Crupper attachment failure #4

I am SO DONE with crupper ring failures.

I had a crupper ring added to the dressage saddle in mid-April. Leather sewn and screwed into the saddle.  It held for Mount Diablo, and I was starting to be really impressed with my setup: very little forward-back slipping and thus minimal extra sweatmarks behind the saddle. Yay!

Coming home, Fetti spooked, really tucked her butt under, and leaped forward/sideways. I stuck it, no problem. (Yay!) I hopped off right after, and a minute later it was pointed out to me that the crupper was no longer attached.

Not what you want your saddle's crupper ring attachment to look like.

At this point, I'd prefer that the crupper break, or the snap on the crupper break, or something easily replaceable.  This whole 'breaking crupper rings or leather that holds crupper rings in place' is getting old.

- I replaced the crupper ring attachment twice on the Eurolight: once locally, then sent it to Texas for a second fix.

- I tore up the panels on this saddle using a leather crupper T.

- Now the leather snapped not even a month after getting the ring installed.  Damn.

Saddle shopping just moved way up on the priority list.  It could be worse: I currently have three saddles that fit the horse, even if the two with working crupper rings don't put the rider in a good position.  This is an excellent example of why I feel compelled to keep two saddles if they still fit..

Summer wishlist

I have more topics in my head than time to write them, so let's take one off the list: current summer wishlist!

My pony expenses have to stay low-budget and limited, but I am not opposed to saving for a new item if it's worth it and can't be found used.

Note the new PINK caged stirrups!

1. Caged stirrups.  These have actually been on my list for over a year now.  When my current pair started to be very-dead as opposed to dying, I called American Trail Gear and ordered their new nylon stirrups with hot pink cages.  They arrived Thursday.  I love them and have no regrets.  (I did have to punch a half-hole in the stirrup leathers since the Easycare stirrups don't compress the same way my previous pair did, but once that was done?  Perfect.)




 2. Half-chaps.  I actually went to Horse Expo last year looking for half-chaps to replace my Ariat All Around chaps - which we purchased for me originally around 2003.  I wore them for some lessons, they never fit quite right, I ended up getting tall boots instead.  I pulled them back out four years ago for riding Confetti around, and found they suddenly fit much better since my calves were larger now!
But after three years of serious wear, they're tired, they fit a little funny, and the suede is totally gone.  I bought half-chaps from Distance Depot last year; they fit even *less* well, but worked for a year anyway (they fit differently not-well, and it seemed better at the time).  I'm certainly not ready to throw the Ariats out or even give them away.  I just want half-chaps that are actually comfortable instead of mostly comfortable.
I found a pair of Ariat Terrain II half-chaps in what I think is my size on HorseLoverz, nearly half off.  They should arrive later this week.  Verdict coming later!

3. Equi flex sleeves.  I like the idea, I want them, they're not terribly expensive.  Barring other things breaking, this should be my next major purchase - hopefully before October!  Bonus: they come in pink.

Clipped pony, last October.

4. Woolback pad.  My original Woolback lost some of its stitching during a wash and is no longer useable as-is.  I'm using a Coolback and that seems to be fine with 'Fetti.  I'd like to get another Woolback, but can't justify a second pad when the one I have is working and the new ones have lost some of their quality/reliability.  If I find one used and reasonably priced, I'd buy it, but I'm not feeling the need to buy one new. 

5. Clippers.  I will need to clip for Quicksilver.  'Fetti is already starting to shed her summer coat, which means the winter one is coming in.  I will almost certainly purchase some before October.

6. Tipperary helmet - likely later this year, or whenever I take a fall, whichever comes first. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure I replaced my helmet after December's fall. I'll need to look into that.  Would I need a DaBrim visor to go with?  My Troxel's been doing fine with the standard visor; does the Tipperary have less of one?

Fireworks 2014

Fireworks 2014, 25 miles - completed!
I don't actually have a coherent ride story, just lots of bullet points and pictures.  The ride itself was generally uneventful, which makes for really boring stories.

