Wednesday's Ride

In the last post , I misstated what day we were headed back out for another rideThe plan was to head back out on Wednesday, not Monday. My brain is clearly on overload these days! So yesterday was Wednesday and I had the good fortune to ride with my a good friend, “J” . She is an amazing artist, one of the most capable all around horsewomen I know of, and has some unbelievable horse stories to tell from her years of training and riding in the wilderness on various pack trips and hunting excursions. She even got herself published in sharing some of those stories. I consider myself fortunate to have her as a friend and riding companion.


We met early afternoon and she brought along her big, red horse, aptly named “Red”. Red is sired by “J”’s amazing Arabian stud and oddly enough, the damn was a run of the mill paint mare. Red is young, was sold to some other folks that did some bad things apparently and “J” ended up taking him back. As a result, Red has some issues that “J” has been working through.  She hadn’t really been riding him much lately but she really wanted to get him out and let him move…find his legs , very long legs at that, if you will. You see, Red is one of those horses that doesn’t seem to have a bottom … atleast not that “J” has found. She is thinking that if she ever attempts Tevis, this is going to be the horse. He’s a big tall lanky character.. built more like a Thoroughbred. Since he is still a youngster, he doesn’t always quite get all legs going together in sync but when he does, wow… he can move. He has that big lofty movement that I dream of having in Maggie but never will!

So , it was going to be another hill workout ride. Maggie started out in her usual… gotta go, gotta go… until the brain told her lungs she had better slow up.. Red , who has been on pasture for 3 weeks and not ridden, kept right up with her. Seriously??? (damn arabs)

The sun had come out , after a lot of rain , and it got muggy for what is typical for us. Maggie was winded and sweaty in short order with the steady climbing.  I didn’t bother electrolyting on this ride. I can’t decide if I do more harm than good considering she won’t drink anyways…

We spent the next several miles trotting as long as we could and walking or stopping all together when Maggie was blowing too hard and needed to catch her breath. She’s getting smart about things.. she is starting to slow up and pace herself on hills… instead of rushing like a crazed lunatic.
Long hills that never seem to end….it’s amazing how it will change a horse’s attitude.

Hill work has never been Maggie’s strong area. She powers up them without a problem. It’s her respiration that gets her. Red , on the other hand, kinda floats like a butterfly up those hills. He was breathing hard too , but not nearly as hard as Maggie and he always recovered his respiration rate a lot faster than her. I guess that is the difference between an Arabian /TB body style and a heavier built horse like a Morgan. It’s just the facts of horse life.

We finally made it to the top of the mountain and we took a well deserved break. The horses were doing well. We had just completed 8-9 miles of steady gradual climbing with a few steep climbs in between. I knew I was pushing Maggie a bit beyond her fitness level  but she was willingly going. I felt that as long as I was giving her  time to recover  as we went,  it was probably  okay to do a little pushing  just like interval training in the human athlete. In order to get through a plateau, sometimes you have to push a bit harder. When we stopped for a rest, I loosened her girth and let Maggie graze.  She dove into the lush green grass. That was a good sign. Even though she was tired, she was willing to eat!! There was  a time not too long ago, she would have even refused the green grass if she was tired.  “J” and I checked out all the wildflowers that were in bloom.  We apparently missed the glacier lilies by about a week or two , but the Indian Paintbrush, Balsamroot, wild clematis (? ), Arnica, and all kinds of other little violets were in full bloom. Everything is so green and lush. It such a magical time of year in the Rocky Mountains, except for the riding in the rain part.

We gave the horses about a 10 minute break and headed back. I thought Maggie was going to be more tired but to my delight, she perked right up. She was ready to go again. Luckily we didn’t have any more climbing . It was level or downhill the rest of the way. I let Maggie choose her pace on some of the flatter areas. Red struggled to keep up with her trot and “J” had to let him canter. He’s capable of a fast trot, he just doesn't know it yet but he had a few good moments. When I rated Maggie back , Red was able to pace nicely with her at about 9 MPH.

We finally made it back to the trailer and by then it was 5:00 pm. We had been gone since 2:00. Maggie wasn’t interested in her beet pulp/ alfalfa pellets mush. No surprise there. She also wasn’t interested in water. Even less of a surprise. Clearly I still haven’t gotten her thirsty enough, even with all the hill climbing and sweating she did. She was however diving into the knee deep green grass. I let her graze on that for 10 minutes . At least there was some moisture content in it.

Total Miles- 12.6

Max Speed 13.9 mph

Moving time 2 hrs 36 mins

Moving average speed 4.8

Stopped time 20 mins (approx)

Overall average 4.2

Ofcourse, she tanked up as soon as I put her in her pen at home. The good news ? drumroll please…….

