I am terrible...

I'm an awful blogger. I can see myself on other bloggers' readers and I'm at the bottom. I haven't updated in over 5 months.

I've been riding...somewhat. I can admit I've lost my drive. I've lost my motivation for the sport I credit with getting me though veterinary school with my sanity. I've lost my drive for blogging about the sport and my journey (and struggles through it). I continue to log miles, but admittedly, they feel empty and space-consuming. My heart isn't in it.

I wish I could tell the few readers who bother to check my blog what it's all about. But it's such an extremely personal journey I'm not ready to share it yet, if at all. I can tell you all I've been struggling with life roles and decisions and life in general. Endurance (and horses) haven't been my sanctuary lately, as they have been in the past.

My job is wonderful and I'm learning about my role as an adult and as an associate in a very competitive, very trying profession. I love most every minute of it. Mostly. I feel fortunate to have a career and a love all wrapped in one. Mostly.

Most of all, I desire a change in roles (not career) that has not come easily, and has come with a lot of heartache and desire and re-assessing that has put Jasper and Ony on the side-burner for the time being, while I figure out what all this means.

I hope the few of you stick around to see what it's all about.

Picture Post

Wild horses!! You can see the stallion furthest to the left. They weren't very far away, maybe 50 yards but my iPhone camera made them look miles away.

We saw two bands on Saturday, there is another one on the right, but they were quite a bit further away.

The stallion was so pretty!!

Wilson Creek

I've been hankering to get out and go somewhere new for a while now, and nothing seems to beat the winter blues than riding somewhere new and unexplored. On March 12, two friends and I decided to make the 1.5 hour trek down south for some fresh trails. It was a bit of a logistical nightmare since Wayne needed the truck and trailer for a riding lesson, and his horse and my horses are kept at two separate locations, but everything worked out. We hit the road at a reasonable 10:30 am or so with gourmet sandwiches from Wild West Bakery and Espresso, a local place that's owned by a well-known endurance rider.

Transferring the contents from my trailer to Amanda's back at the ranch. It made my head hurt.

The best part of Wilson Creek (well, other than hundreds of miles of beautiful trails)...bathrooms!!

More beautiful views from the parking area.

The weather was gorgeous, albeit a bit chilly with a breeze, for a nice, long ride. There were water crossings, beautiful rock outcroppings and a ton of rolling hills. We even discovered our own pucker point, which is great Tevis training for Amanda! Jasper did awesome without boots and gravel/rock crunched like he hasn't been standing in mud for the past few weeks. I still haven't figured out if he's got really tough feet, lacks pain receptors in his hooves, or is too stupid/competitive to bother with foot soreness when he's out riding. Likely, it's some combination of all three. In hindsight, however, I will probably pack boots for future treks to be on the safe side.

Jasper happily going down the trail--without his martingale attached. He did pretty good without it. Well if I was grading him he would have gotten a B-. No head tossing, though!

Looking straight down off the trail on our own Pucker Point. Eee!

Pretty blind canyon Amanda's mare was pretty sure we should ride towards. Not sure what that was about, but we DID see some killer pheasants. (Not sure why I can't get this to un-underline)

Although I was unable to get pictures, the most exciting part of our ride was the encouter with the wild horses. We rode over a ridge and into a valley and our trail fell right between two small herds of horses. We were being carefully monitored by the closest herd--the black stallion (!!) watching his mares and one tiny foal had both eyes on us at all times, and when we got too close, he didn't hesitate to throw his pretty drafty head and move his ladies off. It was a humbling/stunning sight to see, and a bit of a girlhood dream come true. Jasper, surprisingly, thought the other horses were irrelevant and instead spent his time making faces at Hawk.

Beautiful blue sky, babbling water crossings--such a pretty day!

Jasper proving he learned a thing or two last season--now he drinks at every opportunity!

Sigh, look at that sky!!

I would like to pretend I wasn't texting just then, but I was. At least I was texting a picture to Wayne!

Coming down the last hill to the parking area. Jasper looks epic! You can see Hawk, his arch enemy for our ride in the foreground.

Back at the trailer, tired ponies! Hawk in the foreground and Replika in the background.

Mr. Picky is no longer picky, which makes me think all our trailering last spring gave him some ulcers that didn't have a chance to heal until the end of the season. This boy will eat ANYTHING now--dry, moist, sloppy, it doesn't matter any more.

Life gets in the way sometimes

Once again I've taken a blog hiatus that makes me feel guilty and keeps me up at night (ok sometimes I lay awake for other reasons and since I'm already awake I try to think of fun blog topics and then I wake up the next morning, the end). The truth is a lot is going on but sometimes it's hard to filter out the stuff that would be interesting enough to blog about. Like recently we got a new mattress. In real life = Awesome! Blog life = Boring!

