July and August 2009      

• 4th July Weekend - Robinson Flat Camping
• 12 July - Driver's Flat > Poverty Bar 
• 18 July - Overlook > Waterfall
• 1 August - Tevis
• Feet and Boots
• 15 August - EHSC - Fergus and pft's endurance debut!
• 23 August - Highs and Lows
• 25 August - Hay
• 26 August - Fergus Gets a New Blankie

Back to June • Forward to Sept

Here we are and August is three-quarters over and I'm really out of date - urk. Quickly, quickly, fill in the missing blanks. What did we do? Well... we rode a bunch...

4th July Weekend - Robinson Flat Camping

Wanting to do some Tevis pre-riding, we spent the long-weekend up at Robinson Flat, horse camping. 

	On Friday we rode down into Duncan Canyon (rockier than I remembered it), and pft and I took the side trail that takes you up onto Duncan Peak towards the Lookout.  I love this trail and it has to be one of my all time favorites.  Fergus did the whole thing barefoot, which was quite a feat, given how pointy some of the rocks were. More Photos: Duncan Peak Lookout Trail In the evening, Ann and I watched the sunset from the Lookout tower. It was quiet and still and a lovely evening.
	Saturday was a lazy day, spent watching other Tevis pre-riders coming and going. The good thing about this was that pft was inspired to decide to ride all the way to Foresthill with Roo and I on Sunday. This would be as far as they'd ever gone before and pft was a little worried given Fergus' demeanour when we rode the CA Loop back in May. My guess as to where the trail went -  it turned out to be pretty accurate
	In the afternoon, I took Jess, pft and Chili up to the lookout tower and we looked from one end of the Western States Trail (Watson's Monument) to Michigan Bluff.  That's a long way.
Leaving Robinson Flat on the "New Burn Trail"	Sunday we rode the 32 miles from Robinson Flat on into Foresthill. We didn't break any speed records, but had a lovely day nevertheless, taking our time and paddling in the river below Swinging Bridge (wouldn't be doing that on the day).  Evidently Fergus' earlier gloom had been caused by him not grasping the concept of point-to-point trails, because this time he stayed very cheerful all day with none of his earlier reluctance. We cached some water in ziploc bags at about six miles where the trail crosses the dirt road, knowing that there wouldn't be more until we reached Last Chance for lunch. On the Pucker Point Trail, Fergus tried to kill us by twanging a large branch into us, necessitating dodging from Roo. Note to self: do not follow the big horse on an overgrown trail.	Pucker Point Trail
Paddling under  Swinging Bridge	Fergus was a little alarming going down the trail to Swinging Bridge - pft got off to walk over the worst parts and Fergus seemed to think that walking on the very edge of the trail (next to the drop off) was the best place. Urk.  I was really pleased with Roo going up towards Devil's Thumb - he marched up there like a pro, only stopping under duress when I made him, to wait for Fergus.	Going down to Swinging Bridge
	Neither horse wanted to drink particularly at Deadwood (it was a relatively cool day), so mindful of the time, we hustled on down the canyon. We stopped briefly at Kaput Springs while they sipped. Sitting there, I was thinking I could hear a frog - only to realise it was the resident rattlesnake (a fat thing) expressing his annoyance at being disturbed, slithering up the bank.  Time to go. Not two minutes after this, Roo and I in the lead passed a bush sticking out from the up-side of the trail and I absentmindedly hoped that he would push through it, not try to go around. Seconds later, muffled crashing sounds from behind us. I can't begin to explain the feeling of dread hearing "something" happening behind me - just writing this nearly two months later is making me feel vaguely nauseous. Apparently Fergus had tried to go around the bush and stepped off the side of the trail, losing his footing and come crashing down. pft bailed off on the up-side and was sitting under Fergus' feet, wide-eyed. Fergus was looking very worried. Thankfully, neither had hurt themselves - other than nerves - and credit to pft for getting right back on - unlike me, who opted to hand-walk the rest of the way to the bottom of the canyon. I'm hoping this was a free lesson to Fergus about getting too close to the edge of the trail. On the way up the canyon, pft's saddle and pad had gotten squiffed from each other, so we stopped at the creek to adjust this. pft was looking a little crumpled around the edges by this time, but got it sorted out and was back on again - this was probably the low point for him and after this everything seemed to get better. We were late getting into Michigan Bluff around dusk so made haste out of there. I'd thought the pones would be sad leaving because the trailer is usually parked in MB, but they left quite happily.  Fergus led us down Volcano Canyon at a high rate of speed worthy of a true endurance horse and it was quite dark by the time we got into Foresthill. Regardless, Fergus still wanted to trot up Bath Road - a very encouraging sign.  More Photos: Robinson Flat > Devil's Thumb
	Boots: After going through the toes so quickly and deciding to rule out boots on Roo's back feet for Tevis, we got a reprise. EZ Care came out with the new reinforced toes which is what Roo was wearing for this weekend.  He managed 40 miles with no toe wear, but unfortunately did lose his right rear boot on Switchback #36 going up to Devil's Thumb.  So endeth my experimentation with Goober Glue as the primary means of attaching Glue-ons. Chiro: The chiro work seemed to have helped, since he did a lot less toe-dragging.

