Quicksilver 2015

in which Confetti needs a babysitter-horse and we have a little more excitement than intended.

pony got a pro shot in-camp on Friday!  by Boots n Bloomers

She settled in nicely at camp and alternated napping, looking around, eating, and then ignoring her food as usual.  It would make me happier if she ate the whole time at ridecamp.  I do not think I can accomplish that with straight grass and will consider grass/alfalfa leading up to/at rides in future.

Hi-tie, haybags, shade. Luxury!

I had a few goals going into this ride:
- ride with Olivia & Nilla, get LD completions for both of us
- consider riding mid-pack, or at least not feel obligated to turtle, should the speed and attitude of the mule & pony allow for such
- acquire a baseline for 2point-tober since I needed one by Monday and wasn't planning to ride between Thursday and Monday other than during the 25.  Eep.
- have a nice, sane, sound horse at the end
- finally have a second positive experience at Quicksilver: two years of rough rides here left me ready for something different

Luxury Distance, tacking up with a bit of light

Confetti threatened to buck me off at the start.  She didn't actually buck, but I know my horse and it was not at all a good way to start.  We skipped 'politely moseying Western pony' and went straight to 'I love my horse but damnit this is not the way we do things around here'.  I should have ridden her hard the day before the ride, but I knew I was risking a migraine and opted out.. I will not make that mistake at this ride again.  There are rides we do not need a pre-ride.  This is a ride where I need to start with significantly less horse than I usually have.  Would a tiring pre-ride have fixed my issues day-of?  I'm not sure - I'm not actually convinced that it would have, but it is definitely something to think about.

I have a lot of mule tail photos. This is how we spent 90% of the ride.

So we started off by parking her behind Nilla, our friendly mule looking for a first LD completion.  We are doing something a little bit backwards here if my experienced horse is incapable of handling ride starts without a babysitter.  That said.. Fetti was pretty consistently awful at this ride.  She gets anxious about horses running up behind her; one lady practically ran into her tail a few times.  I don't red-ribbon her: she's not a kicker and in four years, folks have nearly always been polite.  She tolerates horses behind her once she knows they're there if they're close.  It's the farther-away horses, and especially the horses coming up fast and with high energy, that we have trouble with.  Riding turtle this isn't a big problem after the rest of the pack gets through.  Riding midpack, and having 50s end up flying past at the start of the ride (?! I don't know why they were so late), we had a tough time.  I pull over when people start flying up and let them pass.  It keeps all of us safer and my horse less anxious.  When they just run up and back off and run up and back off a ways, it makes both me and my horse anxious because I can't figure out what the hell they're doing.

Lots of wide open spaces.

But it's not just the horse that was running up behind her.  I'm sure that didn't help, but that wasn't the extent of our issues.  Being able to see so many horses in all sorts of directions seems to fry her brain.  Quicksilver is wide-open winding singletrack trails.  You can see horses a good half-mile or mile ahead of you at times, down the hill or across the ridges.  Confetti is a forest pony.  We rarely see other horses on our training rides and we sure don't see other horses a mile ahead on the trail - if we can see them at home, we can get there and we can catch them awfully fast.  Wild West was kind to us - forest.  Cuneo went well - forest.  Fireworks is generally fine - forest.  Quicksilver 2012 went fine with Funder and Dixie, but 1. Fetti wasn't as well-conditioned and 2. it was her first ride, she didn't know how to play the game yet.  She knows the game now and she wants to run, but her anxiety level skyrockets being visually surrounded by so many high-energy running horses.  I don't know how to fix that.

Big Trot.  photo by Boots N Bloomers, used with purchase

We made good time to the vet check, even despite grumbling at my poor horse on a regular basis.  (Sorry Olivia - I promise she's not usually that much of a nitwit.)  Fetti and I opened a lot of gates and only dropped one on the way out.  Sorry Nilla; it was not supposed to hit your nose :(  The trails were well-marked and I did not once pull out my map.  I did manage to get in a minute of two-point for my baseline, woo!  Olivia noted that Fetti looked a bit off on the last mile or so to the vet check, but it was hard to tell; I agreed, but also agreed it was hard to tell.  Fetti was moving out well and I was not too terribly concerned since it was primarily over small gravel footing.  A few ouchy steps are within her realm of normal when running barefoot.

the offending small-gravel road that her hoof disliked, heading into the check

It was not a few ouchy steps, and even I could see it when I had someone else trot her out at the vet check.  Bring her back in 15min for a recheck, see how she's doing.  Well.. ack.  I scrounged around looking for my hoof pick (and later realized it's in my other saddlebags!!) and ended up borrowing one from a kind soul at the check who had already been pulled and had a hoof pick close at hand.  I spent several minutes chipping away at the mess of rocks and dirt embedded in the offending LF and eventually took help from my boyfriend to finish it up, then did a quick pass at the other hooves that were comparatively much easier.  You could still see it at the re-check in the gravel parking lot, but inconsistently, and she looked much better, so we got the OK to go back out along with a tactful rebuke to consider hoof protection if we keep doing these rides.  Yes.. I just wanted one ride this year without having to stress over losing a freaking boot, and we had no problem over the exact same trail barefoot last year.  I will own that it's my fault, but it was a conscious and thought-out decision to skip booting her this year.  Live and learn.