I'm in the middle of a crazy second career move that I'm very excited about, but feeling frazzled that so much has changed and then re-changed in the past three months. Although it will give me less time to do rides, I'm looking at ways to make the rides I am able to get to more worthwhile. As in higher mileage, if you know what I'm saying (and I think you do).

Other personal family issues have a way of creeping up and interfering with riding/blogging/life/plans, but more on that some other time. Or maybe never. (Remember the mattress?)

Jasper is doing fabulous, he's maintained condition most excellently and is starting out conditioning for this season feeling stronger and more powerful than he's ever felt before. He's also as sound as the day he was born, which always makes my heart soar. All signs are a wonderful confirmation we attacked last season with the perfect blend of conservatism and adventure. I'm still not sure what this season will hold for us, but we'll take it ride by ride and I will work very hard not to plan too far in the future, since my current/new work schedule basically has me working every single weekend of the local ride season.

Onyx is progressing into an Almosthorse with his usual goofy seamlessness. I can't remember if I've talked about him recently (likely not as I haven't really talked about anything recently), but he's proving he's got an incredibly stable and thoughtful little brain and I have very high hopes for him. He recently had his first mini ride in an S-Hack and just as I had predicted, took to it like a fish to water. I'm hoping this eliminates some of his distraction on the trail as he's never really grown to appreciate having a hunk of metal in his mouth. He seems to handle the bit with grumbling acceptance, and that is all that I ask.

Ony modeling the beautiful tack made by Gail at Hought. The blue is stunning and her handiwork divine.

Everybody else is same old, same old. I may not be updating my blog recently, but I'm keeping up with all of your blogs. And I also have a super cool blog post coming soon about a fun adventure into the Owyhee mountains that involves killer pheasants, raging rivers, gourmet sandwiches and wild horses. It's going to be great!!

Day of Silence

Donations can be made here.

Niko

I lay awake in the dark, tossing and twisting blankets, turning to the left and right. I finally sigh and give up, just as I hear Wayne start to crawl his way towards consciousness, undoubtedly to tell me to lie still. I grab my pillow and water and pull open the door to our bedroom.

He's sitting in the doorway across the hall as if he's been expecting me and is impatient I took so long. As I cross the hall into the guest room he jumps up, grasping my leg, and I can hear his rolling purr begin like the first toll of faraway thunder. I toss my pillow onto the bed and climb in, although he's already there purring and entangling in the blankets as I pull them back. He thinks this is all a game, that the only reason I've come is because I want to play. The night concentrates his affection, purifying it into a thick, sweet syrup winding its way around my arms and fingers.

He begins by pouncing on the gaps between the blankets, paws grasping for strings and insects unseen. Although I'm tired--exhausted, really--I laugh and begin to play. Ignoring him only means he will sit atop the bed, waiting and anticipating the slightest move as I drift off to sleep.

The game intensifies and he prowls the top of the blankets, crouching, jumping and pouncing on my toes and fingers as they move beneath the covers. When he pounces, his sharp little teeth grab the fabric as he pulls and shakes the blanket. I grab his little writhe body with my hands and he play-bites and rabbit-kicks my forearms while I pretend to be overpowered. He is the kitten equivalent of a fourteen year old boy--awkward, full of war, and learning to use his muscles.

We play like this for a bit until I can feel our energy ebbing, sleep grabbing at my periphery with gray wispy hands. I lie back and he follows, curling up on my neck with his face in my hair, his purring vibrating through my skull. My thoughts thicken, dampen, soften and finally they go away, quieted by the fun of midnight hunting.

Together we drift off to sleep, both with smiles on our faces.

Legging Up

This past weekend, I was sitting at my husband's dressage lesson hoping and praying nothing bad would happen to him. (Long story short, Wayne has been having some behavioral problems with his mare on and off that likely result from a combination of factors, one of which is his "green-iousity"--lack of confident cues and horse-handling suave. That is to say, however, that nothing bad has happened at all and he does VERY WELL for his beginner-level self. But he has taken the initiative to improve himself and work with his horse and we all applaud him and are impressed with his fortitude. But I digress.)

My dear friend Amanda was there with me as we planned on going for a ride the second the lesson was over. As I was sitting there watching and video-recording his lesson, my motives were two-fold. The first is that he had been very nervous about his first lesson with Ernie-the-Swedish-Dressage-Instructor and his own mare, Obsidian--for the past 6 weeks he has been using "Fred" the school horse. The second is that I constantly wish I had someone to attend my lessons to record them so I could re-watch them in the comfort of my own home and secretly cringe at the sound of my own voice. There may have been a third, less popular, reason, which may or may not have been that I wanted to see just how bad his mare would act in front of skilled company, but I keep this reason to myself.

