Lesson learned: longe first!

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

Work has continued to be busy and I haven’t been getting in many Real Rides.  Actually, I’ve been missing a weekday entirely most weeks.  The good news is that things should settle down now.

I know that Confetti is in good shape.  I know the dynamics between her and her sister.  I know she hadn’t been out in four days, and even then she wasn’t tired at the end.  Thinking about it now, our trail ride total for the past two weeks probably totals 3 or 4 counting yesterday’s ride.

It was, for the most part, really lovely.  I tacked up, hopped on, met up with Fetti’s sister and rider, headed out for a brisk ride of a mile/mile and a half.  We were short on daylight and decidedly not short on pony energy.  Brisk trot on the way out, one spot where she cantered up the hill.. I should have taken that as a sign.  I should have longed her first, honestly, but it’s always so much easier to see that in hindsight.

When we turned around, I had a bit of a firecracker on my hands.  She was mad at me that I wasn’t letting her run home.  I schooled downward transitions as a way to keep things under control – trot politely a bit, back down to a walk if she started pulling.  It’s that balance between letting her move out a bit and controlling the dragon inside.  Also in hindsight: I know she walks home perfectly well 99% of the time.  I knew what I was dealing with and I probably should have made her walk.

She threw a buck or two shortly after we turned around.  Pony was irritated and making a point.  Yelled at her, trotted off, fine.  I don’t like it, but I know she’s doing it because she wants to move out.  Quarter mile later and over halfway home, I think I asked for another trot-walk transition and she did it again.  Except this time had more energy and frustration to it – two ‘polite’ bucks, the third that (I’m told) made her look like a rodeo bronc.  I stuck the first two.  I did not stick the third and I’m not actually sure that I could have.

Side note: I know the theory that they can’t buck when they’re going forwards.  In this case, she’s bucking because I’m not letting her go forwards.  It feels like it would be rewarding the bad behavior to send her forwards at a brisk trot or canter.  That’s what she wants!  I also know that she was previously trained out of bucking.. by getting her to bolt instead.
Two things become clear from this incident.  One: she does not rate well enough headed home, and that gets substantially worse when leading other horses.  Two: I absolutely cannot give her four days off in a row and expect to just hop on for a pleasant trail ride.  If I give her four days off, we need to be going out for several hours, not 30 minutes, and it probably needs to be solo so we can keep up a pace that works for us.

Unfortunately, going over her head meant my usual falling skills were a bit challenged.  My shoulder took the worst of the impact and for the first time in years I hit my head with enough force to immediately know that a new helmet was going to be needed.  No concussion, no broken bones, no blood.  Everything was moving, mostly, although my shoulder is still screaming at me the next morning.  (Getting it looked at to confirm that it’s all muscle/soft tissue damage is on the agenda for the day.  I may or may not go for a few hour trail ride first.)

The thing with becoming a better rider and sticking more antics is that the little stuff doesn’t get you off, so it’s the Really Big Stuff and that usually Really Hurts.  Argh!

Next goal: re-acquire a polite slow-to-medium trot home on a reasonably loose rein, regardless of circumstances.  I have a funny feeling that will get easier when I ride her as much as I was the rest of the year.  Eight miles a week rather than 25 is a pretty substantial difference.

Not all sunshine and roses

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

It’s been a rough few weeks for me, with a lot going on that means I don’t have much energy to blog, nor much time to ride.