Cleared to go, I quickly inhaled a sandwich, switched out my Camelbak bladder (thank you, Olivia's husband, for taking it to the check for me at the last minute!), gave the pony half a bag of grain, and gifted the leftover grain to another horse still at the check.  We were off.  Now just to get the four of us safely home, sound, for our completions.  Plenty of time, should be easy going.

That Damn Hill from last year was not bad this year with a friend.

I think we sort of moseyed our way along, trotting the flat spots, walking the downhills.  We had time.  No sense rushing anything we didn't have to. (Confetti, 15 miles in, still thought it was dumb we weren't trotting down all the hills, and up all the hills, and the flats, and and and.) We kept passing/getting passed by another pair of riders but aside from them seemed to be in a pretty good bubble.  We moseyed on, and on, and I saw a horse in the distance that registered in my brain as looking a bit odd, but being still several switchbacks and at least a ridge away, I couldn't tell why my brain thought the scene looked odd, only that it did.

Then we came upon two riders, horseless, and one rider (in the 50, going the opposite direction) walking her horse and on the phone with camp explaining that the riders had come off and the horses were loose, but everyone appeared generally OK.  I gave my full spare waterbottle to the riders and reassured them my Camelbak was plenty for me, we told them we had not yet seen their horses, but we promised to keep looking.  No sense going off trail with no idea where they had gone, so we stayed on our trail, left them, and headed on.  Suddenly we had things to worry about.  Another 50 came by and said something about seeing the horses, but didn't specify where.  We got our hopes up but still nothing.  And then, around a turn, the LD rider ahead of us with three horses: his one and the formerly-missing two.  I dismounted, handed my horse to Olivia (sorry Olivia!), grabbed the two horses and turned around to hike back up.  It's one thing to lead just one loose horse with yours.. but to lead two plus a third seemed unreasonable.  I figured Olivia hadn't ditched me yet and would probably tolerate me throwing the pony at her for a few minutes.

Hiking back, it dawned on me that I should call camp and let them know the horses had been found.  Management had given out a paper with phone numbers, so I dutifully put that.. in my horse's saddlebags.  Which was no longer next to me, since I was leading not-my-horses.  Oops.  Lesson learned: that paper needs to be on my person, or I need to save the numbers in my phone!  I called my boyfriend who was volunteering at camp.  Evidently he was busy volunteering at camp - the nerve! - and didn't hear his phone go off.  I found the number for the out-check manager and called her instead, figuring she could get the information to the right place.  Horses made it back to their humans.  I was working on the theory that if we could get them the horses they could make it home.  In hindsight, perhaps I should have stayed to make sure they could get on, too... but instead, I jogged back up trail, retrieved my pony, hopped back on, and moseyed my way into the finish, complete with calling boyfriend-at-camp again and reiterating to him that the horses were found and please let management know.  Again: smarter answer would have been to pull the paper with phone numbers out.  I evidently do not claim to be smart 20 miles into a ride with full sun.

Cows left. Water trough center. Pony ears say RUN HOME.

Except for when we hit the water trough shortly before the finish: then there was no moseying present.  We've done this ride four times now and Confetti knew exactly where we were.  Suddenly I had a full-of-energy horse who would like to go running now please.  I parked her back behind Nilla's butt for the last half-mile into camp.  Oh, pony.

As I'd expected, Confetti vetted through fine at the end, no lameness present.  Hindsight says I should have cleaned her feet prior to vetting her through at the out-check and then there would have been less stress there!  We didn't quite manage to turtle, but our horse-handling adventures took us from a solid mid-pack to near-turtle.  Oh well.  I'm happy with the thought that we could have been solidly midpack.

Overall: pretty pleased.  I had plenty of horse, she pulsed down well at the checks, and she was respectably polite if not as good as I'd hoped.  If we do this ride next year and things don't change dramatically, I expect we'll do the 50 instead - it's a hard ride for my migraines, but I might as well let her run through more of the first loop and find her brain in the second 25 miles.

Wild Wild West 2015

About two and a half weeks ago, I found myself with the opportunity to go to Wild West, a multi-day endurance ride about five hours north. I cleared it with work, sorted logistics, and sent the entry on in. Live spontaneously and plan rides on less than two weeks notice, right?  

We've never been to a non-local ride, or a multi-day, or anything longer than 25 miles.. or anything involving me camping for 4 full days and not taking my car. Good thing about only having two weeks to figure it out: not really enough time to panic about how unprepared we are.  When Fetti bucked me off, that pretty well solidified my decision that she was in plenty good shape.  I borrowed a tent and cooler. She got trimmed a week before we left, promptly went slightly lame, and recovered within a few days. I even put the front boots on beforehand, plus verified that the hinds were still intact. No spares.. the fronts were new for Mount Diablo.. but they stayed on there fine, and the hinds weren't a problem when we used them before.. so that should be fine. Bonus: Aurora would be there and could reassure me that the fit looked good in person!

We hauled up Thursday morning, uneventful five hour drive, and settled on in. Thursday was a really stellar example of why it's been helpful for me to join a local endurance club. Club member got me to the ride, another gave me extra water when it became evident the human water was perhaps not really all that evident at camp, plenty more said hello and chatted.  I actually knew people! Plenty of familiar faces.  And as always, the Haflinger fan club started as soon as we showed up. We even had someone ask if this was the Confetti that he'd bred a bunch of years ago and sent to the local Haffie lady to sell on. She's not - but I knew who he was talking about, and there is another registered Confetti, though that one is registered with an East Coast suffix.. so who knows. Barn name Confetti? Crazy coincidence there.