12 July - Driver's Flat > Poverty Bar 

The only bit of trail we hadn't pre-ridden was this short three mile section, so we trailered over there late on Sunday afternoon. I even remembered to try out the new splint boots on Roo - just as well, since they rubbed <sigh>. It was a lot of fun and both pones were quite stellar zooming up Driver's Flat afterwards. I was very hopeful about our Tevis prospects.

18 July - Overlook > Waterfall

Another chiro visit - only this time I'm not sure it helped so much. After the events of this day, our Tevis prospects didn't seem quite so optimistic.

After his adjustment (the lady said he was carrying himself much better) Roo and I rode down to the waterfall and back. As an experiment, I left him barefoot, which apparently was a mistake - he moved in a slug-like manner the entire time, involving mucho peddling. It was over 100 degrees and he was alone (pft and Fergus rode from the Overlook to Cool where we fetched them on our way home).

About half a mile out, we encountered a cardboard box on one side of the narrow trail and a cluster of deer down in the gully on the other. Roo did a 180 and ran back up the trail a ways. Trying to get him turned around, he fell off the trail and scraped up the back of his left front leg. <sigh>

On our return trip, he spooked at a sumac bush (looks a bit like pointy teeth? that's my story and I'm sticking to it) and dumped me hard on the ground. I was pissed so held on to the reins and got dragged through a bunch of stickers. <grrr>

Not an auspicious day.

1 August - Tevis

More Elaborately Detailed 
(to the point of boredom) 
Story Here

Well, obviously doing the ride kept me out of mischief for about eight weeks solid. On the day, everything went as well as it could have - getting pulled at 65 miles notwithstanding.

I expected a let-down after all the excitement and weeks of frenetic activity (physical as well as mental), but wasn't prepared for the direction of my post-Tevis blues, for the flatness of doubts I felt afterwards.

It's hard to get back to the quiet euphoria I felt at the time - that we'd done our best under the circumstances and finished the day satisfied with how it went. Post-Tevis, I was plagued by thoughts of why we "failed", comparing us to the glowing Tevis-buckle holders and wondering how they finished and we didn't. ...Specific memories of people mentioning their horses pulling on them to the very end (Roo rarely pulls on me, so why should I expect it now?), of an over-abundance of energy (it came and went, but Roo has never felt like he could just go and go, so why should I expect it now?), of talk of various horses having completed "X" amount of times - all conspired to add to my low feelings.

But let's reassess: 

• Roo was super-focused all day. 
• He never bucked, spooked, or pulled on me. 
• He didn't exhaust me with his antics, so I was able to keep it together. 
• He was perfect at the very beginning - walking out in the dark on a loose rein, standing quietly waiting to be let go at the start. 
• He didn't step on me at any point during the day. 
• He didn't tailgait (much). 
• He didn't fall off the trail and, except for one dicey moment high above Squaw Valley, was sensible about his trail-craft - picking his way carefully through the most technical of trails without stumbles. 
• He went up and over Cougar Rock like it wasn't even there. 
• He trotted gamely through dust and rocks, despite hesitating at one point when the dust was so thick he couldn't even see the trail. 
• He ate, he drank. 
• He went 65 miles over the toughest terrain we've ever dealt with for that long a distance and he did the first 36 miles in 6 hours including just one 20 minute break. 
• He listened to me and we stayed connected.