Ride photo by Gore & Baylor.

Things that worked well:

- I did not hold her much.  I am happy with that decision.  We were able to ride a good chunk on a totally loose rein trotting down the trail, and I pretty much held her from running into other horses or running superfast down hills.

- (Unplanned, but) no HRM.  If she was willing to trot, we trotted.  If she was really requesting a walk break or if I thought she needed one, we walked.

- Leaving a few minutes after the controlled start, which I was later informed was a bit chaotic.  Unplanned, but worked totally fine.  We may go back to the idea of 'get on and go on the trail' rather than 'get on, mill around with everyone else, then go'.

- I mounted from the ground once!  Despite not doing so very gracefully, I ended up on top of the horse with no problems.  It's reassuring to know that if I have to do it, I can.

- Total confidence in the horse and that it was all going to be fine.  I kept reminding myself that last year was hard for her, but we still managed to come in (if only just) under time.  Confetti is in better shape this year.
Confetti was pretty much perfect, you guys.  Loose rein?  Sure.  Trot down all the hills?  No problem. Switchback up a very steep hill?  She paused, a distinct feeling of 'really?!', but when I asked again she hauled right on up.  She ate well all day, plus drank well at the second check and heading home (so 17 and 22 miles). 

Falling asleep in the vet line.

I got comments all weekend about how cute Confetti is, and how well she moves out, from both the riders and the vets!  The vet at lunch - an older guy-  who was excited about getting to vet 'the cute one' and 'might have to hug her' totally made my day.


Things that did not work well:

- I should have used sunscreen.  This feels so very obvious.  I even remembered to pack sunscreen, and it stayed in the bag all weekend.

- I should have put the girth back in the car after cleaning it on Thursday.  I am never quite going to forgive myself for that one.  (While other riders are helpful, when in a time crunch for a piece of tack unlikely to be found, it helps to have it within a 5-10 minute drive.)

post-ride boot appearance :(

- not adjusting the Renegades.  Cable snapped on a hind boot 18-ish miles into the ride, likely from having too much exposed.  I also had a front boot come off after a river crossing/steep uphill climb; I have no idea what's going on with that, but that one boot has been persistently challenging after that particular river crossing.

- Fetti's one flaw of the day was not standing for me to either put on a front boot or remove the other.  After nearly being run over by my own horse, I decided it didn't matter.  If the stupid horse wanted to trot home with one boot, she could damn well do so.  And we did, and it was fine.

View during the ride.  First boot to get attached.

Second boot.  If I'm pulling one hind, might as well pull the other.

Third boot - front right, the one that gives me perpetual problems.Also the only boot that was fitted snugly.

- This was the one ride last year where I gave myself human electrolyte capsules.  It was the only ride where I did not get a migraine.  Elyte capsules are going to the top of the 'must-have' list for rides.  I'm learning.. slowly.

 - For a few reasons, I never turned on GPS tracking to keep an eye on our speed.  I do plan to do that in future and it would have made me feel better about how fast we were actually going.. or not going.

- Confetti did not pee on the trail at all.  As usual.  Actually, she never peed while I was in sight all weekend.  Shy mare indeed.

Additional notes!

Our first P&R was immediately following a trot-by; she still made it down to 60 within a few minutes without any sponging or anything.  I think the vet was concerned that she was just barely down to 60, while I was very happy that she was down at all so soon!
Second P&R I sponged, parked her in the shade, sponged a bit more and let her fall asleep.  I should have been a bit more aggressive with cooling her here.  Even so, down in under 15 minutes.
Coming in to the finish she was down in about 13, and I am totally confident we could have been down sooner - I walked her over to the paddock to pull tack since it was so close, didn't sponge as aggressively as normal since the gentleman next to me had borrowed the sponge when the pony and I wandered off, and wasn't stressing about it since I knew time was no longer a problem.
I do think the HRM is a useful tool for me to know how hard to work on cooling her down, and will use it for that in the future.. but I may continue to ignore it during the actual ride.

