Joey is turning out to be quite a good little bay patient! Initial hoof treating/wrapping took over an hour & lots of patience; today’s hoof re-wrapping lasted 10 minutes, which was comprised of 8 minutes of grooming & 2 minutes of re-wrapping. A few nervous dances, a new tried evasion method of throwing his hip at me instead of away –his hip met a pointy finger & he didn’t try it again–& he just stopped. Took to standing with his sore hoof cocked &perfectly accessible, didn’t move a muscle as I cleaned the area, re-wrapped his foot, fussed with the wrap, & even rubbed on his Precious right hind leg, since it was handy & he was relaxed. Good Boy. He certainly doesn’t mind the perks of 2 mashes a day (to deliver meds) either!

Also, he has gone from dead lame Thursday a.m. to almost totally sound today, and he even trotted off the short distance to Blaze’s fence line after getting cleaned up today (bit sore for that but nice to see spirit).

Desire’s back is solid again, no remaining ouchy spots. Over the week since the ride it was less sore each day and the remaining soreness was more and more down her left side, away from the spine, so left side skirt of the saddle/cantle pack area. Definitely won’t be carrying a heavy cantle pack again, so some redistribution of carry-on ride goodies will be figured out in the near future. Just have to try some of the options on hand and see what works best.

Blaze’s winter coat, the earliest of the herd,  is beyond ridiculous considering it’s still 90 degrees out. Today is warmer than the last few days, but also the first day of fall, so maybe some cooler temps will indeed take over and justify his coat.

Sheza is bigger and redder and more interested in everything than ever. She wants to get OUT and see the world. Time for some more ponying down the trail with momma Desire.

It’s Thursday, that day where I often post a Joey training session recap. Unfortunately today Joey is out on the injured list and today’s post will be be an Calamity Joey recap, instead.

*Le sigh*

There are many reasons I love having my horses at home, one of which is that when they come limping dead lame up their sloped paddock on a sunny afternoon, I can see it from my living room window and immediately rush out to help. I thought I saw Joey take a few off steps as he walked up from the shady bottom to his shed at the top of the paddock yesterday afternoon, but I wasn’t sure,  and I went right out to see. When he saw me coming he just looked at me, interested but un-moving, so I knew something wasn’t right. He also had his left hind hoof cocked, but he often does that.

Well this time it was cocked for good reason! Like perhaps the rusty nail protruding from his heel bulb. My heart just dropped. Our property is an old one, like Indian artifacts old, and random junk and rusty hunks of metal do appear from the ground as time goes on and we rotate animals and rearrange and use the land differently. Still of all the things to show up in an otherwise spotless paddock with no climb fencing, capped t posts, and hot wire..a rusty nail in my one hind shy/hoof-shy horse’s hind hoof. BLARGH.

I haltered and tied Joey up so he wouldn’t walk anywhere else with the nail sticking out, rounded up my blessedly cool headed husband, and away we went.  Joey has gotten to where you can handle and lift his left hind, and mercifully the nail was in that hoof and not his Precious right hind (see Blanket Incident for that tale of woe). But still. I do believe Joey knows we are trying to help him, you just have to be very quiet, calm, and persistent and eventually he realizes it’s nothing harmful to be dramatic about, but it’s also not going to stop happening on his terms. When he embraces this concept and engages his brain to be curious instead of fearful, he gives in and we can move forward on the challenge at hand. Some things take longer than others, but this is his pattern so far, every time.

With his calm air and very fast hands, my husband got the nail cleanly out in one, straight, fast, sharp pull, fortunately it wasn’t in very deep! I irrigated the little hole in the center of his heel bulb with syringe-fulls of diluted Betadine and got some Vetericyn in there. This morning I ran to town and got a few supplies, then I caught him up again and it took about an hour of prancey-dancey and deep breaths on everyone’s part before he let me handle his hoof enough to clean and look at again. He was calmer when I lifted his foot gently with a rope around it, and I did this over and over, until he didn’t mind my hand in addition, and then just my hand. Finally after a few misses, re-irrigating, and repeat, I managed to get Vetericyn soaked cotton stuffed up there and secured with vet wrap, so dirt can’t get in. He is very sore on that foot, it’s right in the center of his heel of course. But he seemed quite okay with the fact that all the melodrama resulted in him scoring an apple at the end. Yep, bribery and all that. Food is about all I’ve got going for me with ever-wary Joey at the moment and I will exploit it as necessary, judge as ye shall!