Briskly-paced group!

Friday, we started the 30 early and fast. We did the first 3-6 miles quicker than anything before. Clearly, I misjudged how close to the front we were! I started my Garmin late, but the first four miles were pretty consistently 9-10mph every time I looked down. Eep! 

Then there was a puddle. A few steps later she told me the boot wasn't right - so I hopped off to fix it, and we lost that group. Thank goodness! The next rider kindly offered to stop so I could hop on. We ended up sticking together for the rest of the loop, as she also wanted to pace her mare at a more sedate 7-8mph trot.

Walk breaks make for better photos.

4 boots: early in day 1. Gore/Baylor Photography

The vet check was back in camp at about 12 miles. I knew one front boot was missing (safely stowed in saddlebags). I hopped off, glanced at her back feet, and swore: two hind captivators. Zero hind shells. When? How?! And oh shit, she probably did most of the loop with just one boot, what do we do now?! Will they let us go out with fronts only? Can I fix the front fast enough?

Pony tied to trailer, I swore and grumbled and failed at fixing the boot, so we vetted through barefoot. Thankfully, the head vet said we should be fine bare for the second loop, but would want boots for day #2. One day at a time! A few deep breaths and a muffin later, we were back out on trail, minus one boot and two captivators, and even back with our friends from loop 1.

Loop 2 was uneventful and moseying. No need for speed with how quickly loop 1 had gone, so we walked a lot, trotted occasionally. A few more folks caught up to us near the end of the loop, and due to some unfortunate circumstances, Fetti ended up needing to cope with one horse spook-bolting into her.  She flinched, and squealed, and stopped, and that was it; it was probably the highlight of my Friday.  Good mare! We came into the finish with a good 30 minutes to spare. She pulsed down to 60 within a few minutes and with very minimal sponging. Good mare!

Aurora pieced my troubled front boot back together (cables pulled through, same issue as at QS in 2014), and between Mel and Aurora they granted me a set of fitting hind Vipers to borrow for Saturday. I promised to try and bring them back in one piece.

keeping up with the more motivated Sparky

Saturday, we rode with Aurora and Sparky all day in the 35. It's kind of novel to get to ride with someone you sort of know at a ride! The first hour was general drudgery: fire roads, full sun, heat early in the day, downhill. I rejoiced when it went to shady singletrack downhill, then soon thereafter gave in and hiked down - steep, steep trail. Back on at a shallow river crossing, then uphill as we obsessively checked for eight boots and requested that the pony keep walking in hopes of keeping boots on.

Midway up the hill, Fetti stopped and gave me her 'fix it' look. Damn. Front right boot shell missing. Back down the trail we went looking.. but it was not to be. My best guess is that it went over the cliff, because it sure wasn't on the trail.  Onwards then, seven boots attached! The trail finally improved into lovely trottable singletrack and we made excellent time to the vet check.

blogger photo-shoot

I was very impressed with the vets at this ride. The vet check was a gravelled parking lot. I explained to the vet that we were having another rough boot day, she might not trot sound over gravel, she goes barefoot at home and we're taking it slow on this sort of footing today. Trot out verdict: not bad given three boots and the footing, occasional ouchy steps when she hit a rock but not consistent, have a good ride! Aurora was kind enough to wait for our out-time (pony pulsed down far slower than fit Arab Sparky!), and we had a spectacularly uneventful ride back to camp, all seven boots intact.

Gore/Baylor Photography. Happy happy.

Fetti vetted through at the finish, but with the note that she was 'intermittently lame' on her RF - not surprising given the circumstances! I was super impressed that the vet remembered it was her RF prior to seeing our card or our final trot out.  Midday Sunday I trotted her out for the other vet, who thought she looked fine. It's likely she was just a bit footsore post-ride; I'm grateful it resolved quickly.

Sunday the 50s rode on the same trail that the LDs did on Friday, and some extraordinarily kind soul found one of my hind boot shells.  Made my day.

Sunday, napping.

I wish we could have done all three days, but that was never the plan and I'm happy with my decision. The pony is absolutely capable, I have no doubts about that.  She's home, obnoxious, and looks better than when we left.  

Lessons/takeaways:

- Fetti is almost certainly capable of a carefully managed 50 at this point.

- my calves are not thrilled after two days in the dressage saddle; either switch back to a Specialized or get endurance stirrups.

- consider sheepskin leather covers - even with half-chaps, the webbers are irritating after a while.

- cantle bag: total win. Very pleased. Thanks Saiph!

- 135x135 Vipers for her hinds: success.

- rasp the heck out of her front right before rides, plus take back any possible excess toe right hind
- pack spare boot adjusted for RF for any rides I think it might be needed.  

- slight bump on the right side of her back, where the electrode was placed. Drat! Not sure what to do about that.

- Equiflexsleeves: attempted on a front leg. Could not get on. Current theory is that they're too small for her feet, but may still be the right size for her legs... but her legs didn't fill noticeably if at all despite the lack of attention they got.

Rider management:
Cautious success.  I had a migraine when we hauled in, but only sinus pressure/sinus headaches post-ride both days, and did not have to take strong stuff to alleviate those!  This is the first time in two years I've made it through a ride without losing my head afterward.  I drank almost-all of my 2L camelbak before the check both days, and then again before the finish both days.

Rider food:

Chocolate chip muffins. Ate all four. Would have had more.