Last weekend (okay, by the time I’m posting this, it’s been over a week!): Thursday we did a slow, mostly-walking ride with some spurts of polite collected trot.  Friday was five miles, moderate speed, excessively feisty ‘Fetti – when we stopped and let the others continue maybe 100 feet ahead so some little girls could pet the pony, our return to the group involved her hind feet going above her head at least once.  Good news: my dressage saddle was secure enough I stayed on and was more irritated than worried about coming off.
Saturday we did a 10-mile loop, moderate-brisk pace (4mph, lots of hill), and I had a lot of horse left at the end.  Sunday.. well, Sunday she got to play the part of a polite pony ride horse and go for a walking trail ride.  No real work involved!
Tuesday it was so late and so cold by the time I got to the barn that I cleaned her stall, threw her hay, and went home.
So when I got on this past Thursday, I expected her to have a lot of energy and figured we’d repeat the 10-mile loop at a slightly faster pace.  Instead, all of her energy was channeled towards avoiding work, finding things to spook at, refusing to get in front of my leg, and generally being a nuisance.  We’d get a halfway reasonable trot for 30 seconds, then she’d slow and resist and try to turn around, repeat.  It’s incredibly, incredibly frustrating when we go through this.  My feeling at this point is that a lot of it stems from not getting out on our own often enough.  If we do a solo ride once a week, that keeps her in the ‘must go forwards alone’ mode, rather than resisting because she’s by herself.  That didn’t happen this week.  
I’m not quite sure how we’ll manage that this winter.  We have these battles every spring, too, when the dam goes back down and we can get back across.  I have to fight her to get her to go by herself; I have to fight her even when I take her on the highway to get to the park during the winter.  She’d rather lose her brain and not have to work/focus on me.
I guess the good thing is that she settled eventually.  Initially, every time she’d try to turn I’d smack and kick her into more forwards.  Behind my leg?  Go faster, damnit.  I aborted the idea of trying for the 10-mile loop and cut it down to 7, knowing that we’d be cutting it really close on time if we did 10 and she kept up the fussing.  Three miles in, I quit pushing her and we just walked.  Our speed really wasn’t that atrocious, it just felt absolutely awful.  I verbally asked if she wanted to trot a few times and she politely declined, though would have if I’d said she had to.  By four miles, she knew we were headed home and we’d both had a bit of a mental break with the walking.  Things got better, she was willing to move out, I was willing to trust her to behave.  We cantered a few sections on the way home and she was thrilled with that, wanted more, but came back to a trot when I insisted.  Life felt better by then.  I just hate that it’s such a battle to get there some days.
It used to be that these were the rides where I wondered what the hell I thought I was doing with this horse.  It feels like we’re not making progress, she’s not working with me, I don’t know enough and she doesn’t like her job.  I know now that none of those are actually true – well, except for the part where she’s not working with me, that’s totally true – and I don’t get stuck in that mindset for too long anymore.  That doesn’t make it suck any less when I’m in the midst of it.  For as far as we’ve come together, there are still a handful of off days that I can’t just pretend never happen.
Okay, other good things (even knowing that I’m allowed to rant about how absolutely miserably frustrating my horse is, I can’t end it on that note!):
– We hung out near five deer for a few minutes at the beginning of Thursday’s ride.  They were split on either side of the trail and I knew we’d be fine walking by them, but wasn’t convinced Fetti wouldn’t spook if/when they went flying across the trail right behind her.  So.. we stood, and I explained to the deer that I’d really appreciate if they all picked a side and headed over, pretty please, yes you there, can you go across? I won’t get in your way if you do it now.  Good deer.  You’re thinking about it too?  That would be lovely.  We’ll just stand here and keep looking at you.. okay, fine, we’ll walk up a few steps to be encouraging.  I really would like to get somewhere today and you’re all rather in my way.  I mean, you guys, the pony and I were probably standing ten feet away from the deer for five minutes while we waited for the deer to cross the trail and I explained to them why it was important that they do so.  I’m really glad no hikers came by in the midst of that…
– I try not to put absolute beginners on Confetti very often.  I made the decision to do so last weekend and she was a saint.  She was almost as saint-like when I put the beginner rider on another Haffy for our trail ride – Fetti led the group, let me reverse course a few times to pony the other horse, stood still, walked slowly.  When the other two horses were convinced they should get to turn around, she tried to get in on that too, but we did eventually get over that.  I was really impressed by how well she did given that I was mentally all over the place the whole time.

Conditioning part two: mileage numbers

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

Originally, I meant to include this in the first post.  Oops!  It should be easy enough to write lots just on the mileage, though, so I think that worked out well.

