Well I’m up way too early but we leave today around 10 for Cache Creek Ridge Ride. The current forecast is 79 degrees for tomorrow, race day, and cooler Sunday. Considering its supposed to be 87 today, I’ll take it! I’ve got some anxiety about the heat but off we go to do our best!

Not a full bath, as I was holding Sheza on halter and lead rope while hosing mom. We don’t really have a safe place to hard tie Sheza. We have two “stalls” (made with pipe) with cross ties. I only hard tie when I am out with the trailer. Its a conundrum! I should call the last owner and ask where she taught them to tie when she was training. Anyway Sheza was very mellow while I hosed mom. Mom stood with legs slightly straddled, breathing with great concentration as if waiting for the hose to eat her. But she didn’t jump or do anything silly, just tried to remain calm and by the end of it she seemed fine and didn’t mind the squeegee. Filly just sort of stood there and watched what happened. She didn’t like the light spray I put on her little hooves! Definitely time to do a first bath soon. She is already so big and strong! Three weeks old tomorrow and she looks like pure muscle!
This was, by the way, the first time I had hosed Desire at all. She arrived in January and it hasn’t been nice enough yet. She was very wary of the concrete cross tie area when she arrived, and with only a few exposures to it already tolerates it quite well. Today was really the acid test as I don’t know the mare that well! I know her in that I spent every day scratching on her and hanging out with her, but not as a working horse. I was thinking that I may have been the last person to saddle her, back in November in Utah??? Could be…they realized she was pregnant not long after I was there. I dunno..regardless she hasn’t been saddled in months and hadn’t been bathed. So it was sort of thrilling that she just accepted it and sort made herself remain calm. Especially with little filly just standing there.
I have to admit, I’m nervous about riding her for the first time when its time! Thanks to my leg-breaking incident that moment of swinging up and sitting in the saddle on a new horse now makes me VERY tense. I used to love the challenge but now I have a serious moment of “OH HELL NO.” So that is something to think about..maybe I will have Barbara come and at least hang out with me for the first time, talk me into, haha. Ah, to grow up and gain fears.

I title things like that so I remember to write everything and don’t get caught in my own meandering rambling. Okay, distracted already. So. Cache Creek Ridge Ride is this weekend, Saturday May 7th. We leave day after tomorrow, Friday. I think we are a little less than two hours from ride camp. We drove by the Hwy 20 and Hwy 16 intersection last week so I have an idea where it is, which is nice. I am getting a little worried, because its suddenly very warm. We have been training in about 50-65 degree weather and suddenly today its 85. Other than today’s little ride and Sunday’s speedwork he hasn’t worked hard in heat this year, and now its time for 25 miles. So I am going to try to be very, very cautious. He has been eating his super fiber wet mash (rice bran, beet pulp, salt/mineral supplement, handful of sweet grain to entice) morning and night for the last week and a half and seems to have a good appetite and be drinking well. I scrubbed the troughs today and I think he came to drink more often..he really does seem to prefer very fresh water. He looks GREAT! Shiny and muscular. I bought this season’s fly masks today and had a little rodeo round up trying to get the mare’s on. I tried to put it on her loose in the paddock and she felt it on her ear and took off. I finally haltered her and put it on and she seemed totally okay with it. So who knows. The fuzz on it is this lovely cerulean blue..ooh tack that color would be fabulous! Actually I have a spare bridle I have never used in that color. ANYWAYS. Worried about the heat. We’ll see. Got my solar showers and camel pak today..water water water on the brain.
So, that’s Heat. Now pants..well. Trying to figure out what I can wear and get away with for riding on hot days. Breeches and half chaps get SO hot. But my skin seems to be very sensitive and my saddle cover is already so worn and crushed its not even soft, its actually kind of rough. I don’t know how a soft cover is so hard, but it is. Wish I knew a way to fluff it up or something. But I’m not supposed to wash it. So, first I tried these short bicycle shorts..about one trot circle around the arena and the shorts had rolled up and were just about flashing my yoohoo. Um. No. I tried exercise pants that stop at the knee and that seemed to work, if I wrap vet wrap around the spot on my calves that rub on the bottom of the flap of my saddle, where my half chaps rubbed my saddle cover into hard nothingness. I don’t know if I should attempt this for the race. I might REALLY regret it. But its going to be really hot in my full get up. Uggghhhh. I can’t decide. I just suck at dealing with heat…though I have noticed that just wiping the sweat off my fore head makes me feel waaay better. I don’t know why.
Anyways..neighbors. First of all, my neighbor who is a “horse trainer.” Fancy little business cards at the feed store and everything (okay, I know that isn’t that hard to do). But seriously, this lady is nuts. Not only does she ride a horse and pony another down the paved roads here (narrow, windy, no shoulder, people drive like lunatics), she TROTS down the paved roads. Now, we know this isn’t good for the horses legs in the long run..or at least, that’s an educated guess. But I don’t know HOW she does it without the horse sliding out and killing them all. Blaze literally slides like he is on ice when he walks downhill on pavement. I cannot imagine trotting down it. Anyways, there are lots of other worse stories of this woman’s lunacy but I’m tired and don’t feel like relating them. On to the other neighbors: Dead pony in neighbor’s field! Its a big pasture with no house alongside it and just a bunch of horses, I’m assuming someone rents the space for the horses. The house across the street, no one was home. But a white pony was dead in the field. I could see its legs sticking out stiffly, there was no way it was sleeping. Very weird! And disturbing.
Okay, that’s it for this post…I’m beat.