Cold cheese pizza. Ate three of six, gave away two.

Diced pears. Ate two containers.

Grapes: did not pack. Should have packed, at least for the first day!

Cheezits: nibbled at. Did not crave, which makes sense; this is my usual migraine-craving-salt food.

Croissants: ate four of four, but preferred muffins.

Gatorade: drank four? of five packed.

Luna bars: one on-trail both days.

Veggie burgers: ate one the first night, but then a packing flaw rendered the rest inedible. Still a good option, try again next time.

I nibbled at the potluck dinner Friday & Saturday, nibbled at the catered Mexican dinner Sunday.

Also packed:

Applesauce (will pack again in future), burrito/sandwich supplies (never got hungry enough to pull these out!), cheese/crackers, rider electrolytes (should pack again - just plain never pulled these out), chocolate/caramel wedges (did not crave, will probably pack again to alleviate sugar cravings in small package).

NATRC's Mount Diablo 2015

Friday morning, I loaded my stuff in a friend's truck and put Fetti in her trailer, and off we went to Mount Diablo for a second attempt at NATRC.  Endurance is still my sport of choice!  I had some specific things I wanted to work on in a ride setting. It was reassuring to me that if we failed spectacularly, it would not go on our AERC record.

Hoof boots.  Aurora has been incredibly patient and tolerant with the pony and I over the past few months.  Ashley managed to get the final Viper fitting shell to me last weekend, and when that appeared to fit, I rush-ordered Vipers through Aurora on Monday that arrived at my house on Wednesday.  Thursday we photo-fitted them to the horse and she talked me through switching my old Renegade captivators in for the Viper captivators.  Few more photos, a few laps in the round pen, and we called it good.
Thankfully, ride management strongly recommended hoof protection for all four, but did not require it this year.  I booted Fetti's fronts with the Vipers at 6:00am Friday morning and opted out of booting the hinds.  The next time I touched the boots was eleven hours later, after the final vetting at 5:00pm.  I don't even think I looked down at them more than twice during the whole ride. Mission accomplished. 

Ride start: try not to die. I have a lot of anxiety at the start of rides.  This is very much a Fig issue and not really a Fetti issue except that she takes cues from me.  At endurance rides, either it's been a controlled start (Fireworks) where we're trotting off with the pack, or a start-whenever where we can start at the back of the pack and walk off near-last.  Unfortunately, NATRC is timed out at 30 second intervals, and because I chose to ride in the fastest division, there would be two more divisions timing out behind mine even if I timed out last in mine!  So.. I stressed, and stressed, and even made a note in my phone about how ridiculously anxious I was, and then we walked up to the start, grazed, and moseyed politely across the start line at a walk, and kept walking.  Total non-issue.  Good pony.  Not dead.  Check.

Shortly after the start. Lots of lovely singletrack.

Find a bubble, ride our own ride solo.  This has been on the list for a while, but became a very specific goal for this ride.  I acknowledged that it would be totally okay with me if we fell in with other folks at the start (see: ride start anxiety, 30-second timed outs, etc), but that I did not want to do the entire ride with other people.  We did the first mile or two with other riders, then zipped off ahead and really, genuinely did our own thing.  We trotted.  We walked.  We walked some flats, even - in hindsight, we should have trotted there, but I'm still new to the timing in NATRC and lacked confidence.  It proved to me that her brain really was with me at the time and she wasn't just mindlessly running along.  We should have trotted.. but I did not know that, and I cannot beat myself up for that.  I'm really, really happy with that five-mile section of trail.

Happy pony, happy rider, gorgeous views.

The vet checks proved problematic for us.  In NATRC, you must remain mounted for forwards motion - so I cannot walk her into the vet checks.  Unfortunately, every single other horse in our division had a faster walk than our tiny pony walk, and we were passed (at the walk) walking into the vet checks, often leading to her jogging to keep up, and subsequently raising her heart rate.  So, really: getting passed and going back to riding alone: total fail.  This is top of my list to bring in outside help to work on (I didn't blog about it, but working on it myself last month led to bucks/bolting to catch up).

Downhill. Full sun. Not passing: see uphill ahead.

We were able to pass horses on downhills (she's an endurance pony, we trot down hills!), but there were some serious climbs and they really got to her this year.  Frankly, I really did not have enough horse to keep up with the horses we were riding with, but I did not have enough brain in the horse to back off and let her breathe.  Hill conditioning: needs work.  Not a total fail, but needs work.  We found a bubble early in the second half, but lost it when the hills kicked back in.  Unfortunately, the third P&R check was at the end of some of the worst climbs, and Fetti insisted on trotting at least part of every single climb (and we train on hills, but evidently not enough).  I watched the HRM.  She spiked to 180 at one point.  This is the horse that regularly quits on her own at 140.  These were some tough hills and I did not like her trotting them one bit.  She didn't come down very well at the P&R, plus the P&R folks had an awful time deciding what her pulse was.

Camera is pointing straight ahead or slightly up. Tough hill.

Honestly, we should have been held for 10 minutes.  I don't think we were.  I am 100% sure she was not at pulse criteria after the allotted 10 minutes for her to come down - at that point I pulled tack so I can't guarantee where she was after that, but she was still hanging around 74-76 because she'd just trotted on and off up the stupid hills to keep up to the other horses.  This should have been my mental low.  It wasn't. One of the P&R folks walked up to me and asked if I knew Funder because she recognized us, and Kristin you made my day. So instead of stressing, I chattered at her for a few minutes about what a nutcase my pony was and how little brain she had and of course she wasn't down, nope, totally not concerned.