Instinctively, I want to consider my “short rides” anything between 1-3 miles or so.  Long rides are 8+ miles.  The reality is that our usual few loops are 5-7 miles, and at least half of those don’t qualify as real conditioning rides when they’re done at 3.5-4mph.

Relevant note: tracking applications are started once across the river, generally once we’re in the park.  Any given ride has a half-mile warmup and cooldown that doesn’t get tracked, and ‘Fetti knows it’s time to move out once we’re on the park trails.  That decision came about when I was first tracking our rides, and we would frequently spend 20 minutes getting to the river even before we got on a real trail.  Made for really terrible time comparisons!  Any hissy fits happen in that first half-mile, so I don’t stress over speed or consistency there at all.

June
1-3 miles: 3 rides
3-5* miles: 3 rides
5-7 miles: 5 rides
8+ miles: 12.55 miles, 8.24 miles, 18.03 miles = 3 rides

July
1-3 miles: 2 rides
3-5 miles: none
5-7 miles: 8 rides
8+ miles: 8.17 miles, 8.92 miles, 12.50 miles = 3 rides
+ 25LD mid-month

August
1-3 miles: 6 rides
3-5 miles: 3 rides
5-7 miles: 7 rides
8+ miles: 7.89 miles, 8.40 miles, 7.44 miles

September
1-3 miles: 7 rides
3-5 miles: 4 rides
5-7 miles:7 rides
8+ miles: 13.10 miles, 7.41 miles, 11.52 miles

October LD the first weekend.

*They need a category since clearly some rides fall in that lovely gray zone of 3-5 miles.  So.. there it is.  Looking at it, I think most are probably 5-7 mile rides where I forgot to start tracking for a mile or two.

Longer rides are hard for me to do for a variety of reasons.  I tend to ride in the evenings; longer rides mean I need to allow several more hours at the barn, and mean I need to get off work early enough for that to work.  I think one of our loop-trails is around 9 miles, and is back up on my to-do list after seeing these numbers!  Also, anything much beyond that (without adding loops – probably what I should be doing) takes me out of the park and into further sections of nearby park/forest land.  There’s always a risk involved when going out solo on the horse into mountain-bike popular trails and crossing the highway.  My compromise has been to do those rides only on mornings/afternoons, when I know there will be people around if something goes terribly wrong.  That unfortunately makes late afternoon longer rides somewhat unappealing.

A handful of the monthly 3-7 mile rides are those out with friends and don’t count as real conditioning – I’d figure probably 4 a month at least.  5 in June, 6 in July, 6 in August, 7 in September – although some of those may have been rides on a different horse, too.  So with those numbers in mind, I started doing a lot more ‘real conditioning’ at speed in August/September.

Due primarily to my work schedule, I mostly ride Tuesday/Thursday/weekends.  I rode more with a week off in September, but tried to keep to lighter works (or different horses!) on our usual off days.  Sometimes another gal comes out and does dressage lessons/rides, which is good for everyone involved – same thing there, I try to ride lightly on the other days since I know she gets worked pretty hard then.

We’ll taper off the next few months as it’s muddy, then work back into it in the spring.

Looking back, looking ahead: conditioning

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

I started using MapMyHike in May this year, seriously in June, so I have nice data I can look at to see what it is I’ve actually done with the silly horse.  (One catch: I track most of my rides, regardless of what horse, so my total mileage for a week that MMH shows may be slightly over.)

I can say with reasonable confidence that I’ve been riding 15-30 miles on any given week.  I was not happy with the level of conditioning we achieved last year and wanted to improve on it, so 25 has been the rough number I’ve been aiming for this season.  Per Mel’s conditioning post earlier this year, I knew I wanted to aim for 1-2 long/moderate trot rides and 1-2 shorter/speed rides.  But.. I didn’t actually start really DOING those shorter rides until August.  Hindsight!  The reality is now that I’m getting in maybe one long/moderate trot ride, two speed/short rides, and one to two casual trail rides that don’t really qualify as conditioning, just mileage.

