Brisk rides

First day of June was unseasonably hot.  We promptly aborted our plans for a 3pm trail ride (90 degrees at the barn) and postponed til 6, by which time it was warm, but not painfully hot.

We proceeded to make exceptionally good Haflinger-time out to the Deck and back, trotting the vast majority of the uphills & flat sections, and even keeping a reasonable walk from Fetti on half the downhills.  6.61 miles, 4mph average accounting for the 10-minute walk/snack/blue heron photo break on the way home where I paused the tracking.  We had just had a conversation about how we were making excellent time, and then OH LOOK, LOOK!  One does not ignore blue heron photo opportunities!

TrackMyHack, on the other hand, tells me we went 6.36 miles at an average speed of 3.66mph.  Still quick by our usual standards, so I'll take it.  Plenty of pony left at the end, and we arrived home with just enough light to see the last section of trail.

Thursday's ride was equally brisk, but I completely forgot to start the tracking until we'd finished the first flat section, so it doesn't quite show.  I went out with a friend and her Pony Club/eventing horse, who's still fairly new to the trails, but likes to GO!  5.35 miles (so the tracking missed the whole first flat mile), 3.87mph. We trotted/cantered just about everything that wasn't downhill, threw in two hand gallops for fun, and aside from Fetti lying down in the river and wanting to roll, both horses were actually quite well-behaved.

Sunday was a first trail ride for another Haflinger rider, so we stayed slow to not bounce her to death. 6.27miles (same loop as the previous two rides! all depends on where exactly I start the tracking at), 2.99mph, just over two hours.  Mostly slow jog, then walked the last two miles or so home.  Pony was polite and plenty forwards, even giving me a real walk down the later hills where she was in front & headed home.  I'm frustrated by the lack of consistency there, and really hoping I can get some answers this morning.  (In front and headed home mean that I have a maybe 30% chance of a Real Walk.  Otherwise, I think it's closer to 1%.)

Biting the bullet

Thursday afternoon after the pony's massage, it was too windy to ride - and to be honest, I wasn't highly motivated, and I was willing enough to settle for a pleasant bareback ride around the barn. Definitely lifted her back more, but beyond that could not tell much in the way of improvements.

Friday it was dark. Ponies got dinner and I went home.

Saturday.. Saturday morning, I figured I'd head to the barn and get a nice brisk ride in, see how Fetti was feeling and what sort of improvement there was.  Instead, my five-minute drive to the barn was a ten-minute drive with detours and without clear confidence I could make my turn onto the barn road due to the local Memorial Day parade.. which just so happened to be going on at that time.  Sigh.  Back home I went, to check the times & route and see what time I could safely head back over - and what do I find but a reminder that oh yes, the Civil War reenactment is going on Memorial Day weekend!  Complete with cannons!

I mean, I don't know about everyone else's horses, but I'm pretty sure Confetti is Not Okay with cannons going off a half-mile away when we're in the middle of the generally-fairly-normal woods.

Called, found out the approximate cannon/battle times, and postponed my barn time til late afternoon.  Sigh!

It worked out well, though.  We went on a lovely 9-mile hilly ride, and I had a horse that could really walk down hills.  She wasn't quite keeping up, but we were five steps behind at the very end of the downhill, rather than five steps behind every twenty steps.  I wasn't micromanaging and asking her to sit back on her hindquarters. It was a nice, comfortable downhill walk.  It was awesome.  I was thrilled.

Unfortunately, it didn't last. Within five days of the massage, Fetti was back to mincing her way down hills. Tiny step, tiny step, tiny step. Clearly I was not imagining things on Saturday.

Part of our major challenge with speed is how slow all of our downhills are.  Either we're trotting down and she gets no break (and I get no break!) or we're slooooowly walking down.  It's not any better when I'm off and walking her.  If anything, my horse is slower down hills than I am, and I'm pretty slow going down hills.  Switching saddles has not had an effect - same problem in the English saddle, and I would anticipate the same problem bareback.  We are so slow going down every single hill that we pretty much have to power-trot everything else to make up the time.

Confetti is 17 this year.  I am looking seriously at hock injections.  I don't think I'm using them to push her past her ability level; I think I'm using them to attain a baseline of comfort that probably isn't quite there at the moment.  (We completed a 25, albeit barely, last year. I think we can complete with slightly more grace in the future.) The massage therapist said it's likely that the movement limitations in the hind leg are caused by a combination of muscle tension and arthritis.  I'm inclined to agree.