.She used the bucket..

YES, she drank out of the beautiful blue bucket that I have placed right next to her water trough…

So what?? Right??

Given Maggie’s continued refusal to drink in anything but a water trough at home, no matter how thirsty I think she might be, I wanted to test out my theory. I thought the refusal to drink was the bucket itself, since she drinks like a champ once she gets home to her beloved water trough. So, in an attempt to be smarter than my horse and teach her to drink after a conditioning ride, out of a dreadful bucket,  I have placed two water buckets next to the stock tank in her corral. Eventually , my plan is then remove the water tank all together, leaving only the buckets.

Sounds logical to me…. surely it will work...

So, yesterday, when we got home and she dove into the bucket and took three large gulps before switching to the water trough. I was thrilled. I had won... atleast I thought I did for a  very brief moment.. Until it dawned on me what this meant..

She proved my theory wrong.

Its not about the bucket.

It’s just about drinking away from home ….

Maybe it’s time to go the Horse Quencher route..

Hill Smokin...

Today I ventured over to Herron Park. It's hill territiry.. No matter which way you point, you have to go up. It levels off in spots, only to go up some more. We got a late start. The hubby came along today after getting home 6:00 a.m. from Canada , slept for four hours and decided he wanted to get Brego out. I was glad to have the company along.

Maggie was pretty fresh and we hit the first hill and she wanted to go, go ,go. I don't know where she was going , but she wasn't going to  be late... I let her kill her self. I knew it wouldn't be long... I didn't have my HRM on, it probably would have just scared the crap out of me if  I did. Brego and Tom  stayed with us for only a llittle while and we left them behind. Brego is still on the soft side. I yelled back that I would wait at the top for them. I wanted Maggie to work through her fit and realize that this was going to be hard work. and choose to reevaluate her decision, (if a horse can rationalize).  The hill is about over a 1/4  mile long. I offered to let her slow several times. No go. Ok, fine... We made it to within about 500 feet of the top, and Maggie realized she had left her buddy in the dust, glanced back over her shoulder at me, it seemed anyways,  and it was almost as if she said to herself  " well, what the hell am I doing??" .. and she walked. She was huffing pretty good

We set about the next 5 miles , of hills and mostly walked with a few spurts of jogging and since it was getting so late we made a loop and headed back. It wasn't much of a ride but lots of climbing in a short distance. Maggie did not appear tired at all by the time we made it back to the trailer, which was good to see.

For now, the plan is to head back Monday and cover a longer distance... with HRM attached...

How Do You Know?

So todays ride turned out to be longer and less wet than expected. I was on the trail by 9:30 am. Not another soul to be found . Squirrels , birds , wild flowers and a large Sand Hill Crane were our trail companions today until our way out. We met several bikers, and one set of hikers, a coworker of my husbands, of who's dog grabbed Maggie's tail , of who got lucky that Maggie missed (or did she) when she kicked out.. hmmm, that could have been bad as maggie didn't kick gently at all!  The weather held out and we even saw the sunshine several times . I was over dressed and ended up taking layers off half way through.Maggie did not want to settle in to any specific postable , easy to ride trot until we hit about 10 miles.
 Good grief, she can have the bounciest hardest to ride trot ever!  Today was one of those days when I begin thinking that Maggie is not a good fit for the sport because she is so incredibly hard to ride when she trots out. I am a pretty fit and  relatively strong legged, secure rider ,but miles of Maggie's trotting takes it out of me like no other horse I have experienced. My lower back and inner thighs just ache after riding her on days like today. It takes so much strength to not let myself slam into the saddle on the down stride,  and even more strength to keep from getting launched out of the saddle too high on the up stride. So, I stay off her back in two  point when we are on long flat stretches as she moves out. It's the best I know to do!
 As we were were making our second loop around Bowser Lake (mud hole really)  , we were at about the 10 mile point and her trot was becoming much nicer to ride, thankfully. I began to wonder, as fast as she likes to go, is she really enjoying this? Is her speed anxiety or just a desire to get down the trail, see the next place we are going?

I hear and read endurance riders comments about how their horse just loves to go down the trail. But, how do you know?

How do know they are enjoying it as much as you think they are? What is it that tells a rider that their horse is enjoying their job? After all, a horse's genetic make up is based on conserving energy (as a prey animal) , so that if a predator does show up , they can burst into speed and get away... these are ofcourse in relatively short distances. Asking a horse to go at speed mile after mile flies in the face of everything these beings were put on earth for.