I think that reality is probably where we’ll settle for right now.  A qualifier:  moderate trot really ends up meaning ‘whatever the fastest speed is she’ll give me’, which brings us close to a 5mph average on longer rides.
*April rides (TrackMyHack): primarily 3-3.5mph
*May rides (TMH again): primarily 2.5-3.5mph
*June rides: primarily 2-4mph
*July rides: primarily 3.5-4.5mph, a few faster rides up to 5mph
*August rides: way all over the place! primarily (kind of) 3.5-5mph, a few faster rides as I started short/fast rides
*September rides: primarily 3.5-5.5mph, a few faster rides up to 6.6mph!
*October rides: primarily 3.5-4mph.  We didn’t ride as much this month (or I didn’t log what we did) since I knew we could start tapering off for the winter.
*November rides so far: all over the place with a bunch of not-tracked rides too.

Our flat section of trail is around 3 miles in total.  It’s pretty heavily populated with hikers, dogs, and the occasional illicit bikes; my tendency to go out fairly late luckily means that most are gone by then.  This is mostly where I’m getting the speed work (5mph+) in, with no hills involved to slow us down.  The footing is excellent and the trail is such that I can see hikers before we’re right on top of them.

3.5-4mph is reasonable when riding with friends.  I don’t generally count those as real conditioning/work, yet I have no desire to take those out of the equation.  If I were always riding on my own, I’d aim to get our lower speeds up and default into something quicker.  However, I genuinely enjoy these rides with friends, and at least one friend is working on conditioning her horse in hopes of an eventual LD!

My current goals: amp up our ‘default’ trot to be closer to 5mph.  Move our Big Trot closer to 7mph.  (Both of those on the flat-speed sections, since my perspectives are all skewed when you add hills.)

My goal for this past year was to get that 6-mile loop of ours done with a 5mph average.  When I started tracking, it was a 3.5mph average, maaaaybe 4.  Now?  Nearly 5 when I’m not pushing her for speed, 5 when I am.  Improved!

I’m going to continue to aim for 1-2 speed rides as weather permits, ideally one longer one, definitely adding that longer one in when spring comes around.  I know there’s value to riding less often.. but I know I need to hop on the pony regularly for a mental reset, so as of yet I am not comfortable planning to cut my ride days further.  Shorter rides, or just meandering around the barn?  Both totally acceptable and I will feel no guilt about not riding her harder or longer during the week.

Sensibility training

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

Meeting a helicopter is my go-to example of sensibility training.  Aarene posted about that ages ago and it’s stuck with me ever since.  After all, when would a horse ever need to deal with a nearby helicopter, especially in my neck of the woods?  Never, I thought.  It’ll never come up.  I should know better.

It’s hard to see in the picture, but there is a helicopter on the left and a fire truck on the right.

The answer is that Fetti looked at the field and stopped.  She thought really, really hard about it.  She wasn’t thrilled, but she was tolerant and once we could no longer see the helicopter, she was willing to trot on.  Good mare!

Downtime

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

It’s been quiet around here lately.. not too much to blog about.  Work is keeping me busy, we’re done with serious pony-conditioning for the year, sometime soon the rain will start and winter-mode will kick in.

For now, we’re doing shorter rides.  The evenings are getting shorter.  I’m having fun playing with speed work and sprints rather than rehashing the same trail loop three times a week.  Although with the sprints we’re doing the same section of trail most of the time anyway.. but it FEELS different.

One of my goals is to really improve our canter work.  I want to use the canter to help improve her fitness, even if we never canter in a LD.  My seat needs to improve to ride her canter when she’s not totally balanced.  Her stamina needs to improve so she can canter more than one tiny trail section or two.

Given last week’s ride, it’s time to mark that last one accomplished.  Tracking app was broken for the day, so no log.. but we cantered most of the last half-mile of trail headed home.  And a good few chunks on the trail prior to that, too.  Pony feels GOOD.  [Although a thought occurs to me: I’m not getting her turned out in the arena very much, so I think for once I’m actually channeling that energy rather than fighting it. Probably time to let her have a good run without me.]

My balance feels vastly better.  I’m weighting my heels like a proper English rider and doing it to feel comfortable, not because I think I should.  Two-point is a work in progress.  Sitting back at the canter is, too.  The knee is totally fine on a horse and mostly fine off.