Gear addition likely: I noted fill in all four legs post-ride.  It's likely that before October, I'll buy at least one set of the Equi FlexSleeves, aka Dixie's diabeetus wraps.

Gear change/addition needed: My replacement-stirrups still left my knees sore.  I'll be upgrading to the caged stirrups from American Trail Gear very soon.

River crossing, heading out.  Ride photo by Gore & Baylor.

Fireworks has a river crossing.  It tends to cause problems for a few horses a year; I think two horses this year pulled because the riders couldn't get them across, but I'm not sure on that.  Fetti and I went through on the way out, no problems.  We've crossed this dozens of times.

On the way back, I politely nodded and smiled at the volunteers, commented that we've done this before, tried to point her nose to the right around a rock.. and of course, for the first time ever, she walked into the rock, tripped, flailed a bit, picked herself back up, and carried on out of the river.  The poor volunteers probably thought I was nuts for ignoring them, but really?  She's always navigated herself through and done pretty well.  Sadly, the photographer was only here for the ride out.  The volunteers were our only witnesses.





This was the first ride where I can comfortably say we rode our own ride.  A novice tagged along for most of the first two loops, but when she dropped back with another group midway through loop #2 I didn't feel particularly guilty about leaving her with them (I knew one of the riders and knew the novice had been slowing down a bit).  'Fetti and I passed people when I felt we could make time, got passed on sections others wanted to go faster on, played leapfrog with various riders. Novice rider caught back up to us towards the end of the second loop.  She pulsed down first, vetted in first, and headed down the trail first when her out time hit and I hadn't vetted through - good novice :)  Confetti and I were on our own for parts of the final 'loop' heading home, catching folks, losing folks, leapfrogging around.  If there weren't horses immediately in our line of sight, she was actually quite good about settling in alone.  Big progress.  Good mare.

Private property trails.  Some wide like this, some singletrack.

More private property views.  These two photos pretty well sum up the two terrain types.

I scribbled out theoretical times for the 9/8/9 mile sections, with a P&R/possible 15min hold after the first 9, and P&R/30min hold after the 8 mile loop.
Theoretically - start time is 7am.  Arrive at first check at 8:30, out by 8:50.  Arrive at second check by 10:15, out by 11:00am.  Home by 12:30.
Reality - start time is 7am.  (We actually left at 7:05 or so and caught the tail end of the controlled start pretty quickly.  I think that probably worked in our favor, as we missed all the chaos, and all the stress was in my head!)  Arrive at first check at 8:45, out by 8:55 or so (surprise trot-by immediately into a gate & go).  Arrive at second check about 10:30 with an out time of 11:07.  Actually leave vet check at 11:28.  (Vet lines were very long and there will be changes here next year.  We were all reassured that we would not be penalized for being over-time.  I gave myself 20 minutes to get through the vet line & tack up, and ended up using probably 30 in the vet line and 7 to tack up/let Fetti drink/get back on and go.  As a result, we were moving briskly but not terribly worried about making time the last 9 miles.  This is also the section in which I had both boot mishaps.)  Arrive at finish at 1:04, pulsed down by 1:15.

Last year was just a single vet check/30min hold, so by my count that puts us a solid 15 minutes ahead of last year, and we could have easily made up another 15 if we'd been pushing at all on the way home and aggressively cooling at the finish.  I am very pleased with that.

Friday snacks, in which she is convinced the best bits are at the bottom.

Saturday post-ride.  Relaxed and a bit tired, but not exhausted!

Happy happy happy.

I'm not sure what it means that for the final CRI, her heart rate actually dropped after the trot-out.  Thoughts/advice, anyone?  Not that I'm complaining, just confused.

Planning, six days out

Sum total of things I did in June to prep for a mid-July ride: take horse for trail rides whenever she was neither sick nor lame.  Effectively tapered off Real Work as of June 1.
Total number of Real Works in the past six weeks: I think, maybe, six? And that's combined sprints and longer rides.  That's surprisingly more than I expected.