I eventually got sent over to the vet so he could decide what to do with me; he looked at my horse screaming for the other two horses that had just left the vet check, politely refrained from making the justified comments about how awful her manners were being, and simply said her pulse was elevated now because she was emotionally distraught about her friends leaving.  Hm.  Yep.  Makes sense to me.  I still think we should have been held, but I wasn't particularly concerned about her pulse still being up, it was downhill from here anyway, you know.  We waited a few minutes for her to find part of her brain, spun a few circles around a stump, accepted help from the P&R volunteer who twitched her ear and held her nose while I hopped on (I suspect that's probably not really supposed to be done either, but there were plenty of folks still there and watching, so no objections from me!), and moseyed on down the trail.  We left that check not ten minutes behind the closest two riders, probably less, and I decided our goal would be to not catch them.

So we found our bubble again.  We trotted a while.  We'd walk a ways.  We'd trot a while more.  We'd get a real walk, loose rein and all.  Trot, walk, trot, walk.  She was hollering the whole time for the other horses, but she wasn't fighting me.  Every time they'd come into sight in the distance, we'd walk.  We finished the ride just barely in time, and we never caught the other riders.  Words cannot express how happy I am that I won that battle.

Moseying our way on home.

They did post-ride CRIs, about 10 minutes after we completed.  13/12 for NATRC translates to 52/48.  She clearly did not do well trotting into checks on the hills, but she finished strong and I am very happy with that.

Not getting lost: success.  Trail was well-marked.  We had no problems with that.  Well, one - I second-guessed myself once and tried to turn around.  Fetti refused to turn around.  I gave in.  She was right, and we were going the right way.

Dressage saddle: success.  Even sweat patterns, no back soreness, my calves hurt from dropping my heels for 26 miles straight.

NATRC obstacles:
1. slight hill right after the start.  She trotted up and my position wasn't ideal, but otherwise, not bad.
2. back downhill and in a U shape. I expected major issues, so we did this beautifully and got a verbal compliment from the judge when we did it.  Woohoo!
3. off-side mount, then ride down-up a ravine.  I opted out of the off-side mount.  We haven't practiced this much at all, let alone from near-ground level in the dressage saddle.  But!  I mounted gracefully and my position wasn't completely ideal on the hill, but otherwise, quite pleased with myself.  (Thankfully we weren't judged on the part where we headed back out on trail afterwards, where she resisted and went backwards and bucked until the other horses showed up.  Oh, pony.)
4. Mercury water crossing.  Easy, verbal compliment from the judge.  This was after the last vet check and I could not have been happier with her.

Mounting went well - three P&R checks, one human-is-confused dismount, so four on-trail mounts done with grace and without overthinking any of them.  Very pleased with myself.

Drinking on trail: unexpected success in that Fetti decided to start drinking from puddles on the trail.  Woohoo!  Good pony.

Migraines: waited til after the vet check to kick in, but did kick in.  Sigh.  Needs more experimentation.

Headphones and Spotify: success!  I bought the Aftershokz headphones on the advice of Saiph (and Funder and Mel and Liz, if I'm recalling correctly) and aside from forgetting to charge them and running out of battery halfway through the ride, it was really delightful to have something getting me out of my head.  Would strongly recommend.

Garmin watch: partial success.  It worked very well for letting me watch our speed the first 13 miles, but didn't charge well enough at lunch to keep working for the whole second half.  Possibly user error with the charging since I was using a different portable charger, though.

Overall, very pleased.  We checked everything off the list and have plenty of things to work on. 

Quicksilver 2014

No one looked at the Haflinger all weekend.  You can see why :)

One of my barn friends has been working towards her first LD for a bunch of months now.  I recommended Quicksilver over Fireworks because of my recollection of QS as a bunch of rolling hills, where Fireworks is steeper stuff and has been difficult for Fetti and I to make time.  Friday, we loaded up both mares in Funder's trailer, and off we went to ridecamp!

We settled in, stuck boots on (hers that she'd been riding in the past few weeks to get her mare accustomed to, mine that I'd just replaced a cable and hadn't ridden in since Fireworks), and vetted in cleanly.  Confetti got a B for impulsion, but pulsed in at 32.  That's my girl!  Unenthusiastic about trotting in straight lines as ever.  I opted to skip any kind of pre-ride; instead, we hand-walked over to the first gate.  Just for the heck of it, on the way back I asked Fetti for a brief lunging trot-circle.  Flounce flounce trot!  That decided it:  I would use the stronger bit in the morning.  Both were packed, my preference remains the snaffle, but I did learn from last year and have no desire to be riding a bolting horse again.

Oh, and somewhere in there we had the neighbor-rancher mention that there was a calf that was in the neighboring field.  We were parked right at the very back of ridecamp.  The calf came over and introduced itself.  My friend's mare thought the calf was awesome.  Fetti wasn't quite convinced.

Suspicious look at calf.  What are YOU and why are you here?!