But he has never been Super Horse. Ever. So why should I expect it now?

It's easy to look back on the mistakes I made:

• ....most pointedly not elyting him enough during the ride. 
• As a pair, we tend to dawdle, so he didn't have enough speed-training to carry him through: he managed the first ten miles of frenzied trotting, but it took too much out of him and I think contributed to him getting stiff at Chicken Hawk. 
• I underestimated the power of having that "special friend" with us - I knew he goes better with a friend, but didn't understand that "any old horse" doesn't do it for him. I didn't realise just how flat he'd go if his special friend left without us at Red Star. Sure, he got an extra ten minutes to eat, but would have had some much more of a mental boost staying with his new best friend. 
• He managed the climbs, but could definitely have benefited from me tailing up into Michigan Bluff. 
• I knew about the perils of Michigan Bluff, but didn't fully understand them where others did (horses can and will get stiff at that stage and you need to work through it, riders can and do get stupid at that stage, so you need to have a plan in place so you can remedy the situation on remote control). 

But:

• He had no lasting ill-effects from our excursion.  
• Best of all, Roo and I finished still on speaking terms. 
• Armed with what I learned, I hope we can try again next year and if nothing else, get a bit further. 

The trick is to remember to compare our successes to my yardstick, not that of others. I didn't set out to finish the ride so much as experience it my way - with my pony, on my terms.  

And what did I say after Cooley Ranch: 

"If we can repeat this kind of performance for Tevis, we'll have a great ride (although to have two good rides in a row is probably pushing the endurance gods' magnanimity <inspect fingernails nonchalantly>)."

so why was I surprised?

Feet and Boots

Once you've achieved something, it can fade into the background as a "done that, bin there", but one of my biggest successes this year was taking over the foot care for all eight of our horses. This is exhausting at the best of times, hard work, and a continual game of catch-up - as soon as you get everyone done, it's time to start again.

• Roo hasn't worn shoes since our return from Death Valley at Christmas time. 
• Fergus completed his first 50 at Bridgeport.

EHSC - Fergus and pft's endurance debut!

15 August pft and Fergus started together in the middle of the WHOLE pack. Urk. pft says it wasn't bad though and Fergus kept it together really well. He did great going up on the mtn, but was naughty on the stretch going back towards camp for lunch, rushing, and tossing and pft claims F has a 12-beat gait, which *isn't* comfortable. They left after lunch alone and F was a bit sad climbing the long hill, and even sadder on a long out-loop with no friends, but perked up when some people came along. They finished at 5:15 ish (6 am start) and I was very impressed with both of them - they did great. Fergus looked plenty perky at the end and pft wasn't completely dead. Many people commented "wow - he's BIG" and the vet said "he really covers ground!" - as Fergus slouched along in his lazy trot during his last trot-out. The following morning pft announced "That was a *blast*!" and has been really high all day (gimpy, but high). Fergus was a little tight in the hamstrings but that's about it. Pulse all day was great - really low. Half the time he was a 52 when they took it (<jealous>). > How was crewing? It was good. I was tired and my feet hurt and I got quite pink (forgot to do the backs of my legs). Dennis and I went everywhere and saw Leslie, Dorothy, n' pft at all sorts of odd locations. We took the dogs with us and they all had fun too - chasing sticks, chasing Hank, looking at horses, sitting in the truck and locking the doors from the inside when I'd left the keys on the dash.... thank GOD I'd left the windows open enough I was able to reach in and grab them, or that would have ended in tears). I'm really glad I was able to crew for him and make his first 50 slightly less painful, as well as look after Fergus. The only real mishap was losing my HRM watch at some point during the PnR at lunch - guessing someone picked it up and kept it :( (that's the only watch I own - rats)(then pft and I were left with no watch between us, so time-keeping was a bit of a challenge). Fergus is a good boy to crew for - drinks really well, doesn't stand on you, etc. (More Photos on Facebook)

23 August - Highs and Lows

pft and I rode Friday night so that pft could try out my Sensation saddle. To begin with he said it felt a bit remote (this after riding in the Barefoot saddle, which has virtually no padding), but as soon as we started trotting, a big grin appeared and he was hooked. It made him ride better than he ever has and he said that Fergus felt great. Luckily we found someone on the East Coast who has one for sale for a decent price, so it should be here later this week - happy birthday, pft!