Sunday before the ride, things not recommended:
1. Boot for the first time since last competitive ride (May 3rd).  Discover that 3 of 4 boots are looser than I normally think correct - although all go on quite easily for once, so that's something!  Follow that discovery by being unable to find the bag of Boot Stuff that holds both hex wrenches for adjusting boots.
2. In digging through all the bins and boxes in the tack room (reorganized and condensed as of the last week of May), fail to find bag of boot stuff.  Instead find very-baby rats.  Remove rats from tack room and hope that their mother relocates them elsewhere.  Location does explain why the nice endurance saddle was getting chewed on for the first time ever.
3. Conclude that GPS tracking app is still not functioning correctly (as of last Thursday).  Reinstall does not fix.  Fail to find suitable replacement prior to Sunday's ride.*
4. Debate putting on heart monitor** (again, for the first time since last competitive ride).  Skip it.  Too hot.  Too much work.
5. Replace stirrups on saddle for less-squished ones.  Why not change all the things immediately before the ride?  Realize everything is suddenly very springy.***
6. Ride with the slightly-too-loose boots anyway.  Might as well see if they work.  Verdict:  very impressed with the Renegades, as they stayed on, no twisting or anything.
7. Discover that summer-coat pony has started shedding; winter coat soon to show up.
8. Continue trying to plan how horse is going to get to ridecamp. (Thankfully we're very local and I have several options if a trailer ride over does not fall into place.)


*What do the rest of you use?  Prefer something that shows average MPH, lets you view individual section speeds, pretty visual graph is a plus, free or close to it a must since I'm hoping current app will start playing nice again soon.  iPhone, not Android.
**I'll probably ride with the heart monitor at Fireworks, but use it mainly to see how she does pulsing down at checks.  My sense of how well she's doing otherwise is going to have to be sufficient, since we have not trained with it very much lately.
***Next major purchase: caged stirrups from ATG.  My year with my previous pair of stirrups is just about up, and their lifespan appears to be over.

February recap; March goals

February:
Weekly mileage is down, as expected, due to some much-needed RAIN coming our way twice this month!  Two fast rides (6.7mph), but mostly around 4-5mph.

March:
- Weather permitting, one 8+ mile ride weekly, aiming for 12-15 twice in March if possible.
- continue experimenting with Myler combination bit
- focus on riding balanced even when fighting her for forwards
- work on Confetti's confidence when taking 9 out for a solo ride


What was I saying about the rain?  Oh, right.. we're getting it now.  Not enough to flood the barn, but quite a bit of rain.

My goal for Tuesday was a brisk ride before the rain kicked in the next day, knowing this would probably be our last shot with the dam down.  As luck would have it, my Pony Club friend was willing to head on out, so we did a moderately-fast ride out to the deck (3 miles, 33 minutes, hills!) and a slower ride home (45 minutes - on par with my semi-normal) so the horses could cool off.  Normally her gelding goes even faster, but he's a bit out of shape and settled for a sedate canter/brisk trot rather than a gallop/fast canter on most of the hills.

I bought a Myler combination bit and new snap-on headstall to go with.  I was reasonably confident my halter-bridle wouldn't have sufficiently short bit attachments; that was correct.  It's frustrating feeling that I'm constantly pulling on Confetti; I don't want to be hauling on her to get half-halts when she's forwards.  The combination leaves me ever-so-cautiously optimistic that we may have found a compromise.

At one point, this WAS a running braid.  Oh, pony.

I do think I had the rawhide noseband too low in this picture.  More fiddling required.

Also: the bit came without a chinstrap.  Hooray for hoarding tendencies, where I had a pink curb chain that fits nicely!

Since Tuesday, this is what most of our rides have consisted of.  Bareback meanderings around the barn.  Good news: I can sit her trot bareback now!

Expecting similar this week, but we'll see if I luck out and the rain lets up enough to let the trails dry for a ride.