The next morning dawned early and dark, but thankfully not especially cold.  I woke up around 4 and never quite made it back to sleep, but forced myself to generally stay in the sleeping bag so as not to bother the horses.  The less I fuss with her the morning of a ride, the less chance she has of picking up on my nerves!  We mounted up for a 7am start, walked a few laps around ridecamp, and I generally tried to channel the inner Western Pleasure pony again.  Relax, relax.. when it seemed suitably quiet, we casually walked out onto the trail and past the first gate.  It felt like I was riding a carefully contained firecracker.  She was excellent, though, and she kept walking til we hit the first hill and I told her it was okay to move out now, just to take the edge off.

We'd been trotting for about two minutes, if that, when I had my first boot mishap.  The velcro really should have been replaced already - oops.  I hopped off, swore, creatively fixed it, and stuck it back on hoping that would hold.  My friend's boots came loose thirty seconds after we were back trotting.  She tightened them up a bit, stuck them back on, eventually found a rock to mount back up.  Within the next two miles, I was off at least twice more for the same damn boot, and I was done: I had no idea why it was failing, it was early, and I was really, really tired of getting on and off the horse.  Sure, she'll be crooked, but we finished Fireworks with just the one boot: it won't kill her or lame her or anything.

Naturally, Fetti took a funny step about 2.5 miles into the ride and informed me her remaining boot was coming off too.  One of the cables had totally come loose.  I suspected this had probably been going on with the first boot, and this second boot was at least not going to be fixable on-trail, so I tied it onto the saddle and hopped back on again.  We were losing time in the best part of the foggy morning.  It wasn't an intentional barefoot decision - was I going to lame my horse riding her at speed through unfamiliar terrain?  Would I have to abandon my friend at the vet check and have her finish her first LD alone?  This was not how things were supposed to work out, and I knew we needed to keep a moderate-brisk pace to the check to have a hope of making time, especially if I was going to have to walk her through anything rough.  Argh!

Not the cow we chased, but note the pony ears.
 'Can I chase this one too?'

And then there were cows.  Cows!  There was a whole herd of cows hanging out right across the trail.  We couldn't exactly sit around and wait for them to meander off, so I paused a second, then asked Confetti to trot directly at the cows.  'Shoo!'  Five calves took off down the trail away from us, and we trotted right by the rest of the herd with no problems.  Fetti seemed very pleased with herself.  I would totally take this horse cow-sorting.  It absolutely made my morning and neither of us got pictures of it, but take my word for it: it was awesome.



We did take a bunch of walk breaks for the mares to recover, which made for some pretty excellent photos.  The fog was absolutely gorgeous and delightful.

Fog bank behind us.  It was amazing.

Originally, my vague timeframes had us at the vet check around 9:30, two and a half hours after start.  We were told it was approximately halfway, 12 miles or so.  By 9:30, I thought we were probably getting close, but we were clearly not there yet.  The mares wanted to walk, so we walked.. some trotting, but mostly walking for most of the mile into the check if not more.  We arrived shortly after 10 and had been made aware by other riders that they had a hose there for us.  Yay!  But what the heck, sure, go ahead and check her pulse just to see what she's at, I'm sure she won't be down.. and she was, easy, 56 and dropping.  I hadn't even scooped water onto her at the check yet.

Miraculously, Fetti vetted sound in the semi-gravelled parking lot.  I parked her by the hay, nibbled on some of my own food, and generally quit worrying.  It was easily the least time-pressured hold I've ever had.  It probably helps we were nearly the only ones there!



Unfortunately, my friend's horse would not pulse down, even after pulling tack and repeated hosing.  All my stress went there instead.  Had I pushed too hard and too fast?  Sure, she wasn't my horse, but I was the one setting the pace for a new rider, and there was definitely some guilt that perhaps I'd done wrong by her somehow.  Confetti and I left the check alone.  There was nothing I could do, the horse wasn't in distress, and it wasn't going to be helpful for me to Rider Option pull.

Not fifteen minutes later, going up a nice steep hill after the vet check, Fetti made it very clear that I was wrong.  We should not be going this way.  The 50s are going the opposite direction.  Our friend is in the opposite direction.  Human, I will back you off the side of the hill but I will not go forwards.  I'll have another post on that later, but in short: this is her preferred evasion and I've never really figured out a way to manage it.  Suggestions are very welcome.  I beat her with the whip; she backed up.  I beat her more; she bucked.  I backed her up the hill - she resisted, I felt guilty because it was an awful hill with lots of rocks; I'd offer to let her go forwards up the hill and she'd go straight to backing down/sideways again.  Emotions went from frustration to anger to despair, and I finally got off and hiked up the damn hill, because at least then she'd go forwards, and she was not going to win that battle.  I got back on once on that hill, and she went straight backwards again, and I swore some more and got off and hiked again.  (I looked at MapMyHike, and it looks like we went up 273 feet in 0.4 miles.  I have no idea how bad that actually is, but it was full sun with lots of rocks and a very obstinate horse.)

Eventually she let me get back on and kick/swat her into a forwards trot, and we went zooming along the trail until a 50 passed us going the opposite direction.  I walked to pass, and that was the end of it.  Backwards towards the side of a steeper cliff.  More swearing.  More hiking.  Less hill!  By now I was pissed and grumpy enough to jog some of the sections.  Alternatively, if we were walking I reinforced that she had to keep up with me.  There was too much cliff and not enough left-side mounting spots for me to dare getting back on and having her back straight off again.. it just wasn't the place for that fight.  Maybe we wouldn't make time - probably we wouldn't make time! - but damnit, we were not turning around.