Another winter goal: jog on the trails with Fetti.  I’d like to get back into C25K once the knee agrees, and at least jog the flat bits once the rain kicks in.  We’ll see how that one goes.

Taking flight

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

Yesterday, we flew on the trails.

I decided she’d had enough time off when she tried to trot away from the mounting block on Tuesday; it was too dark then for a proper ride.  Thursday would have to suffice.

You know that feeling of bubbly joy and anticipation and happiness all rolled into one?  That’s where I was when I got to the barn.  I am still on such a high from how well she did this weekend.  It was clear I’d have a lot of horse yesterday.  There were no reservations, no concerns anywhere in my head.. just the knowledge that we needed to go and do something and let her run off some of that steam.  (Okay, it helped that I knew she’d been turned out the day prior and did a lot of running by herself!)

Six miles where we genuinely negotiated on the pace.  I didn’t really push, but I’d ask; she’d offer speed, she’d ask to slow down.  Tracking shows a lot of quick bursts of speed followed by slower breaks.  It’s what she wanted to do, and I was happy enough with that.  We galloped and cantered bits of the way home even on the flat sections, or a big trot in other parts, and a walk where she asked.  No fear, no worries that she wouldn’t stop.  I’d sigh and sit back and pick up the reins and tell her it was time to slow down: she slowed down.

Pony’s come a long way from the horse I couldn’t take out by herself and certainly couldn’t canter on the trail for fear she’d take off with me.

I am so in love with this horse.

Pre-ride. Probably the best shot of her clip.
View from the trail.. nice wide open spaces.  Bit dry, though.
Happily inhaling hay at the vet check.

Back at the trailer afterwards. ‘More hay, please?’  Bright-eyed and alert!
Back at home: staring contests with deer.  Fairly frequent these days.

Right after the rain a few weeks back.  I love my forest, too, especially through these golden ears.

Fall Classic

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

Earlier in the year, a friend offered to drive me and the pony to the Quicksilver ride.  Naturally, I took her up on the offer: I’m still truck-and-trailer-less with no one at my barn heading off to rides (yet).  Be forewarned: this is a long, detail-filled post before I forget the little things.