Maggie is always alert, ears pricked as we go down the trail. She never pins her ears unless I am asking her to rate. She always willingly goes, but is that a sign that she is truly enjoying it? I don't really know.
So how do you know your horse is enjoying his/her job? As we clicked mile after mile on the GPS today, I coulnd't get this thought out of my head.

With all the recent rain,  we had several large  mud puddles to cross. If we were at a walk, she gladly walked through the puddles and normally at a trot , she will gladly plod through most of them as well, unless she can go around. Today, any time we met a puddle she wanted to jump it.. and  not just a hop over it. She was literally launching herself like she would to get over a jump. Normally, this isn't desirable trail behavior for a trail horse,  I know... but I will tell you, it was such a blast., I just let her. Besides, in thinking about keeping things interesting, maybe this would be a nice change for her. Endurance with a bit of trail jumping!!  So the three puddles we came across at a trot, I went with whatever she wanted to do, jump or not. She jumped all of them. Maybe I will start training her over fences..kinda got me thinking the jumping bug might have bitten....

I didn't have the HRM on her again. I was in such a rush to get out , assuming it was going to rain, that I left without it. I thought we did alot of trotting but looking at the time /distance specs, it doesn't seem like much of a pace to me. I thought we were alot faster ..guess not. .It's possible the Garmin is a bit off on but I would rather track mileage on the conservative side.

Here is what we did for todays' ride:( had a few long hard hills climbs today)

Overall Mileage: 15.5
Max speed 14.7 ( she cantered for a spell)
Moving time: 2 hrs , 47 mins
Moving average speed: 5.5
Stopped Time 9 mins, 21 sec
Overall  average speed: 5.3

Intrepid or stupid?

It's going to rain today, 40% chance..that means there is a 60% chance that it won't. Atleast that is what I will choose to tell myself!  Maggie and I will head out for a long ride with the plan to stay out as long as we can, that is,  ride until we are either too wet and miserable to continue,  or we hit a decent mileage for the day. Shooting for 10-15 but mother nature will most likely play a part in our time out there. It will get worse as the day progresses so we'll head out soon. I will pack the rain gear and something warm to greet us back at the trailer when done.

47 days until City of Rocks, which actually means there is only about 40 more days of actual condition time.

Toklat Test Drive

The beautiful blue, almost too pretty to use,  Toklat Coolback pad went for it's maiden voyage tonight for a spin around the arena. The weather is rather dreadful here, cloudy, 46 degrees and windy. I got off work a couple hours early for the holiday weekend and teetered with the idea of loading Maggie up and heading out for a fast 5-10 miles but opted against it. I just stayed home and did the arena , neighbors pasture ride.

I put the pad on and at first , the darn thing looked absolutely enormous on her but I threw the Specialized on over the top just to see. I was pleasantly surprised , it fits pretty good. It had some extra pad out the back but I don't think it's going to cause an issue. Then I threw it under the Duett. Even more surprised, it didn't look half bad. In fact, it fit the Duett almost as nice. So, I left it on and decided to just go ahead and get the new off and ride in it.

My first impression under the saddle other than it was quite pretty, was that it was downright slippery. I understand this lessens with some wear on it.. I sure hope so. I thought I had the girth tight enough but as I was riding around, I was feeling somwhat unsecure up there. I checked the girth and it was completely loose.Well no wonder..Once I tightened things up, it felt much more secure. 

Maggie was a little edgy with the wind tonight, so it was hard to tell if her reactiveness to cues tonight was the weather or the feeling of the pad.  I will have to keep an eye on this and see.

I had some problem with keeping the pad forward. It kept sliding back on her. I may have to go check out Karen Chaton's website. I think she had posted about how to modify pads and put a clip in the front of them to hold them in place. Too badToklat just doesn't put billet straps like alot of english pads use. That usually does the trick. 

Over all impressions of the pad :
It appears to be well made  for it's price
Hoping the color won't run or fade , it's pretty brightly colored.
Padding/Protection level- typically with a synthetic material, after some use, the material mats down and does not provide enough protection for the horses. Wool is generally the best choice to keep this from happening  because it retains it's loft. Will see how this pad stands up after a few rides.
More economical in  comparison to alot of other pads I have tried (and often hated) in the past.
Dislike the fact that it's sliding backwards.
Dislike it doesn't have billet straps
Machine Washable- so it says...

Tomorrow, assuming it's not raining too terribly hard, I will take it for a longer ride and see how it feels on the trail.

Domino Effect.

I started off my week with a migraine on Monday. They happen occasionally from an old Whiplash car injury , (and stress at work never helps). That set things into what has felt like a downward spiral. This whole week has been out of sync ever since in seems.  Things are work are always messed up,, expecially end of month when tons of reporting has to be submitted, so that's expected but one unscheduled day out of the office and I am in catch up mode which caused me to miss being able to take Wednesdays off through the summer months.

