Ready for 50 (er, 60)

With only two days until my first ACTUAL endurance ride, I'm having some mixed feelings.

1. Jasper is FIT. F. I. T. He finished the 25 last month and was not tired, he hasn't been tired with any of our training rides, and he's morphed from my sweet little horse of wintertime into a fire-breathing dragon.

2. I glued boots on last Saturday using Goober Glue and Gloves and am not sure what I think of the whole ordeal. He's right between a 2.5 and 2 Easyboot glove size, and I decided to go up a size and see what happens. Wayne reports to me (Jasper's in Boise and I'm finishing my last two weeks of school--ever--here in Pullman) that the boots make a squishing noise and water bubbles up from below. Not so sure I like the idea of his feet cooking in heavy downpour all week, but keep reminding myself that he stands in mud all winter and is fine.

3. I don't want to do the ride using Renegades. I like them just fine for shorter rides, but he wears a very large size and has a tendency to knock himself with the boots over longer distances. And he hasn't trained in them at all and the idea of that much weight at the end of his legs makes me uncomfortable. Especially for 60 miles.

4. I'm 300 miles away, and therefore can't have my usual Tuesday/Wednesday freak-out/meltdown before the ride. Last time it was because I found a little bump on a hind leg (turned out to be nothing). This time, I'm trying to freak out about the boots but keep being reassured they're just fine and we can do something about it on Friday worst case. Trying to leave that one alone.

5. At HOTR, Jasper started head-tossing. Not just a little bit, but big, chin-knocking, seat rattling head-tossing. He does it when we ride with another horse and he disagrees with how slow the pace is, but now that I know the trigger the only thing that makes me want to do is ride him with another horse at their pace EVEN MORE. I think he spent about 15 of the 25 miles of HOTR doing it, and with an S-hack, I was mostly powerless to stop it. I could sit deep and brace against it, which would shorten the duration of his fits, but as soon as he remembered how upset he was he'd start it all up again. It's exhausting and dangerous, and I took the easy way out and put him in a martingale and a bit. Again, not sure how I feel about the martingale. I feel like I'm cheating and my arms were aching after our last training ride last weekend. The amount of "pull" I have to put on that thing with Jasper yanking on the other end is amazing. The only thing I think it's accomplishing is; a) I'm not going to end up with a black eye while he wears it; and b) Jasper's learning to ignore me pulling constantly on the bit. So there's plusses and minuses. I'm at the end of my knowledge base of what to do, other than tire him out at a ride. Sigh.

6. I graduate in 10 days. 10 days!

7. I thought I was signing up for a 50, but found out yesterday it's actually a 60! I think Jasper is ready for either, and maybe the extra 10 miles will help take the wind out of his sails.

8. Ultimately, my worst fears for the ride aren't that Jasper will fall and break a leg, tie up, I'll fall off and die, etc etc. My worst fear of the ride is not being able to control Jasper when he sees those horses in front of him and wants to pass. HOTR freaked me out...a LOT. He was very calm at the beginning and once we started trotting morphed into competitive jerkface extraordinaire. We were stuck on a single track trail in a big group of people with the threat of horse-eating gopher holes all around us. When he trotted he was fine, but asking him to walk respectfully down hills he was dancing and prancing all over the place. Nothing freaks me out more than having a horse moving in directions other than forward, especially on tricky or treacherous terrain. Nothing. And Jasper has been known to dance and prance sideways off a 10 foot dropoff with me on board because I wouldn't let him go forward. Not good.

I'm also worried he's going to be such a freak I'm going to be too exhausted to finish, which would be very disappointing. I'm pretty tough, but I don't know how much of that crap I can handle mentally. I guess worst case we can pull away from our designated ride partner and go it alone until he calms down. But I hate hate HATE doing what the horse wants when it's not what's best for him. He needs to learn to be a gentleman in groups and alone no matter what.

Sometimes the thought of having to go through all this again with Onyx makes me tired. Heck, sometimes the thought of having to go through this with JASPER makes me tired.

Working with Difficult People

I am heading into my last week of an externship at a veterinary clinic I wasn't meant to go to and a clinic I loathe with every fiber of my being.

I'll start at the beginning. Almost two years ago, we were asked as late second years to start thinking about our schedule for our fourth year. There were several steps involved in getting our schedules straight, and thanks to the advent of modern technology, most of these steps were performed online with box-checking and drop-down menus. Apparently, when asked to select an externship hospital from a drop-down menu way way back then I accidentally released my mouse button on a similarly-named equine hospital located approximately 700 miles from my intended locale.

This mistake went completely unnoticed by me for almost two years. The intended hospital was 20 miles from my parent's house, and I had made lengthy and detailed plans with them for my month-long stay. We were going to have girls' nights, we were going to go shopping, my Mom was going to cook indian for me. The list goes on and on. And add to that I was finally going to be able to take my role as active big-sister to my 16 year old sister. Either way, I was really, really looking forward to it.