The vet will be out on Monday. I initially thought I'd postpone til after Fireworks when I had more time - but I have a free week and I might as well make the most of it now.  Hopefully, he'll have some insights, suggestions, and we can get something done to make the princess move more comfortably down hills.

Spoiled pony

I will be the first to admit that I'm not always calm, rational, and sane.  I have been blessed with a pony that (knock on wood) has made it to 17 without any major health issues, is sound barefoot on most of our usual trails, trailers nicely, and has excellent ground manners most of the time.

When she started doing an odd muscle-twitching/kicking sort of thing with her hind leg after some rides, my pony-massage gal got a frantic email asking when she'd be able to make it out.. two months earlier than planned.. right in the midst of the show season starting for all her regular clients.

Bless her heart, she found a spot a week or two later to fit us in - and we're way out of her usual client range, a good hour away from her home base - despite the fact that Fetti's kicking doesn't seem to have presented itself much at all since the email.

The verdict:  Lots of poll tension, which is totally normal and not to be concerned about.  Slightly sore right (I think) scapula.  Could stand to gain a few pounds.  Otherwise?  Pony looks good.  In light of the mincing downhill, I asked about range of motion.  Front legs: excellent.  Better than six months ago, actually.  Left hind: not great.  Right hind: pretty good. 

That does explain the tiny downhill steps.  If she can't physically keep up with the left, there's no sense taking big steps with the right.  My wonderful massage therapist gave me some stretches to do before/after rides with Fetti, though I'm not to expect major improvements immediately.

So.. previously, on Tuesday she got the day off due to a delightful windstorm blowing branches down.  I was very proud when she merely flinched at the noise, but not dumb enough to point her out on the trail after that.  Thursday morning was her massage, and in the afternoon we wandered around the barn bareback with a few spurts of trot.  Saturday will be our first Real Work in just about a week.


For extra bonus fun, I locked my keys in my car at lunch today.  I am SO ready for a good trail ride to clear my head and make the world better again.

Heat training

Heat: the pony's major issue this year.  Unfortunately, it may be mine too.

On Saturday we went out in the late afternoon/early evening to Waddell Creek.  We tried a new trail with some substantial elevation gain/climbing and not a lot of breaks; Fetti was willing, albeit not thrilled and not flying up.  Of the other two we were with, one was slightly less fit and needed a few breaks, and the third is a distinctly Downhill Horse who does not like uphills in any great quantity.. of which we had quite a bit.  There was a lot of stopping involved to convince him to keep going, and frankly he was probably too out of shape for the amount of hills we were doing.  We didn't quite make it to the top, but got close enough for a few halfway decent photos, and turned around to head back down the steep trail.

It's trails like that I feel like I should be able to get off and walk her down... but I know that I have a tendency to twist my ankle even in my Terrains.  Steep downhill with not-solid footing and nothing remotely flat?  I would be asking for trouble, and then I'd have to get back ON the horse with a sore ankle.  I'd happily jog her down solid-packed or dirt roads, but anything trail-like, she gets to carry me down.  When there's that much downhill, too, I don't get to complain too much about how she does it as long as it's safe and we stay upright.

8.81 miles.  She was a bit tired at the end - a lot of straight up and straight down without much in the way of breaks - but was plenty willing to go.  3h10 / 2.78mph, so nothing brisk, just.. a lot of hill all at once.


Sunday morning I thought we'd head out for a quick ride to the Deck and back.  Weather forecast said a high of 78.  Tacked up, hopped on,  headed out in the heat of the day.. and found that I had a pony decidedly unwilling to do a brisk trot unless I pushed hard.  I did ask for some work on the way up, and with the heart monitor attached, waited for her pulse to drop to under 70 while walking (I'd love under 60, but acknowledged we were walking up steps/a hill at the time) and waited.. and waited.. and stood in the shade.. and waited.  Pony got tired of standing in the shade eating and started walking ahead; HR still in the mid-80s.  We walked most of the rest of the three miles, and it was STILL really hard to get her heart rate down.

Mid-50s at a walk is excellent for this horse.  I'm not sure I ever really see much lower than that when moving - maybe every once in a while, but certainly not often.  Working trot is anywhere from 80-120.  Canter I'm not coordinated enough to look at the watch while keeping her going and keeping a decent position!