We parted as friends. I hope that things will go smoothly and perhaps this injury will just lead to lots of positive leg handling and overcoming that obstacle some more to an extent, as well as a clean healing for the wound of course. Cross your fingers! I’ll be checking it daily and he is starting an antibiotic regimen tonight.

“hmmm, what is this thing she took so long to convince me to allow?? Perhaps I can rip it off in under 5 minutes and she’ll turn the color of her hair??! Let’s see!”

I just didn’t fit all the details into my ride-along blog, so here are a few more things that I feel are worth sharing:

Boots: With the exception of the twist on that wet/mucky boot climbing the crazy steep hill, the Renegades stayed on flawlessly. 90% of the ride was uphill or downhill and there were multiple water crossings and a few mucky spots. By the halfway vet check the straps were just sort of crusted together with mud and dirt and I wasn’t messing with em! I also find the Renegade Velcro a lot easier to clean debris out of after the fact. There were no rubs and Desire was sound sound sound. I love these boots!

Tack: While I used Blaze’s pad and splint boots, they are the exact same as Desire’s but in a different color, so my tack was all the same as it has been, with the addition of course of the cantle pack which I have used at every endurance ride and do train with on some at home, though not frequently. Everything with tack was fine except for the back soreness, of course, which I suspect was related to the cantle pack?

Diet/Gut Sounds: Desire had her usual Hay Mountain of locally grown grass hay (with a bit of grain in some bales), and big sloppy mashes of Elk Grove Milling Grass Hay/Rice Bran pellets, with her daily dose of Quench mixed in. On the trail I pulled and hand fed grass and fed her bites of carrots out of the baggie in my pommel bag, and she grazed very briefly a few times along the way. At lunch she ate another horse’s mash (same as mine plus Omolene of some sort) and alfalfa, and after the ride she ate as many carrot bites as I would throw into her fresh mash and nibbled some hay, but wanted to nap. After dinner I returned to find she had eaten the whole mash and had moved onto her hay. She pooped and farted her way along as usual and throughout the ride her gut sounds were an A where in the past they have been a B more than once. Every time I woke up last night after the ride I could hear her chewing hay. Arriving home this pm she had another big sloppy mash and plenty of hay for the night.

Hydration: Desire gets a daily dose of Quench in her mashes and I syringed her EnduraMax-Plus during and after the ride. The next water break after peeing, about 10 miles in, she started drinking and drank reliably the rest of the time. She peed 3 times on the trail and again back at the trailer after the Finish.

Back Soreness: I have never had a back sore issue with Desire before, and did not change the saddle set up. The only 3 factors I can think of are 1: extreme & prolonged uphill and downhill 2: Saddle pad “molded” to Blaze’s back and fit her differently? 3: carrying the heavier spare Renegades in the cantle pack over a long distance for the first time may have caused the saddle to bend down in the back? I felt like it wasn’t riding completely square and did adjust it a few times. This was my first endurance ride in the Renegades, I have trained in them and trained with the cantle pack carrying the boots, but never more than 20 miles with the cantle pack on. The Renegades are undeniably heavier than the Easyboots, and I’ve heard through the grapevine that a heavy cantle pack can bend the back of the saddle down and throw off the Specialized sometimes, but I don’t have experience firsthand with it until now..so if anyone has thoughts, please chime in! She was sore just to the left of her spine where the skirt of the saddle sits, it was muscular according to the vet, and it was slightly raised after the ride. 

Camping: Loved my Arabian Nights tent-under-canopy set up as usual and highly recommend anyone still suffering through an air mattress go get a firm foam mat or two instead. LOVE the firm foam and I swear sleeping on it after a ride does my body more good than my bed at home. My Olive barrel with a spigot at the bottom and about a 5 ft hose on it made it so I don’t haul water and can easily make as many sloppy mashes as Desire requires. Another cheap innovation of my husband’s that rocks my socks.

 Hwy 36 winding

 If you have the time, patience, and a safe rig, Hwy 36 is quite scenic and interesting. Of course on a Friday before an endurance ride I was more like stressed, kinda nervous, and obsessively watching my fuel gauge. So I may have enjoyed the 36 drive a bit more on the way home, after catharsis!

