a few funky/ouchy steps with his left hind going down it, then was totally fine and moved out beautifully for the rest of the ride, with only about a handful more ouchy steps on downhills. I swapped hind boots around to make sure it wasn’t one boot making him do it, there were no pinches or rubs, and N and I finally decided (with fingers crossed!) he had probably become muscle sore using the hind boots the first day and the few ouchy steps on this ride were residual soreness.

 We did 13 miles in about 3:30 and N and I pretty well scrambled our brains on boot and hoof “what ifs.” It was very nice to finish with a happy Scrappy who was moving out well and we got lots of great vet check trot out practice on top of it.

Done, sound, thirsty

 My theory now is to give Scrap 2-3 days rest and then boot him all the way around and do the 6 mile ride from my house that has the steep 1 mile hill. I may not even go all the way up it but regardless it will be a good test to see if any of those ouchy downhill steps come back or if he is getting used to moving in hind boots and comes down the hill nicely. As for sizing, I’m hopeful that the new Renegade Vipers will be a good fit for him because they are measured in millimeter increments and have more between sizes than the old 0,1,2 sizing system. They are also supposed to fit hooves that aren’t so perfectly round, which definitely applies since Scrappy’s hinds are much “pointier” than the old style round boot shells. The only old style boot application left untested was a brand new size 0, as all the 0s we were working with were used and no doubt stretched out somewhat. Still I will probably measure his feet in mm and go the Viper route.

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This morning it was Sheza’s turn for a thorough grooming and hoof trim. I swear to you all, she is Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in red filly form. True to character she jammed her head excitedly in the halter (she currently prefers wearing Blaze’s faded old green one), then pranced and pirouetted and snorted her way over to the cross ties, half remembering sometimes that there was a person attached to the lead line. On the way I made her pay attention, sort of, we backed and circled and moved around and rolled the whites of our eyes at each other until she was relatively polite to lead, and I do mean relatively. Once in the cross ties she promptly began pawing the ground obnoxiously, and as I began working on her feet, she gave her customary One Big Spazz. If I recall we didn’t have any Spazzes the last few trims but the weather this morning is deliciously cool and well: Sheza- brat. The Big Spazz consists of surging forward dramatically, half rearing, throwing herself backwards while pulling back and thrashing like a fish, and then stopping to stand quietly, licking and chewing. After Big Spazz she is usually completely quiet and polite to have her feet done, as she was today. Mr. Hyde gets haltered and Dr. Jekyll sweetly nibbles my neck while I roll her toes…

 Scrappy cantered gloriously up to greet her when I put her away, probably because he saw there was a mush bucket involved, and I got a couple shots of him looking quite Arabian!

Not much sweeping to be done after trimming at this barn, here are just 2 of my 6 Clean-Up Crew!

 Scrappy was totally businesslike by himself, picking up his nice little steady trot and we had a great time motoring down to and around the horse camp loop. He moved out well, or so it felt, and it was nice to miss those occasional ouchy steps he took over rocks when bare in the hind. At mile 10 we were cruising back to the trailer feeling good.

At mile 10.5 he slowed, losing enthusiasm suddenly. At mile 11 when I asked for a jog he was suddenly trotting lame! I stripped his hind boots, didn’t find any bumps or sores, trotted him with bare hinds and he was ouchy. I took off his front boots and trotted him and he was ouchy. After handwalking to the top of the dam, within 1/4 mile of the trailer, I trotted him in hand and under saddle again and he was ouchy but a little less so? After a 25 minute trailer ride home he was trotting almost cleanly barefoot. After much panic and analysis/advice from experts last night we’re thinking he either was whacking himself with the bulkier boot, not used to moving with them, and/or maybe need larger captivators on the size 0 hind boots. I couldn’t hear when riding or tell when trotting him in-hand myself if he was whacking his legs, and may have been the whole time until it hurt to do so anymore. The one day we ride alone would have been a good day to have a second set of eyes of course, but isn’t that the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. He also is sort of in-between boot sizes on front and hinds and is probably going to get a better fit from the new Renegade Vipers. So next I play with boot fit and try riding him with hind splint boots!

Cute random animal picture interlude..