Our recoveries apparently need major work.. so the heart monitor is back on for every solo ride I'm doing.  I'll pull out some squirt-waterbottles to try to cool her off, sponge her in every stream crossing, and cross my fingers we can get enough early speed to not be doing our final pulse-down in the mid-day heat for Fireworks...

Slow, slow steady miles

This has been a Slow Week.

Following Saturday's traumatic ride and Sunday's vaguely redemptive one, I actually did manage to make it out to the barn on Monday.  Even better: it was still light out when I arrived!  It didn't really qualify as an actual ride, but we meandered around the barn (bareback) with occasional spurts of trot when I could convince myself I wouldn't die trying to post the trot.  Lesson learned, my work pants have an inner seam that is awful for my inner thighs with a bareback pad and a bouncy horse.

On Tuesday we dismantled a very well-built trail obstacle that should never have existed in the first place - ARGH! - and proceeded to have a discussion about how yes, indeed, we could go forwards on the trail without another horse.  Other than the handful of mini-rears, attempts to spin, and refusals to get in front of my leg (the last of which were met with 'okay, let's go canter ten strides then!'), we pretty much just walked three miles or so.

Then I went back to the barn, switched horses and tack, and hopped onto Fetti's mother with a nice cushy bareback pad.  Nice, bombproof, predictable pony; one very sore Fig, ninety minutes of mostly trotting later.

Wednesday, another two miles or so in the not-quite-dark.  Medium jog speed for most of the ride.  Life is always better when I can get off work, get to the barn, and get on my pony.

Thursday had big plans for trail exploring and timing and all that, and then morning errands went several hours later than expected, my trail riding partner for the afternoon wasn't able to make it out after all, and I ended up heading out solo.  The goal: intervals.

Five minutes into the ride, with Fetti giving me a lovely medium all-day trot, I promptly revamped that into goal: maintain trot as much as possible.  Mostly, I have a Big Trot or a teeny-tiny walk or a resentful trot when we're out by ourselves.  We can do all sorts of speeds with other horses, just not alone, so to get a nice all-day trot was really, really impressive.

So, we trotted.  We trotted the flats.  We trotted past a few people (they were stopped, anyway), walked past a dog & her person, cantered once or twice for good measure, stopped and stared at the place where the deer had leaped out from earlier in the week.  And then we trotted, and trotted, and trotted some more.  I really wish I'd had the heart monitor on her - I'll have to do that sometime next week.  A few times she said she was kinda tired heading up hills, so I'd push her to the mid-point or the top of the hill, take a walk break for a minute or two, and we'd head back into that nice easy trot.

The other major difference on this ride was that I started asking her to trot down some of the hills.  Fetti has a full-blown pony walk most of the time.  It's not even noticeably better when I get off of her, she just walks reaaaally slowly.  It seems like I need to give her real walk breaks at her speed during rides.  If that's the case, however, we are going to have to make up time somewhere.  Mincing down every hill at a tiny walk is simply not going to do. 

She does have to sit back and do a collected trot going down, though; I'll haul on her face and make her walk/back up/collect/something if she starts plowing down on her forehand, because that just sucks for both of us.  It's still tough for her, and she can't sustain it for every hill, but the pony's trying now!  Whether it's dumb or knowing terrain or what, I'm also asking her/letting her trot down some of the sets of steps.  She's awfully uncomfortable at a walk, it's not any worse at a trot, and the same general concepts apply - plus, at least once she took herself back to a walk after some particularly jarring trotted steps.  Good mare.

6 miles. 1h 22min. 4.34mph - without pushing her forwards into a Big Trot at all, and with a water/sponge break halfway through.  Very, very pleased.

Sometimes I feel like I'm breaking my horse.

I think it's a common fear, the worry of doing too much/too little/the wrong thing/etc.  Throw in a dose of anxiety, first-time horse-owner, and atypical endurance breed?  Some weeks are a lot worse than others.

 Friday was a short loop, 2 miles at a slow jog. 3.17mph.  Not much, I figured.

Saturday we headed to Wilder.  I was quite pleased with her for the first half of the ride.  Forwards, rateable, generally willing and polite.  Frankly even til Twin Gates she was good through the gravel.  Then?  Tension under my leg, a reluctance to trot down hills (from the mare that DELIGHTS in trotting down hills, much to my usual dismay), forwards when I pushed a bit and then she'd just plain quit.