Fast forward to a week and a half before my intended departure. I am a die-hard procrastinator for silly paperwork things and loopholes. I knew I was supposed to contact my externship hospital and let them know I was coming and what I wanted to get out of the ordeal. I mosied into our advisor's office and sat down with the binder filled with student evaluations of the clinics and started excitedly chatting with her about staying with my parents, etc etc. She quickly stopped me and said, "Elly, you're not going to [unnamed clinic], you're going to [other unnamed clinic]!!"

"No I'm not! I'm going to the one near my parents house! You must have made a mistake!" I replied indignantly.

She looked it up, and in fact, I had made the mistake all that time ago. And because I am such a royal procrastinator there was nothing that could be done. I was doomed to go to the other clinic that saw horses, sure, but also saw a lot of cows. You cannot imagine the depths of my disappointment.

As a responsible adult, I feel it is best to accept responsibility for one's mistakes and go about making the best of them. Some wonderful coincidences occurred and I was able to secure a recently vacated and fully furnished house to myself for the duration of my stay. I slapped on a happy face and faked a great attitude and headed off to said dreaded externship.

It has been total and utter torture. I am 100% out of place. I don't belong, and no one makes an effort to make me feel otherwise. Fine. When in Rome....

My horse experience stems from years spent taking hunter/jumper lessons and working at an equine veterinary hospital for three years that dealt mostly with hunter/jumper/dressage clientele. I do endurance on arabs. Therefore, I stick out like a sore thumb around here, where the horses are 98% ranch bred working quarter horses. I don't know anything about cattle other than what I gleaned from a dairy science focused undergrad degree and the odd classes and a few hours of "handling" classes in veterinary school.

Have any of you ever been dropped completely alone into a situation where you can relate to no one or nothing? The doctors think I'm a waste of their time, as I don't intend to practice on horses OR cows. The techs think I'm stupid for not being able to recall cow diseases at the snap of a finger and that I have no concept of how to help with how things are run. It is so obvious I'm not wanted there, but I've stuck it out for three and a half awful weeks and have actually managed to learn a few things and enjoy myself doing things I didn't think I'd ever enjoy doing (ie working with cows). I spend my days standing around, pacing, visiting with the horses, and following (and being ignored) by the doctors like a mute idiot. I do get to perform the spays and neuters in the mornings, but only because both doctors find small animal work largely beneath them.

The only comfort I have is being able to travel the 250 miles back home to Wayne every weekend and knowing that I graduate in 18 days.

18 days

Home, Home on the Range

Friday

Somehow, we managed to [sort of] coordinate the leaving of three vehicles mid-morning the Friday before the ride. And somehow, we all managed to miss the turn to ridecamp, which was clearly marked with a sandwich board with the words “ENDURANCE RIDE” clearly marked upon it. It was a near-miss, though, and we were back on track almost immediately. Thankfully, the trailer ride was a short one for once.

When we pulled into ridecamp, which was a huge grassy field, the wind was blowing so hard the foot-tall grass was almost laying flat. We had clear instructions to park in rows, which would have put us parallel to the wind direction, so we fudged a bit and parked within a row, but parked so our awning and LQ door would be shielded from the brunt of the ruthless wind. Paul parked his rig the “right” direction, which made our little camp into an “L” with a nice buffer between trailers. Heidi parked her Forester in the middle of our buffer zone to guarantee we’d keep the buffer for the weekend.

As soon as camp was set up, we set about relaxing. Beers were opened and the talking began. It was nice sitting around with Paul chatting in chairs rather than on horseback for once. George entertained us all by looking completely confused by the entire ordeal. We eventually made our way over to register for the ride, and then returned to camp to saddle up for a quick easy ride. Jasper was very relaxed until we turned around for home—then he turned into a jigging maniac. I was so focused on side passing him back and forth down the trail (After this he decided walking forward at a walk was a REALLY good idea!), I didn’t realize Paul and Heidi were having similar problems with their mounts. Must have been the wind and excitement in the air! We passed several riders doing the same who had much naughtier horses than we did, so that was at least a little comforting.

Heidi and Paul sample and cook (respectively) our amazing dinner steaks.

When we returned, we cleaned up the horses and took them over to vet in. Everyone did very well (Jasper consistently scored a B on gut sounds all weekend, which seems pretty usual for him) and the ponies were returned to the trailer and bedded down for the night. Jasper got a new hay net from Susan at Healthy as a Horse that holds about a third of a bale of hay. I decided this was a good purchase as it would GUARANTEE I won’t have to get up in the middle of the night to the sound of hay bags being grumpily knocked on the side of the trailer by demanding, starving endurance ponies.

Off to bed we went! Heidi admitted to me she was nervous for the following morning, since George had been such a handful at our quick ride. I assured her he would probably be a little “up”, but since he was riding with Ron-G (who is a seasoned pro), she had nothing to worry about.

Saturday

Heidi had wanted to be sure to have enough time to see the fifties leave. Paul insisted we take all three horses over to the start so they could see everyone leave, which I thought wasn’t a terrible idea. It was fairly anti-climatic, though. Not sure what Paul is used to seeing at the beginning of ride and ties, but there were a few that left at a very reasonable trot and the rest left at a walk. The horses were nonplussed.