My faithful Bomber treated me to ice cold a/c and all systems go for the whole long, warm, slow 5 hour drive. Bless it’s orange self. Ride camp was easy to find, there were signs and ribbons on the road and the big open field for ride camp with rigs was clearly visible. There were 8 or so rigs already there but the field was quite large and never did fill up. I pulled nose in to the barbed wire near the far end of the field and set up the Arabian Nights tent, hot open field edition:

 Crew

 I checked in and decided to go for a late afternoon ride.

My planned “leg stretcher” ride quickly became an “Holy Shit, we’re really going on/up this?!” ride. From camp it was a 4 mile climb of some few thousand feet to the top of the ridge where the trails took off in various directions, and a few miles of that trail was hand cut by the ride managers this year in preparation for the ride. It was tough riding it, I can only imagine how hard it was to make it! There were steep bits, narrow bits in deep dirt on the side of hills (read: sliding out in the hind end if you’re riding a klutz), vicious fist sized rocky bits and all combinations of the aforementioned–and it felt like it just went on and on! It turns out I was almost to the top and out of the sketchy bits when I decided it, but at that point I concluded I was going to lame my horse before even vetting in and turned around and hand walked her back down to safer ground, my brain buzzing.

The pleasant beginning of the hand cut trail that got technical later on–no photos of the intense footing as I was too busy keeping us both upright and moving forward!

Back down in ride camp, a few more rigs have pulled in

The ride meeting confirmed that was indeed the trail the ride was starting on in the morning, which confirmed my need to be READY to keep the mare and I safe and sound on the parts of the trail like that (and I wasn’t sure how many there were, you know how the imagination soars). Please understand, I am not saying the trail was bad, I’m saying it was challenging, and my particular steed is the absolute polar opposite of sure footed. She is wonderfully forward and businesslike but doesn’t give a thought to whether her hooves are landing on solid ground–or a hole, or a rock, or nothing. Riding her, especially in a ride setting with extra pizzazz, means about 90% of the time spent in eagle eyes mode, staring at the footing and steering.

 Evening dinner, or second dinner, who knows, she is always eating

 I feel like I’m being watched. Or at least, my chicken is.

 There were some friends at the ride to visit with, including my redheaded amigo, A, and her silver stallion that we went to Cuyama XP with. It’s always great to see her and I got to meet her husband and dog pack as well. I chatted for a while and then prepped most of my gear for the morning, sent off my full crew bag, and read for an hour or so in the tent with my Georgia dog warming my toes, before setting a 5:30 alarm and passing out.

5:30 for a 7 am start you say? Ah, but there were showers at camp! I got up and had a wonderful hot shower early Saturday morning; I never feel quite right if I don’t start my day with a shower and to do so before a ride was GREAT.  I had left Desire’s saddle pad, girth, and splint boots out to air/dry after our ride Friday pm and never put them away–well they were sopping damp and cold in the dewy morning Saturday so Desire went in Blaze’s green saddle pad, his green splint boots, and the spare mohair girth. Hurrah for extra tack! At least I chose the horses’ colors in a fairly consistent color palette so my matchy-matchy sensibilities weren’t too horrified by the forest green accents 😉

 So there we were, Saturday morning, and Desire was booted and saddled, all clean and dry in the cold morning. She was behaving fairly calmly for the start of a ride, minimum dancing for booting and tacking which was a mercy. Then as another horse passed by our rig headed for the start she suddenly did a sideways dance, crammed her right hind hoof and boot into her full water bucket, freaked out when it cracked, kicked the thing 20 ft, and danced all around in the dust until I settled her.

TA DA! My clean, dry horse and tack and saddle were now splashed in ice cold water and mud, and the only Renegade boot I’ve had problems with, that right hind, was now pre-soaked and muddy for the 4 mile climb ahead.  Le sigh…

heading off from the start, 10 or so minutes after 7

I think I’m actually glad I rode some of that hill Friday afternoon, as I was mentally prepared for it Saturday morning and guided my stumble bum relatively successfully to the top of the ridge. 2 miles in on a steep, narrow, slippy step the muddy, soaked hind boot slipped sideways and I jumped off to fix it, only noticing a while later that my sunglasses had apparently fallen off in the effort. Well shit, a squinty day ahead. We caught up to a group of 4 riders near the top of the climb and Desire got predictably perky when the group was in sight, but with the exception of one really dumb down-up transition where we almost ate shit, she behaved pretty well keeping our own pace while catching glimpses of them.