I hopped off, walked, and spent the next mile thinking that I had broken my horse. 

My working theory finally became that she must have to pee.  I knew she had peed around noon when I first showed up at the barn.  At this point, it was past six.  I was reasonably certain she had not peed since then.  Normal horses would just stop and pee, but in the past three years, I think Fetti might have peed with me on her once.  Maybe.  99% of the time, she holds it til we're home.

Whenever we'd stop for a minute, she'd just drop her head to graze.  Pony would reluctantly walk.  Engage her hind end? No thank you.  Trot on? Not interested.  She wasn't lame, wasn't short-striding, was definitely heavy on both fronts but that was about it.  That last four miles probably took us an hour and a half, even once I got back on and kicked her forwards.  There was really nothing I could do other than point her at the trailer and hope she figured this out eventually.

Sure enough, pulled tack, loaded up, and when we arrived at the barn, just a bit of pee in the trailer.  Put her in her stall and she peed a TON immediately.  Sigh.  I'm glad that's all it was, but I have no idea how to deal with it.

I read somewhere that if a horse won't pee on the trail, you just haven't taken them on a long enough ride.  If that's true, I'm in trouble.  That was the most miserable two hours on the trail we've ever had to do.

Total stats: 14.1 miles. 3.4 mph average - not bad when you throw in a broken rein clip, a very reluctant forwards, and a TON of walking.  4 hours, 10 minutes.  Conclusion: we can indeed get to Wilder in 4 hours with those two ponies.



I rode again Sunday, partly because I was so frustrated with the second half of Saturday's ride, partly because I wanted to make sure she really did feel okay.  Took a junior and her borrowed horse and we went to check on a previously-blocked trail.  Trail was not blocked!  Through the river we went.  Neither horse was particularly forwards, but we weren't really inclined to ask for an awful lot, and in fairness it was still reasonably warm.  Fetti was probably a bit tired from Saturday, the junior's horse had probably never done that many hills and miles in one ride, at least not in several years.  9.5 miles, 2.84 mph, walking the vast majority of it.  3h 20min.

Modified Intervals

Yesterday's ride was originally going to be a nice long ride at a moderate speed.  I figured I would have plenty of time and daylight.  This was rapidly aborted when I discovered I had maaaybe three hours of proper daylight by the time I arrived at the barn.  Instead, we did intervals per Mel's suggestion, with a few modifications:

Pony is not allowed to trot down (most) hills.  Exceptions are made if she's polite and collected, but presently, not often.  Pony is instead asked to do a collected walk down hills, and speed is thus utterly appalling on any substantial downhill section.
We have approximately a mile of mostly-flat trail, and it is heavily populated by hikers and dogs.  Generally, we walk past hikers; it's good basic trail etiquette, although terrible for our overall speed.  Once there are hills and elevation gains, there are far fewer hikers - but far fewer flat sections of trail.

Yesterday's ride consisted of a fair bit of cantering, a lot of big trot, and interspersed walk breaks primarily on the really long/steep uphills or the downhills.  I was particularly pleased with how willing she was to go, and how willing she was to leave other horses - we passed two familiar geldings as we were heading out, and there was absolutely no hesitation about doing a Big Trot once we were past.  Good mare!  Overall: 5.41 miles, 1h 14min. 4.38mph.  I quit tracking prior to the last half-mile home; at that point we caught back up to the geldings again and settled for walking home with them.  Given that's a nice flat section of trail, I think we likely would have averaged 4.5mph had we kept going alone.

I was not running a heart monitor on her for the ride.  That's on my list to do for this upcoming week!  Mostly, if she was willing to go, we went.  Verbal or tiny leg cue would usually have her launching into a Big Trot or occasional canter.  If it didn't, and I thought it should have, I'd ask with a little more leg.  Wouldn't go still?  We'd walk another 30 seconds.  She's pretty honest about how well recovered she is.

Pace context: for Tuesday's ride, we had our running buddy with us for most of it. 6.71 miles. 3.2mph, 2 hours.  Pretty much the same trail, minus an extra loop and the non-tracked part of Thursday's ride.

If we can get out tonight, the goal will be SLOW pony-jog speed for a short loop.  Sometime this weekend, a longer ride where we aim for a moderate pace (and the pony learns how to do a normal trot for awhile by ourselves). 

Other goal for the weekend: trail and pony photos!