I packed nearly everything for ‘Fetti on Thursday night. That was smart.  Not so smart: I did not pack all my stuff til Friday morning, and nearly forgot a pillow for myself at home as a result.  Oops!  Lesson learned, I need to quit procrastinating on such things.
Pony loaded well, trailered well, settled into ridecamp well – all things I’ve come to expect.  If she has a haybag, life is good.  Camp was surprisingly pleasant and breezy on Friday, despite the forecast high of 88 and calm for Saturday.  We set up a large bucket of water and bungee-corded it to the trailer in hopes that last year’s performance of knocking over water buckets for fun could be avoided.  
Good thing: she drank!  She’d eat some hay, drink some water, eat some more hay, grab some more water.  Convincing this horse that she needs to drink has been a perpetual problem, and I think we’re finally through it.  The 2″ hole haynet kept her occupied for just about six hours with two flakes in there.  Not great, but not terrible either.
We vetted in easy enough, front Renegades on, no comments.  Unfortunately, no initial pulse given either.  (Luckily, it was substantially LESS thorough than last year!)  ‘Fetti fell asleep in the moderately-long line when it was just about our turn, so I’d been hoping they would.. ah well.  I skipped a pre-ride and walked her about a bit instead.
The calm, relaxed horse got a bit lost by the time I tacked up the next morning.  I allowed myself extra time to make sure I got the electrodes and the saddle in the right place.  I fiddled with the placement of the under-saddle electrode a few times, finally got a reading, and called it good enough.  That electrode has never been a problem before.  Last year taught me that I really do want a HRM running on her, especially in the heat, so I can keep a better eye on how hard she’s actually working and taper off as soon as I think she might need it.  I hopped on, we walked around a bit, and the pony made it very clear she thought we should be back at the trailer with the haybag, not standing around with all these people and dumb fired-up horses.  We did make it over to the start at a reasonable time and with some forwards momentum.
Unlike our previous two LDs, this time I had no one in particular I was planning to ride with.  We alternated groups a lot, tried some riding by ourselves, and ended up riding with our camping neighbor for probably half of the first loop if not more – just not all at once.  I knew I had to make time in the morning when it was cooler; even clipped, Fetti’s not a horse used to high heat and that gets hard on her.  We stuck behind her for a bit, passed when I thought Fetti had a brain, and promptly discovered that she wanted nothing to do with riding by herself.  She’d go, all right, but it was a go spurred by the knowledge that there were horses in front of her! and she wanted to catch up to them!  and it was absolutely awful learning that we were not going to get a polite, relaxed walk on the trail by ourselves.
So we trotted, and trotted, and walked whenever someone ahead of us walked, and trotted and trotted and BIG POWER TROTTED some more.  I tried to keep her slow, she threw a minor hissy fit, and I decided I was not willing to ride out potentially dangerous antics on this trail.  So I rated her a little less than I had, and a lot more than she would have liked, but just enough that she mostly tolerated it.  In part, this was based on the knowledge that we had to make time, and dangit if the horse was going, I guess that’ll help us make time so long as she pulses down and I still have horse left.  Luckily, we met back up with our camping buddy two or three miles out from the check, so we trot/walk/trotted that section with her.  (I made it clear to her at the outset: you do what your horse needs to do, I’m not asking to ride with you the whole ride, I just need a horse with a brain to follow for a few minutes! and she was fine with that, and we both rode our own rides that happened to intersect fairly often.)  Oh, and somewhere in that first half of the ride we ran into ground bees.  I’m pretty sure Fetti got stung, she was clearly head-tossy and uncomfortable right after, but no worse for the wear after another mile to forget about it.
Somewhere in that first half of the ride, the HRM quit working.  I was baffled, but not concerned enough to try to fix it given how impolite the pony was being.  I walked her in to the vet check at pony-walk speeds, pulled tack and gave her a couple minutes to drink, and at that point she was down to 60.  Just about 13 miles in, 2hours 40 minutes.  (In hindsight, my tracking shows it was closer to 13.5 miles, but I forgot to turn it off until she was all vetted in with alfalfa so I’m not exactly sure).  I looked for wires once everything was off the horse – and discovered that one of the HRM wires was entirely gone.  That explained a lot!  Unfortunate, but okay, I rode this last year with no HRM, I will make do.