The bonus of having a ride season under our belt is that I’ve got my routine down to a science. I decided to do the ride completely barefoot, so it took about three minutes (including HRM electrode placement) to tack up. I threw a cooler over everything and left Jasper to eat at the trailer while I sat in a lounger and calmly ate my breakfast. When it was finally time to leave, I was shocked to see Jasper’s heart rate—36 bpm. His heart rate is NEVER that slow just before leaving. The lowest I’ve ever seen it (and only for a brief moment) before leaving the trailer was 44. Could it be possible my little Jasper was growing up??

About five minutes before 8, I tightened my girth and hopped into the saddle to leave with Paul and Heidi. Jasper’s heart rate continued to stay low all the way over to the start, and even stayed down when “trail’s open” was announced and horses started leaving (again, a very controlled start). Off we were! The three boys were walking calmly out on the trail with everyone else passing us left and right and were amazingly calm! Once we got down the trail a bit, we picked up a working trot, which was about the end of Jasper’s good-boy act. He spent the remainder of the 25 miles pulling and acting like a big jerkface.

The first loop (16 miles) went by fairly quickly. The first five miles we were grouped pretty tight with about 30 other riders, none of which were going fast enough for Jasper. I used Heidi and Paul to my advantage--every time Jasper got too chargy (which always happens when he spots another horse in front and wants to pass), he got pulled up and plugged in right behind George’s butt. This was fine, so long as Ron-G didn’t come up next to us, which stimulated a long bout of head tossing and general temper tantrum throwing. Jasper does NOT like Ron-G, and it appears as though the feeling is mutual. Although come to think of it, I can’t really think of many other horses Jasper really “likes” other than Callie and she doesn’t count.

We came across some beautiful scenery, including a 1-2 mile stretch of trail that had been described as “not that rocky.” Um, I would have called it rocky myself, but I was being especially aware because Jasper was barefoot. He did incredibly well, and crunched through it like it was no biggie (I was so frustrated with him at this point with all the pulling I was practically daring him to step on a rock and hurt himself--practically). We saw some incredible views of the Snake River, and on a clear day we had been told we could see Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Unfortunately, it was just a little too hazy.

We came into the first vet check in about 2 hours and 15 minutes or so. Jasper refused to drink the entire time, which caused me much consternation and worry. However, he looked bright and was having no problems otherwise, so I decided to write it off to the cool weather and his fitness level. He passed the vet check with good scores (another B on gut sounds) and we were ready for a 45-minute hold at the trailer. He ate and napped, which is typical for him. He did drink a tiny bit, but not enough to ease my worry about his lack of water consumption.

The second loop went out the opposite corner of camp and followed a gravel road for the first 3 miles or so. All three boys were feeling amazing, and we opened them up a lot on the road. It was an amazing feeling going out after 16 miles with a fresh as daisies horse. Jasper was floating in his incredible 12 mph trot on a loose rein with Ron-G and George following close on his heels. At one point, Heidi pulled up next to us and Jasper made a nasty face and George and kicked it into another gear I’ve never felt before. It was incredible, and both Heidi and Paul noticed and were amazed. The last nine miles went by incredibly fast. Jasper drank like a camel at the first water stop, which made me completely stop worrying as I knew he finally had gone into “professional mode” and was taking care of himself. We trotted and cantered the entire loop, and several times I was so happy I could sing or cry, sometimes even simultaneously. The boys were feeling GOOD, and we were exhilarated and passing people left and right.

My feeling was crushed going into the last water stop, however. We’d just come of a long stretch of cantering, and when I looked at my HRM it read 217 bpm. What?!? I took several deep breaths and dismounted to walk him the last few yards to the waterer, although my heart rate probably matched Jasper’s. I checked him out and everything seemed fine. That’s when I noticed our girth electrode had come completely undone and was dangling in the wind. Whew! We’d been riding with about an inch of daylight under our girth for the last loop and his shedding winter coat had covered the Velcro and girth, making it impossible to stick any longer. I unhooked both electrodes and decided to ride the last few miles “off-line.”

About a mile from the final vet check, Paul suddenly morphed into a competitive monster. There had been a group of riders that had been trying to catch us for the last several miles, so Paul announced that we were going to trot into the last check because “If those damn riders want to catch us they’re going to have to LOPE!” It was actually pretty hilarious—Paul was obviously feeling pretty cocky as Ron-G had come into the first vet check with a heart rate of 44. Off we went, and Jasper and I trotted into our first vet check ever. He pulsed down right away, and vetted through with great scores. Woo hoo! First ride of the season, completed!

Just before we vetted, however, I saw Paul and Heidi walking away. I called to them to make sure they realized we had to vet a final time, and they said they were going back to the trailer for a bit first. It ended up almost costing Heidi and George a completion because George got crampy and almost didn’t complete. We worked out the cramps, however, with walking, massage, and a cooler.

All of us were exuberant and had a great big toast (and a nap!) after our last ride together. It was a wonderful way to end four wonderful years of riding with Paul on Moscow Mountain.