Finally the very last LD caught up to us, and suddenly life was better!  I knew which direction we were supposed to be going!  We weren't all alone in the wilderness!  So back up on the horse I went, and off we trotted with renewed enthusiasm and slightly reduced pony death threats.

Once Fetti deigned to go forwards, we actually made pretty good time heading home.  I think she would have moved out more on the first half, but felt obligated to make sure her friend was keeping up and still in sight.  No complaints there: it's how we ride with her at home, and it gave me a horse that was polite, relaxed, and content on a loose rein.  With the new last-LD rider's horse, she didn't feel so obligated to make sure he was keeping up.  We rode with her for a bit (the only time all day I saw anyone else for more than thirty seconds!), then eventually left her behind as Fetti kept on trotting down the trail and her horse stayed slower.  I had to remind myself not to feel bad, that we'd both perked up our horses with the riding together, and that there was no reason I had to ride with her into camp, not that she'd even suggested it!  Ride your own ride.  Sometimes that intersects with others' rides, sometimes they wander off and that's okay.

I'm not sure exactly what time we came into the finish, but Fetti pulsed down in under five minutes and that was pretty delightful.  I still had horse left.  I liked my horse again.  We still had a full 30 minutes before we would have been overtime.  Even better: the final LD rider that I left alone on trail finished in time too!  I thanked her profusely again when I saw her at the vetting.

Even without the boots, Fetti vetted out with (almost) all A's.  The vet did suggest shoes if we were looking to continue in the sport, but was understanding when I told her we'd had a Very Bad Boot Day and started out booted.  Fetti doesn't like to trot on sharp gravel - I know that, and I'm okay with that.  The trot lane was the worst footing we had all day.  She did get another B on gut sounds, which worried me not at all.  She was eating and drinking well all day.


Lessons learned:
1. If riding with a friend, I definitely do not need the stronger bit, and I suspect I won't generally need it if riding solo either.
1b. If/when we try a 50, I need a way to easily swap bits at the first hold.
2. Ride with boots at least once within two weeks prior to the actual ride.
2b. Current lesson: replace cable clamp and I think my issues will resolve.
3. Electrolyting alone does not avoid migraines for me.  Suggestions?  (1x Thursday, 3x Friday, 3x Saturday, approx 3-4 hours in between doses)  I need a better handle on that before I can confidently try a warm 50.
4. Fetti reverts to backing when being obstinate (scared, disagrees with trail, whatever).  Suggestions to resolve?  It's not something I can trigger on demand, which makes it difficult to have a trainer work with us to fix it.
5. Switching out Camelbak bladders halfway through worked well, but I should start with the slightly-smaller one for the morning.  I can supplement with a Nalgene bottle for longer rides/loops.
6. I need to replace my HRM watch battery -- it had a display only occasionally throughout the day.  Not the sort of thing you want to discover at 6:45am at a ride.
6b. I can now ride reasonably well without the HRM, but it would still make me feel better to have it coming into checks.  (I did get it on briefly a mile or so out from the vet check. 74 while walking gave me confidence she was doing fine.)
7. Confetti can do a 25 on decent footing totally barefoot with no ill effects.  No panic necessary.


More photos behind the cut.

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.

Mount Diablo: Open NATRC ride

At the end of March, I was lamenting the shortage of local AERC rides prior to Fireworks in July.  I was happy with 'Fetti's fitness level and wished I could push her a bit/retrain in a competitive environment prior to Fireworks.  One friend reminded me about the NATRC ride at Mount Diablo; I looked at the dates, sighed, and ruled it out as an option, since it was right after my vacation.  Then it turned out that I might get that Friday off.. and Funder offered to drive the pony.. and even when I didn't get the full Friday off, my coworker was kind enough to cover the afternoon for me.  Mount Diablo NATRC ride was on.

I made it to the barn by 3 on Friday.  We loaded 'Fetti in Adventure the Trailer and headed out by 3:30. (Loose in the trailer, with the haybag in the back corner figuring she'd want to ride backwards.  Instead, I spent most of the drive watching her forelock fly out of the front corner of the trailer.. maybe two bites of hay were nibbled.) Ride meeting at 7pm, vetting in til dusk.. plenty of time!  On a Friday afternoon, how bad can it be?  Answer: bad.  What should have been an hour and a half drive took three hours.  And then we had to figure out where the heck to park, since everyone else was up at dinner!  Property up there is expensive, you guys.  Expensive houses, expensive properties, pretty mind-boggling.

Post-ride. Very similar to pre-ride. Note the only partly-eaten grain.. sigh.

With horse on Hi-Tie (woo, fancy!), water bucket filled, and hay bag tied, I headed up the stairs to find registration, picked up a packet with only brief verbal instructions to go with it, and headed back down to retrieve horse and find the vets for a veryquick vetting in not 20 minutes after pulling her off the trailer.  No boots, no grooming, just dragged Fetti dooown through the arenas and up the steep hill-path to (eventually) find the vets.  Verdict: something not-quite-right about maybe the right hind? But given I'd just taken her off the trailer, they didn't seem too concerned, and told me to bring her by them tomorrow morning with her boots on for a re-check*.  Argh.

She never quite settled in.

Ride meeting ended up starting close to 7:30.  I should have taken that as a sign.  I had to jog down midway through the trail explanation to be weighed in (things I never even thought about!), jogged back up for the rest of the meeting, and stuck around for the new rider's meeting that went until 9:30 or so.  Tired and slightly migrained still, I braided her mane by headlamp, tried to convince Fetti to eat something, added a haybag, and rearranged for the morning.  Right about the point I went to bed I discovered that we were parked right by one of the arena lights... that stayed on the entire night.  It turned off around 6 the next morning.