 Unfortunately, our camping-buddy’s horse got pulled here.  Also unfortunately, I was a little fuzzy on where exactly the trail was supposed to go immediately out of the check.  It’s likely a sign was moved or relocated or something after the ride started.  I kicked and swatted the pony out of the gate.. started trotting along.. looked at the map.. sighed and reversed to ask where the heck I was supposed to go.  I probably left the check five minutes after officially leaving the first time, following two bays for the first little loop until I could get my bearings back.  I sent her ahead of them after a bit, and eventually caught up to two local-ish riders, one of whom knew the trail.  I think I ended up riding with them for pretty much the rest of the ride.  I knew timing was going to be close, I wasn’t sure how much trail was left, and they were doing enough walk breaks for me to be comfortable with it.  When they got off and walked down a long hill towards the end, I got off and walked at pony-speed.  Hopped back on at the water trough, finally got the silly horse going FORWARDS and not trying to turn around (seriously!), and trotted down another hill or two.. only to see the nearly-the-end gate and hop right back off to walk her in.
Even with pulling tack right when I got in and sponging perpetually, it took ten minutes and a spot of shade for her to come down to ‘right at 60’.  That was pretty impressive.  I still have visions of hosing down Fetti in the sun and doing everything possible last year, and it still took a good 20+ minutes for her to pulse down to 60.  I have no illusions about ever walking right in to a check and having her down, but it’s nice to have the time drop!
A barn friend found us shortly after she pulsed down and helped me move tack to the trailer, sponge her off, and even trotted her out for me – which was really nice, since my feet were hurting and my knee was a bit sore.  I could have done it, but with someone fresh willing, it seemed silly not to let her do it instead.  All A’s at the finish.  Yay!  Relocated pony to the trailer where she happily went back to inhaling hay and drinking water.  She was much less tired than she looked after Fireworks; I’m not really sure how that worked.  Total ride time minus 45min hold: just about 4h45min.
So, good things:
1. I clipped before this ride.  Forecast was for 88; when a friend left around 3 or 4 it was 91, so I’m thinking possibly even a bit warmer than that.  ‘Fetti has a lot of her winter coat already and I am SO glad I clipped.
2. Camelbak is the best decision I made for me on this ride, no contest.  I just about never had two hands free to open a water bottle, we walked a lot less than usual, I fought with her a lot more than usual.  I think I was dehydrated by the end, but I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been without the nearly hands-free drinking at the trot.  At home, if we’re riding in 90 degree weather, we have shade and river breezes.. not full sun.  That’s tough on both of us.
3. Carrots!  Funder, I remembered your suggestion last year of giving carrots on a regular basis.  Her gut sounds were a B at the out vet check, but most of a bag of carrots later, an A at the final check.. even without letting her inhale hay back at the trailer.
4. We’ve done a lot of our little 6-mile loop at home almost entirely at a trot.  I know she’s capable of trotting that much without walk breaks and won’t wilt at the end.  Tired? Yes. Exhausted? No.  We’ve never ridden this fast aside from Ride Bear last year where I know I pushed her a bit more than I should have.  I think our conditioning is finally starting to pay off.  All but three of our mile-splits are over 5mph, and I never pushed for speed, only growled at her about which direction she had to go in.  I spent most of the ride hauling on her face.  It’s a very different feeling to our usual.
5. We rode our own ride.  I won’t say it was MY ride, because it wasn’t the one I was going for.. but it was a Fig/Fetti compromise ride.  I thought it was quite dumb of her on a regular basis – but she proved she can do it at that speed even if I think she’s being an idiot, so it somewhat balances out.
6. ‘Fetti drank at nearly every water trough.  Words cannot express how happy that made me.  I had some very real concerns that she might not, and with the forecast heat, that would have been Very Bad.
7. I had horse left at the end.  She wasn’t exhausted. Her walk that evening was better than the walk the afternoon before the ride – pony feels GOOD.  I’m not at all sure why, but I’m very happy with it.
Not so good things:
1. No ride photographer. 🙁 First ride where I felt like we did particularly well, too!
2. Pony lost her usual Haflinger-brain and kicked into herdbound running brain.  We’re doing rides solo at home and she’s generally fine – but then there aren’t thirty other horses ahead of and behind us.  I know she prefers to be with others.  I can live with it being a preference.  I’m less happy with it being a necessity in her head where she will run off with me otherwise, and that’s how it felt.
3. I did not eat nearly enough, even accounting for a migraine both days (likely heat/dehydration-induced), and I absolutely have to work on that.
Overall? An absolutely spectacular success.  We’re starting to get this thing figured out!  Photos coming whenever I can get them off my phone.
** Extra bonus success: the key to fitting my Specialized appears to be.. the 1″ fitting cushions, rather than the 3/4″ or 1/2″ I have and was using.  Problem potentially solved.  Needs a ride to confirm, but looks much improved that way, go figure.