The morning was chilly, I had my polar fleece on..at the top of the ridge we finally felt the first warm rays of sunlight

 Top of the ridge, A and Alamahn the silver stallion caught up. Cheery as ever

 Desire didn’t drink at the first few opportunities and we trotted along some nice dirt roads, a welcome break after the intense early climb. I dismounted at some water troughs to electrolyte her and see if she would stand still long enough to drink, but two trucks of hunters roared up in their big trucks and started quizzing me on the trails so the whole tranquility thing was out the window and drinking did not happen. I did cram a dose of EnduraMax-Plus down her gullet and she in turn had a good, long pee. This is good, I knew drinking was in her future now that she was more comfortable.

Beautiful trees, big gnarly rocks, cool air,  a good horse–HAPPINESS!

 D hears A and Alamahn coming along down the hill behind us

 There was a long, fairly steep hand cut trail descending to the river crossing, and Desire was aware of A and Alamahn some ways behind us the whole way down. A group of 6 riders were in the water when we got there and I was determined that we were going to stop, drink, eat, take a breath. Desire gets so driven and focused, while she is doing what I want her to do pace wise, she can have a hard time just stopping and taking a breath. Shocking for an Arab, right? Harhar. Still, I was determined to get more food into her on this ride, even if it was just handfuls of grass and bits of carrots along the way. She eats well at camp and holds but I wanted her eating more between times, especially since this ride had just one vet hold, about halfway through. I prefer that actually, more than one vet check during the ride gets tedious, but it meant a lot more consistent moving time and fewer chances for her normal eating patterns.  I carried a baggie of cut up carrots as usual and would turn her head and cram one in her mouth once in a while, and she was enticed by the grass here and there, especially if I picked and hand fed it to her.

River crossing

 Snacking on the grass, but always watching and listening

 There they are! She knew A and Alamahn were coming

 Cooling down

 Out of the water, up a hill, and away!

 After the river crossing we were moving out on some of the most fun trail I have ever ridden on. Perfect footing, shady single track, winding along above the river. Desire put on her power trot and we just flew, I couldn’t help but laugh with delight. We only slowed to cross the “swinging bridge,” there was a sway to it and Desire was a little snorty, but we rode across it no problem.

 A and Alamahn, more natural water

 We came back out on the dirt road and had a pretty steep few miles climb up to the vet check at 26 miles. I came across more riders on the way up and passed a few, and there was a lot of groaning about How Far and Where Is IT, I don’t blame them as they were on foot and I have been there. My deal with Desire is, haul my ass up most hills (unless she needs assistance, then see Berkeley Hill Death March) and I will walk every down hill that I can. She is quite a good hill horse and prefers to do a slow, steady dog trot uphill over anything else. I do believe she is far too ADD and directionally challenged to Tail properly, but I may be wrong. Of course our hill “deal” resulted in rather a lot of walking on my part on the ride but I was really happy with how my ankle held up, I didn’t roll it at all and it wasn’t as sore as I expected after all that footwork.

The vet check was literally on the shoulder of the dirt road we were climbing. They had sponging buckets and sponges out, a water trough, porta-pottys on a trailer, a truck and horse trailer for pulls (there were only 3 total between the LD and 50), hay, carrots, and people water. It did work out, as everyone was very friendly in the tight quarters, but the trot out space was an up and down hill and I can’t imagine it’s a feasible location for a Vet hold if their ride attendance swells in the future, as I hope it does.

At the hold Desire and 2 other mares engaged in a food swapping munch fest, complete with occasional pinned ears and squealing, but other than that typical behavior I’d say it was quite peaceful for 3 hungry, unacquainted mares. Desire *did* let anyone coming near her current favorite mash know that she would prefer them to Disappear. We vetted through with all As but a slight sore spot on her left side, under the cantle pack. I vowed to do more time on foot and slathered Desitin on the spot before re-saddling.(I know now I should have taken off the damn cantle pack, too!)

After the check we had a pretty significant climb back up a trail we had descended earlier in the day, and then some nice friendly open road to move out on.