During his lesson, Ernie was instructing Wayne to speed up and slow down Obsidian's trot. It quickly became apparent that she had a "sweet spot" where her trot was calm, collected, and appeared as easy as breathing. In short, it was a trot she could comfortably sustain for distances of 50 miles or more without any undue wear and tear on her joints, ligaments, etc, and both Amanda and I approximated it at about 8 miles an hour. As soon as Obsidian would speed up or slow down, her trot went to hell in a handbasket. Suddenly, Ernie said, "So can you feel how she falls apart when she goes faster? You need to find that trot which is most comfortable for her and work with it until she is strong enough at that speed and rhythm to do it for long distances. At that point you can begin to increase or decrease her speed as necessary."

Holy crap.

I have never heard the concept of "legging up" a horse put so simply, so succintly, and so very easy for anyone to understand. It totally blew my mind. In short, Ernie was able to cram all the information, theories, opinions, therapies, "tricks" and horsemanship involved in taking a fresh new horse from zero to the first ride in a couple of sentences. And it really drove home that when one sits down and really thinks about it, bringing a horse into endurance (or jumping or dressage or whatever) is really just plain old common sense. And if someone like Ernie can hit the nail so squarely on the head, why is it we continuously have problems with horses breaking down early in this sport?

Oh, yeah, that's right--ego. Human ego.

To simplify even further, these are the basic tenets of taking a horse from zero to the first ride. Common thought is that it takes between 1.5 and 3 years to fully bring a horse to its potential in this sport, providing there are no mishaps and no major problems along the way. These steps assume that you have a horse who is at least four years old when you begin conditioning, is a horse you enjoy spending time with, a horse who enjoys the sport, and is a horse who is structurally and conformationally sound enough to undergo the conditioning necessary, blah blah blah.

1. Prior to beginning any conditioning at all, your horse needs to understand at a minimum the following;
• Walk, Trot, Canter and appropriate transitions (in both directions, if beginning in the arena)
• Whoa, no matter what
• Side-passing and leg yields from both directions
• Giving to the bit (hackamore, etc)

2. Spend several months going out on the trail at a walk. Get him used to trailering and seeing new sights. Go with an older buddy horse who is unfazed by boring stuff like stealth deer, angry moose (mooses? meese?) and ninja flocks of quail. Cross water, walk across bridges, see cows, trees, bushes, broken-down cars, mylar balloons tied to shrubs and different colored rocks. Take your time!

3. Using the Sweet Spot Trot, start incorporating it into trail rides at greater frequency. Remember, the Sweet Spot Trot (SST) is NOT the speed your horse chooses, since THAT speed is usually faster. It's fast enough your horse isn't falling over and slow enough you shouldn't feel wind blowing past your ears as you go. Depending on the horse, this is usually between 6 and 8 mph, and you SHOULD have an idea how fast it is based on prior arena work. This step is the basis of your Low, Slow Distance, which is the foundation of everything to come. Step 3 should take at least a year. At least. Preferably even longer than a year. During this time you may spend short intervals going faster or slower, and even mix in a small sprinkle of cantering. Eventually, you should be spending 90% of your conditioning rides at your SST. For longer conditioning rides, spend more time walking. If you are going for shorter conditioning rides, you can mix in a teeny weeny bit of faster trot (or even cantering!).

4. After an appropriate period of time LSD SST conditioning, your horse may be ready to do a 25 or 50. But you may not go faster than your SST. A good rule of thumb is to calculate your previously-determined ideal trot speed using a GPS. Take that value and multiply it by 0.85 (to factor for walking-breaks and water stops and sightseeing) and then factor in the time needed for vet checks and that should be your ride time goal*. (Step 4 does NOT have to happen after step 3. In fact, it is probably better if it happens at some time during step 3. But you must factor in your horse's fitness level for your particular distance before attempting it. I really hope that this is clear and is common sense for most.)

To simplify these steps even further:

1. Horse needs to learn basic cues and gaits.

2. Expose horse to stuff while walking.

3. Expose horse to stuff while trotting. Don't trot fast. Take breaks.

4. Don't ride your horse fast at a ride. Better to ride slower and have horse for a looong time. No top ten.



*If my horse's SST is 8mph and I wanted to do an easy** 25 mile ride with one 30 minute hold, the calculation would look like this: (25 miles/(8 mph x 0.85)) + 0.5 hours = 4.18 hours, which roughly equals 4 hours and 11 minutes***, which is a TOTALLY reasonable easy 25 miler pace

**By easy, I mean a ride with terrain similar to what you have been training on. For some that is flat, others it may be gently rolling hills. Please use common sense.

***I'm pretty sure I just blew my mind with that math equation. Suck on that, 7th grade algebra teacher, Mr. Pearson.