 I live in a world of expectant faces. These faces are Desire and Nan goat

 This morning was 54 degrees, sinfully cool, and I fed at first light to get a morning ride in. Blaze and I huffed and puffed our way at speed up the steep 1 mile hill to the top of the ridge, then I jogged back down beside him. He was quite peppy on the hill climb and even hit 4 mph in his walk home, why that’s simply screaming for him! 🙂

Forgot my GPS on the rack, gotta love an open air tack room you can ride into for stuff!

 Luscious locks, Blaze edition:

 Lots of yellow flowers all along the roadsides today

Sweated up after climbing 1 mile Hill

 We were both hot and sweaty at the top of the hill but the air was so cool coming back down that I got goosebumps! Love it. This weather makes me want to never stop drinking cozy hot tea and reading books, or if I Do, only to ride another horse for a while.

By the way, Blaze doesn’t approve of being clean. At all.

Ermahgawd I’m so clean and perfectly brushed, it’s totally digusting! 

Gotta get rid of Clean!

 Halfway there

 Oh yeah, mission accomplished

 It was hotter than we were all expecting today and there were lots of water bottles drained and troughs plundered. Scrappy shared some of his carrots with Sedona–and that wasn’t all he wanted to share! We didn’t even let them sniff each other but as soon as J arrived and we headed out together Scrappy was dropping his wang again! He hasn’t done it at all riding with Willow, and in fact the only time he has done it before was with Sedona, at Gold Country. J said he was even partially dropped sometimes when we were trotting! Again he didn’t get rude or do anything out of the ordinary, except for the grand display. Bizarre!

 We were all hot, dry, and whiny by the last 1/2 mile to the trailers but J saved the day again with enough ice water for both of us and the horses dove into their hay. I brought a pan of Elk Grove pellets but forgot to account for no water at the trail head we parked at, so Scrapster waited til home for his soup. We got a great even sweat mark from the saddle again but a bit of rubbing right up under his right “armpit,” despite applying Desitin pretty liberally. Maybe I need to carry it and reapply it throughout the ride. Also he is so sensitive skinned that I am wondering if the water running down there when I cool his neck/shoulders could be making it more chafey??

I is Scrappy, and I is tired 

I’m not claiming to be an expert on anything but experimentation. Here’s my version of dressing up a western saddle to go to endurance school:

Background:
 I have two Specialized saddles that I love and have had great success with shimming to various backs, but my new horse has a very short, flat back and very round barrel. I rode him in an LD with a Specialized not realizing how smooshed my (well used) fitting cushions were, and the saddle slid and gave him sore spots. Not having new fitting cushions right at hand and not ready to pay for more at the moment, I decided to make what I had work with no further expense. Enter this relatively “lightweight” leather Abetta trail saddle:

 I bought the Abetta from a friend a few years ago for a few hundred bucks,as it fit Desire when she was fat and rolly polly. I was bringing her back into condition after I weaned Sheza, didn’t have my Specialized yet, and the Abetta was comfortable for me and Desire at the time. Since that time I’ve thrown it on Blaze a handful of times to set kids in for a few minute “pony ride” and that’s about it. It doesn’t really fit Blaze and I wouldn’t use it on him for a real ride of more than a few hundred yards with a child clinging on it to the horn.  Basically, it really worked for that because it had a horn! Well now that I wondered if it wouldn’t just fit new guy Scrappy’s short, straight back, I quickly decided that the horn was the main liability. Having started in and preferring to ride English (and now endurance-style saddles), I’ve knocked the wind out of myself on a western saddle horn leaning forward instinctively to charge up a hill, and caught my bra on a horn when dismounting. I know lots of people are used to them and consider them an asset but I knew I wouldn’t want to deal with it on 30+ mile rides. Also, the awful little hard leather stirrups were unbearable for my feet and the seam in the saddle wore quarter size raw spots on my inner thighs on a hilly 13 mile ride the other day. Clearly this puppy needed some tinkering to become endurance ready!

First Things First: Stirrups
As I mentioned, the hard narrow leather stirrups were terrible on the feet over even low miles. The fenders were too fat at the bottom to just attach my spare endurance stirrups normally, so N and I chatted about the possibilities of rigging on endurance stirrups when we rode the other day. She suggested a method she’d seen and read about where you use dog collars or some strong strap equivalent to “lash” the stirrups on the bottoms of the fenders.

Now I must pause to confess that one bridle died in the making of this happy saddle saga. I had a bizarre bitless/sidepull/something-or-other beta bridle that was given to me years ago and had never fit any of my horses to my liking. There were ropes and loops and rings and all sorts of salvageable parts on it so I started unbuckling and cutting things off.