The other half is getting ready to head to Canada for his first Horsback Archery Compettion for the season. Hope he doesn't need much for clean laundry , cuz it hasn't been done!! (rode all last weekend..oops)

And, it's been raining, acutally we get sun, wind, torrential downpour, wind, sun, torrential downpour. Makes it hard to get anything done in the riding department. Better yet, my Toklat Coolback Saddle pad that I ordered 3 weeks  ago but had to wait as my blue color choice was on back order FINALLY arrived. That was my highlight of the week, only to come to the realization that I can't even really try it out because the Specialized saddle is out of commission until I get it refitted, in two weeks. So it sits on the back of my couch... for the cat to sleep on...Atleast I can admire it..

I might try to use it under my Duett.. It might just work but it's seems awfully big for that saddle. Only one way to find out I guess. It might work , but just look really dumb...

Last night, Maggie appeared to be responding to the chill in the air  and was  bouncing around in her corral like a ping pong ball. It didn't help that we took her friend Brego and put him out in the pasture for some grazing I suppose..She is totally in love with him. (Hmmm... I might have to rethink bringing him along on the trip to Idaho for the ride in July.)...The rain  let up and I thought I better take advantage of it. I quickly changed into riding clothes and went out to get Maggie, passing the hubby on the way in. His only response , was "your riding that thing?"   By now , Maggie was doing a pretty good rendition of a rodeo bronc.

"uhhmmm... why yes I suppose I am"...

She settled down just fine and I stayed mostly dry on our arena session . In fact, Maggie did beautifully last night, one of the better arena sessions we have had since before the saddle really started to bug her (when I didn't realize it was bugging her). She seems to be  much happier in my Duett.. Go figure..She has stopped being so rushy in the arena and I can only assume it was because of poor saddle fit. So at this point, I am going to keep her in my Duett and most likely compete in that for the July multi day. Even if I get the Specialized working better, I don't want to take a chance at changing things around once again.

The weather is supposed to be crummy all weekend, so hopefully I can get one longer ride in at some point over the course of three days...

Or , if not,.. there is always laundry to do..

Conditioning Styles- Preparing for a Pioneer Ride

In preparation for a pioneer ride I am planning to attend the seond week in July, I am trying to put in as many miles as possible , while working full time and balancing all the other work that comes with owning property to maintain (mowing, fixing fence, added garden space, chicken coop improvements, and hopfully begin construction of a green house). Thank god I don't have kids to add into the mix!

I have been at this sport for a few years now, but have only ever  completed 1 endurance ride and 1 CTR. Basically,  I am still sorting out the best approach to preparing for a ride such as the one coming up. It's a pioneer ride. I have never attempted one of these before.  My goal is to ride an LD the first day, rest the next day and then ride 2 LD's back to back for the 3rd and 4th day of the event. It's a 10-11 hour trailer ride so it would be nice to ride 3 of the 4 days to get the most out of the trip, but ofcourse it will all depend on how Maggie is handling it and recovering. The terrain will be challenging. It is high elevation and fair amount of climbing based on what I have read.

Determining the best way to be as ready as possible has me wondering. In my mind, Maggie is still putting on a base of conditioning because we didn't do any mileage last year.  I have been riding her fairly consistently since February and began riding for mileage in March. We have done a couple of longer rides , one 14 mile day and one 17 mile day. We have also done back to back shorter rides.

But what is enough to be ready for a Pioneer?

I have 2 days a week that my schedule allows me to put on longer rides. That leaves me 1-2 days a week that I should still be putting mileage on but shorter distance mixed with speed/hill training.  Traditionally, I think this type of schedule is probably the norm;   4-5 days of training a week. At the same time,  a huge time committment that is hard for me to sustain week after week.

I am wondering instead  if the same , or maybe better,  condition readiness  can come from doing shorter, more intense training sessions?  1 long day 15-20 miles per week combined with 2 days of 8-10 miles at speed or 8-10 miles of muiltiple hard hill climbs?  Ofcourse, I realize each horse is different. Maggie seems to be  handling 12-15 mile rides pretty well right now. I  often taken her for a short arena session after a ride like that to assess her "tiredness" the next day. She has never felt sluggish or given any indicators that I would expect to see if she were overly tired (HR recovery slow or stumbly , etc) that next day.

So the question is what is enough? If I were preparing for a one day LD, I would say Maggie would be more than ready in about 2 more weeks of training. But in this case, it's multiple days of challenging terrain. Has anyone played with the interval training concept for a multiple day ride? I would be interested to know the outcomes you have had.