Leading lessons have been going well and I have noticed Sheza sticking her head out the gate more and more often and looking curious about the outside world so I decided this warm, beautiful evening would be the perfect time for a first walkabout outside the paddock on halter and lead rope. First we made some circuits around the paddock with mom just trailing behind, loose. Then we practiced picking up all four hoofs which Sheza did great aside from a couple leg thrusts which are to be expected. I haltered mom as well and we headed out of the paddock. Sheza didn’t want to walk through the gateway so we reverted back to the pulling contest for a minute but she decided it wasn’t worth it and came through pretty quickly. Mom went straight to mowing the grass as fast as she could which left the filly to check things out. I led them onto the concrete and into the cross tie stalls just to let them check it out. Mom has always been suspicious of the concrete and I figured Sheza should get used to it at an early age. Momma D of course was more wary than the filly! Sheza stepped right onto it like it was nothing. Then we strolled around the yard and the filly had a little sniff stand off with the dogs while mom tried to push in and was running her lips all up and down the filly. It was funny, like she was trying to make herself feel better this was still her little filly despite these new developments. A nice polite walk back to the paddock, everyone stood nicely to be unhaltered. It was a great end to a nice day!

Did a speed workout with ole Blazey today. The loop that goes around the horse camp at Lake Oroville; it has taken me up to 4 hours to do this loop, when riding with a couple other people that are mostly weekend riders and like to meander. Today it took me just over one hour. I trotted and cantered the whole way except walking the first and last half mile or so. It was just over 6.5 miles. Sometimes when I am looking at my time and mileage on my wrist GPS and coming up with averages I can’t quite figure how I’m going jam and complete LDs (the only rides with I’m concerned with at the moment) in any time other than the 6 hours. But I know that is just being OCD on my part, before I had the GPS to stare at and be vexed over I top 10’d 30s a couple of times and finished in the middle of the pack as well, so I have already done it multiple times and can again. Whiskeytown was just such a difficult, rocky ride. I am extremely interested in seeing how the trail, time, everything compares to it next weekend at Cache Creek Ridge Ride. Going into races never having done the trail and unfamiliar with terrain is a pretty interesting experience; sure it will be nice to be going back to these rides next year knowing what is in store but its pretty exhilarating to just pack up my gear, little horse, and husband (yay for him!), and head off to ride 25 or 30 miles competitively in an unknown spot! I know it will only get more exciting as I get more rides under my belt. And get to start riding momma D again! And and..well my horse life is just exciting and full of potential right now!