I used two thick beta straps unbuckled off the bridle and wrapped twice around the stirrup and the bottom of the fender, and liked the free swinging feel of the stirrups this way, as it accommodates the angle of my stiffer right ankle. Obviously only some longer test rides will tell the success of it:

 Begone, Offender

 I had a sawsall and I wasn’t afraid to use it. Things started great as the leather and wood parted like butter under the blade.

 1/2″ in all the way around, and I suddenly wasn’t getting anywhere. Turns out the horn was bolted into the saddle and there was at least 1/2″ of metal to get through in there. My old battered sawsall blade wasn’t cutting it, in fact most of the teeth were dulled beyond recognition, and my forearms were starting to go numb from the sawsall attack.

When In Doubt, Organize Something
I got annoyed and impatient at this point, posted a whiny query about removing the horn on Facebook, and started therapeutically rearranging my tack room instead. Tah.Dah.

 The Attachment Issue
With the horn gone, the stirrups rigged, and the saddle cover on, my last issue was attaching pommel bags and breastcollar. The saddle didn’t have any rings up front, just two leather tabs for running excess girth strap back up through and two more smaller tabs closer to the pommel that had long leather strings woven through it. At first I rigged rings on each side with zip ties but I didn’t think they were strong enough so I removed the zip ties and leather straps from the small top loops entirely and looped beta bit hangers, with an extra ring on each, on to the leather tabs. That way I had the ring to clip to and run pommel straps through, and the clip of the bit hanger hanging that I could attach things to:

I rigged my pommel bag on using the ring I added up top, the excess girth strap tabs on each side, and taking a turn around the girth rings each time. This is the larger size pommel bag and had lots of long straps.

 Now just add breastcollar and fleecy cinch and viola, the western saddle to endurance comfort transformation is complete! Actually I think the final touch would be to put on cinch straps that aren’t leather because sweaty leather sucks to deal with on the trail! Other than that though, this puppy is looking pretty comfortable!

 Begging for cookies from N

 Willow and Scrappy rode well together today again, despite Willow being in heat and Scrappy getting a bit dangly in the male regions at the start of the ride. There was no funny business or squealing, though Scrappy did neatly cut Willow off on-trail approximately 85 times. He doesn’t like to ride side by side it seems, when we come alongside a horse he gets sort of shifty and nervous and either stops dead and tucks in behind the horse or speeds up and neatly cuts them off. Interesting and maybe something learned from his young life growing up in the Rushcreek herd? Still, the horses got along fine and both snacked and drank well. Scrappy drank from a stream that we have always joked about being Off or “poisoned” as horses will sniff it but never drink it, and by appearances it’s quite a nice, running stream. He also stopped along the trail to drink from a little ditch barely wide and deep enough to get his nose in. Great survival skills there but I did notice that he didn’t pee until he was turned out at home, and it wasn’t as much pee as I expected considering he drank 4 or 5 times on the ride. He eats and drinks and poops (and farts!) copiously on the trail but doesn’t seem to pee very much.

 Here is Willow washing her eyeballs after the ride:

 I think I am happy with my tack on the Scrapster, for the most part. He is going great in the S-hack and Renegades, and the pad, girth, and saddle passed muster today. I may still get a crouper and teach him about that to have it in our arsenal, though my Abetta doesn’t seem to be sliding so far. The saddle needs some tweaking for my benefit, namely rigging some endurance stirrups on and putting a full saddle fleece on it, since my feet hate me right now after the hard leather stirrups and I rubbed quarter sized raw spots on my inner thighs where a seam in the saddle was. I’m also still liking my idea of sawing off the horn menace on the pommel. I do like leaning on it and singing cow poke tunes but I ride in fear of knocking or catching myself on it. I’ve done both and neither are fun.

In other news, here is my lovely miss Desire enjoying breakfast the other morning. I rode her out the other day hoping to feel improvement after her hind hock injections but she was no sounder than before the injections, unfortunately. The quest continues..

Here is this year’s giant pumpkin patch. The 2 pumpkin plants were planted under that little green tent in the middle, in the beginning of June. They have grown a bit!

 And finally, here is my computer helper, Rip, who is now 10 months old. He is an accomplished lap warmer and occasional assistant typist.