Hello there, LD gremlins!

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

Last Sunday I added the new, lovely sheepskin leather covers to the Specialized.  Yay!  Original plan was to do the 18-mile out-and-back in the afternoon to do a fullblown tack check before our next LD.  I re-adjusted the plan when I ran into two local endurance riders and ended up tagging along with them: total mileage around 12 miles, but with more trotting than I would’ve gotten otherwise.  Plenty sufficient.  Pony and I went back out on a short 3 mile ride when we returned to the barn, nothing major and very flat.  I noted that my knee was sore after all that and wrote it off to my knee flaring up a bit.

And then I got home and didn’t want to move.  My knee is frequently sore, a low-level semi-chronic thing at this point.  I don’t normally find myself limping the day after rides, though, let alone the evening of.  The next morning, going down stairs was absolutely miserable.  I have never hurt that much after a ride: the LDs leave me maybe a bit stiff and sore, but not genuinely *hurting*.

My conclusion at this point is that the added bulk of the sheepskin under my thighs (since the 18″ length does put them allll the way to the top of the leathers and under my entire leg) must have changed my position enough to add torque to my knee.  I didn’t notice anything major during the ride – I did note when I first got on that it felt odd with that much sheepskin, but again, I frequently take a mile or two to adjust into any tack changes and figured that’s all it was, just different.  In hindsight, I need to cut down the leather covers several inches so they don’t start until after the fleece Specialized seat ends.

All that said, I’m still left with a fairly sore left knee.  I rode a few miles Tuesday (definitely made it more sore), didn’t ride due to schedule conflicts on Thursday, and it’s still only at 70% or so.  I made the decision to piece my western-endurance saddle back together in the hopes that will keep things from getting any worse.  I do think I can resolve the leather cover issues and get the Specialized comfortable for me, but my knee needs to heal first.  In a perfect world, I’d take time off riding and any kind of impact til it heals completely.  It may be dumb, but I don’t think I’m willing to wait the few months that would likely take.

Switching to the western endurance is a plus primarily because it has very stiff, very bulky fenders.  The Eurolight has English leathers and allows my leg to move freely.  The fenders will force my leg to stay in one place, hopefully minimizing the odd things I do with my legs and minimizing the damage I’m doing by continuing to ride on it.  Seven slow and muddy miles today have me still sore, but not substantially worse than before the ride.  I’m crossing my fingers that holds.  It helps that I know I’ve ridden two LDs in this saddle already with no problems, so I know it won’t cause either me or Fetti any problems for long rides.  Whatever pain I get is specific to the knee and would come up no matter what saddle I’m in.

I *will* be spending the week prior to and half the week after the LD riding a gaited horse rather than Fetti, so trotting will be a non-issue and that should help with the healing as well.

Things not to do during one’s time off work

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

Generally, my work schedule lets me ride four days a week: Tuesday afternoons, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.  This month, I’m putting in extra hours for a handful of reasons and my routines are all out of whack.  It’s not great, but it is what it is and I know it’s only temporary.

Our next 25 is the first Saturday in October.  I had hoped to get in one or two good, solid long rides this month – specifically one this week where I really do have time to ride.  Eighteen miles should be a good trial run for the tack setup and let me know what I need to change, plus see how our speed has increased in the past few months – the last time we did that particular ride was in June.
Things not to do #1:  While putting up lights in my new tack room, I was a bit of a klutz and the drill relocated from the screw (intended target) to my finger (not intended).  Drill bits hurt, y’all.  Finger is bandaged up, not seriously wounded, but definitely going to take some time to heal up properly.
Monday night we went out for a brisk few miles.  Tuesday she got off.  I figured I’d work her lightly today and do our long ride tomorrow.. and then plans changed and I rode with a friend for our usual 7-mile loop today instead.  Right around mile #5, headed home and walking down a steep hill, Fetti took a funny step and asked me if we should stop; I told her she was silly and no, of course keep walking.
Unfortunate event #2:  Maybe 20 feet later I reached back to check on the crupper and discovered that actually, the crupper and the saddle were no longer attached.  The pony earned major sainthood points for that one; the crupper ring and the leather that held it to the saddle just came right off, but the crupper was still sitting on her hindquarters with the loop around her tail.  This is the same hill where she bucked me off once before in a separate crupper incident (though then it was too loose and kicked in HARD and FAST, so not really her fault).
Our local shoe repair place will sew the piece back in, and barn friends and I will then go off and attach screws to help hold it in place some more.  Unfortunately, I won’t have the saddle back til Friday morning.  I may be able to fit 12 miles in before work Friday.. but 18 is not going to happen.
Unless I manage to get off work earlier than usual in the next week or two, that 18 may not happen at all before the ride.  I know Fetti is more fit than she was this time last year.  I know our speed is doing better.  I’m just not sure how she’ll handle the distance.  I’m looking forwards to finding out.