For once, Fetti didn't eat an awful lot overnight.  She got tacked up with boots on anyway; if she didn't eat well on the trail, we'd pull, but she was still happy to eat mouthfuls of hay when they were given directly to her.  We trotted out for the vets (sound!) and carried on to obstacle #1: the judged mount.  I made it on the horse with a distinct lack of grace and instructed her to channel her inner Western Pleasure pony for the day, please.

After trotting sound in the morning and managing to get on the horse, I decided it was okay to take pictures.

A half-hour later or so, we were off.  We managed somehow to fall in with some very experienced NATRC riders and tagged along with them for pretty much the entire ride.  The pacing has apparently been very tight in previous years and they were expecting similar this year; Confetti and I found the ride to be a bit on the slow side.  We made it into a Real Trot only three or four times during the ride.  Instead, we spent probably 75% of the ride at a tiny 4mph western jog, 15% at a walk (mostly for 10 steps at a time), and 10% at a medium trot.  In hindsight, I might have been better off splitting off and doing a Real Trot for more of the ride and convincing her to walk/halt substantially more often..

Somewhere within the first few miles.  Gorgeous!

There were a few goals that I had for this ride.  I wanted her to rate and not pull on me the entire time.  I wanted her to be willing to walk.  Slightly less high on the priority list was to end the ride with plenty of horse and have her pulse down well.  These actually went fairly well - while she flat-out refused to walk more than ten steps at a time for most of the ride, she wasn't hauling on me and insisting on lots of forwards.  It was a very polite little western jog to keep up with the gelding ahead of us.  As far as walking went - I did start insisting on 15-20 steps of walk towards the last 10 miles of the ride, and that went better.  Fetti was still pissed at me when I'd half-halt her out of her nearly-trotting more than two or three times, but we could get a bigger distance without fearing for my life.  I never felt like she was out of control at all (well, maybe once in the first half-mile when someone passed us and she wasn't happy!) and I was able to do a lot of the ride with one hand on the reins and one holding my phone to get photos.

Before lunch somewhere.

Pulsing down is a little different than AERC rides.  NATRC has you come into a P&R stop, stand and wait for ten minutes, and then have both pulse and respiration taken.  You must ride into these stops, not walk the horse in.  Fetti pretty consistently took 3-5 minutes to drop to 60, and at the last P&R stop, took closer to 8.  My heart monitor was often 10 beats above whatever the folks checking her were getting.  Baffling.  She was doing well enough to continue, and I knew how well she was doing.  I didn't fuss about trying to get accurate numbers on the scorecard.  We jogged into just about every check since the pony refused to walk.. so.  Can't complain.

Before lunch somewhere still!

Mount Diablo is a beautiful ride with varied scenery and a lot of hills.  For all that it's supposed to be difficult, I felt like we could have [if allowed] made better time on most of the flats and uphills without much of a problem.  Our slow western jog and occasional medium trotting brought us in right on time to just about every check.  We were smack in the middle of optimum time at the finish.

I rode with all four Renegades on, and they stayed on with no problems until the last few miles, where I suspect we pulled the hind boot, I didn't realize, and then when we pulled the front I caught on and fixed both.  We were less than two miles from the finish, so 'fixing' involved 'unvelcro, strap back on, it'll be fine'.  It was.

Even prior to the final vet check I knew Confetti was slightly back-sore.  It's never been a real problem before.  My gut feeling is that it came from trotting down every. single. hill. We don't do that at home, I was bracing/leaning back to keep her slow, and the weight would have been towards the back of the saddle.  I'm not thrilled but I'm also not overly concerned about it as long as it doesn't show up again.  Our final trot-out had more impulsion than the day prior.  Good mare.

After the ride, as she finally deigned to eat when I was looking at her.

It's likely we placed last in our division.  I finished with a happy, forwards horse who could have done more.  That's plenty good enough for me.

Our little corner of ridecamp.

We were done with the ride right about 3, done vetting by 4:30.  Dinner was at 6 and awards at 7.  I figured we'd be out of there by 8 at the absolute latest.  Right?  Wrong.  This particular ride has an incredible assortment of 30-something raffle items (aka baskets of stuff), and tickets are drawn right before awards.  That probably took 45 minutes.  With three divisions of awards and up to six placings apiece, awards took a while too.. when things finished up at 9, Funder and I rapidly made our way down the stairs, hooked up the trailer, loaded the horse, and headed home at 9:30.

Have I mentioned before that Funder's pretty awesome?  We made it to my barn at 11pm.  She couldn't have been home before midnight, and she wasn't even riding.  Much love!

*The potential for lameness had me even more worried than usual.  Normally I know she's sound and am mystified when told there might be something.  The previous two trail rides I'd done, however, both involved about four steps of something baffling in her trot at one spot on the trail, but only there and nothing before/after.  I had visions of vet bills in my head and was nearly ready to beat myself up for not noticing more.  Then I ran out of time to worry and had to zip to the ride meeting.. so I told myself if she was fine the next morning we'd go, but if it was at all questionable or I felt anything during the ride, we'd pull.

Next post: key differences between AERC and NATRC, things I wish I knew, would I do it again?

More photos under the cut.