(I rode in the Barefoot - couldn't ride to save my life mostly because I couldn't get the cinch tight enough, was using the Dry Back pad with lots of shimming and the sheepskin wasn't properly attached so kept riding up. Roo came home with whacks on both front fetlocks. Great first ride since Tevis... not).

This weekend it was finally time to rasp Hopi's cauliflower feet - it had only been 10 weeks since his last trim, how much foot could he have grown? The answer was LOTS. We did the fronts yesterday and he was "marginal" - having a couple of little "you can't make me" snits, which were met with a rope over the nose and some sharp words, after which he stood nicely. 

Phone camera pic of Fergus, Uno, Roo, Hopi and Chili cleaning up the back yard

Then today we did the backs and he was actually pretty good - let pft hack away with the nippers ("hack" being the most accurate word, given the rock-like consistency of his feet and how much hoof had to come off), allowed us to rest his feet in the cradle of the hoof-stand while we worked on them, was patient given how long it took me to rasp off all the extra stuff, and although he did take his feet away a couple of times, it was quietly, not ripping them away and messing around. He did manage to poop runny poop all over the entire stand at one point - revenge - necessitating hosing it down. Next time, I was quicker to whip it away.

He's coming along, slowly, but we're making progress. He no longer runs away from me in the paddock - it has only taken a couple of years to get to this point <sigh>..

I also finally got around to rasping the glue off Roo's feet from Tevis - hard to tell where the glue stopped and hoof started. 

Poor Katie lost Jack today. He got poorly after the Redwood ride and they took him to Davis and found a ruptured ulcer. Why do bad things only happen to good people? Jack had such potential and Katie was just starting to tap into his abilities.

25 August - Hay and Pipes

Just came in from unloading the 22 bales of three-grain hay we picked up in Elverta last night after work. It doesn't look like much - kind of yellow - but the horses were literally salivating over it, yomping it off the truck while I was stacking it in the barn. I think it's going to be a success (understatement) - need to go back down and fetch more with the trailer.

Mid-afternoon, the workers let themselves out of their paddock and were running wild all over. Not that this really mattered - I went down and shut the front gate and they spent a happy few hours chowing down on the lawn. 

After a while, Jackit joined them. Technically, he lives in the non-worker paddock, but there's a gap in the fenceline just big enough for him to squeeze through and he comes over to seek out scraps and play with Hopi. So much for them all being good. They did their stampeding-herd impersonation by all galloping down the driveway and then reappearing at the fence below the paddocks. After a bit of crashing around down there, the big horses all came running back up, leaving Jackit to his own devices.

I should know never to trust a quiet pony. After half an hour or so, there was a commotion outside and I looked out in time to see a brown water geyser shooting about 30' in the air... he'd gotten tangled in the hose and ripped the pipe out of the ground. 

Unfortunately, this pipe is between the well (at the bottom of the hill) and the house (at the top of the hill), with no shut-off valve. So I turned off the well-pump and realised that Jackit had failed in his ploy - the hardware store was still going to be open for another 38 minutes so I could still make repairs (usually when they break a pipe, it's approximately three and half minutes after the hardware store closes, making sure we'll have no water to the house for at least the next 18 hours).

'Course predictably what I bought at the hardware store turned out not to be what I needed, but I had enough bits to be able to cap it temporarily and will splice the pipe properly at the weekend.

26 August - Fergus Gets a New Blankie

Renee clued me into a blanket sale on e-Bay and I got Fergus a 84" waterproof, quilted turn-out blankie for $48!! Score!!!! Very smart he looks in it, too, and all ready for DVE.

(Update: ten days after getting this new blankie, while packing to come home from Silver Lake, I jammed the brand new blankie in a space in the manger cupboard over the feed tubs. When we got home, I discovered that not only had I jammed it in such a way that it turned the light on in there (which, if I hadn't spotted it, would have drained the truck battery. Bin there, done that), but the light got so hot it melted the straps on the blankie. <sigh> They still work, but still...)