Back out on the trail, last climb before a long descent

 35ish miles, despite the blessedly shady trails I am missing my sunglasses at this point! *squint*

 The start of a long, pretty descent to the riverbed. A nice walk

 We walked, with a bit of jogging, to the bottom of the ridge and I knew we were within a few miles of the Finish. I was feeling good, Desire was perky, and my ankle had just started getting sore when we reached the flat, which was good timing.

48ish miles, still watching and listening

 The only time I got lost on this ride was in the last mile or so to the Finish, winding through the riverbed. Desire is quite convinced she knows where we are supposed to be going and 98% of the time she is wrong. I swear if you put a marked trail and a goat path off a cliff in front of her, she’d march right for that cliff. Anyhoo the ribbons were there, I just wasn’t seeing them and my mare striding boldly (and briskly) in the wrong direction constantly wasn’t helping. All told we’re talking “lost” for maybe 5 minutes total, but I was kicking myself being so close to the Finish and lost. I heard a few others had some trouble following at that spot too. It sure was beautiful though!

 There’s a ribbon and we’re pointed at it! Yes!

 The Finish (camp) in sight!

 We finished 9th place (mid pack) in 9 hrs 41, minus the hour hold that I stayed a bit late in, I’d say we had about 8 1/2 hrs moving time. I just ran the stopwatch on my phone, no gps or mileage tracking. Desire was bright and fresh to the finish, drank deeply at the trough as we came in and had a little snooze at the trailer before accepting some carrot bribes and munching a little hay.

 I cleaned her up and took her back for the final vet check, where she got all As and looked great–except for that sore spot from the cantle pack, which was now more sore. I instantly knew, just knew, that I wouldn’t be riding Day 2. She was bright eyed and bushy tailed, but I couldn’t in good conscience put a saddle on a sore spot and make her climb more hills. The vet showed me a pressure point/stretch to stretch out that spot of her back and said to just check it out and decide whether to ride or not in the morning, and I got some encouraging words from A, but my gut told me No. Of course that evening they decided to change Sunday to an elevator ride, once again tempting me, and Desire was literally trotting circles around me on her night time walk. I was in a mental wrestling match with myself but did the stretches the vet recommended and checked her in with the vets for Day 2 that night, where I  was again advised to wait and see. I set the alarm and went to bed but I didn’t prep any gear and after about 20 minutes I got back up, turned off my alarm, and gave myself the Okay to just not ride. We had a great Day 1 and I would rather go home with a happy mare and a completion than push the issue.

Sunday a.m. Desire and Hay Mountain

I collected my ride shirt and crew bag in the very chilly a.m., said some goodbyes, and was packed up and on the road  by quarter to 9. It was a solid 5 hour drive home. Desire got in the trailer in the morning in 40-something degrees in a fleece blanket and by the time we were home it was afternoon and 95 degrees, but she hauls like a champ and was happy to be home and devouring yet another giant mash.

Sheza and the mini had an escape adventure early this morning I was told, and they replicated it for me when I was putting Desire away. Because what you REALLY want to do after riding 50 miles and then driving for 5 hours is to herd a squirelly filly and mini back to their pen in 95 degrees *eyeroll*

At least it’s never boring!

 The joys of packing into an 80s Miley 2 horse straight load…but it works!

Georgia’s little doggy sweater is packed, 3 blankets for the horse, and endless goodies. Stopping for gas, ice, and a few groceries early a.m. and Trinity here we come!

 The judging itself was fun, easy, most people had great success at dragging the log from cone to cone and soon it was afternoon, hotter than ever, and time to hike back. I made it the first uphill mile and rested in the shade at Obstacle 1 with some other volunteers, then a fellow BITS volunteer showed up on faithful steed Emmy and offered me the reins. Yup, I was that desperate, I broke my always-wear-a-helmet rule and dragged myself up in that saddle and sidled nose to tail behind the ACTHA riders back to the trailhead. Bless you Emmy.

 I had a wonderful case of heat stroke on the drive home and into the night, and was just out of that yesterday morning to take a quick 7 mile ride up the ridge on Desire. I had to go down a size on two of her boots with the fresh trim but the boots I chose all stayed on just fine and she feels fit and ready for Trinity.

Now hopefully her rider will be, too! Must get over this wisdom tooth baloney and get myself organized for a big weekend!