Epic win!

We had about the best first endurance ride possible!

The good: Dixie loaded, ate, peed, pooped, and kept her cool remarkably well. Diego did the same, and they got to be trail buddies - but not so BFF4LYFE that we couldn't leapfrog each other. The horses saw NEDA driving carts for the first time - they're like homemade chariots. They were a little snorty but didn't come unglued!

The bad: Iffy footing. No drinking. I led that horse to water no less than four times - two different types of water - and she just wouldn't drink. I definitely have to work on that - I think I'll try offering her flavored water at home (ACV? apple juice?) so when I offer her flavored water at a ride, she won't think it's unusual. And I think I'll give her some salty food first thing in the morning before a ride, so hopefully she'll be a bit thirsty when she steps off the trailer. Thoughts? Suggestions?

I talked ~C into signing up for the 20, but we should've just signed up for the 10 mile. Woops. It was one 10 mile loop, ridden once or twice - all roads, and all covered in about 4-6" of snow. The snowy bits were excellent, but there were miles of that slippy ice you get from traffic on snow. The iffy footing was one of the main reasons we decided to stop at 10 miles.

The horses got all big-eyed about the carts heading out, but we just hung out for a few minutes extra at the trailer til most of the riders headed out. Then I mounted up and ~C led Diego and off we went. Diego was doing his best snorty bug-eyed tail-up wild Arab impersonation, and Dixie kept wanting to rush off faster and faster, so we both made lots of circles on the side of the trail. Every time Dixie got tense and rushed, I pulled her into a big dressage circle and rode the circle til she focused on me again. Diego got to run in a circle once, but otherwise he just gradually calmed down on his own.

We walked probably the first three miles, before the horses had settled in enough to pick up the pace a bit. I asked Dixie to gait a few times, but the footing wasn't good for it - she'd start to rack, slip a bit, and trot instead. So we trotted. Dig's slowest trot is faster than Dixie's fastest flat walk, and Dixie does not believe she can trot any slower than she does, so we started leapfrogging. I'd trot ahead a bit, then drop to a walk, and Diego would jog past, then we'd repeat.

Amazingly, we passed a group of three riders. They'd started out a bit faster, but we caught up and passed them some time after the halfway mark. One guy on a green horse stayed behind us the whole time, so we came in 5th and 6th from last (on the first loop) - pretty respectable. I think most of the greenies only did 10 miles.

Dixie worked up a good sweat on the last half of the loop, but I really haven't conditioned her to trot for miles. She wasn't exhausted, and she seemed to have a good time. We came back to camp, offered them water, pulsed in (58, then she got mad about the stethoscope and went up to 60), let them eat for a few minutes, and went back out for about a mile, just so they'd get used to ride -> eat -> ride. I think we did the 10 mile loop in 1:45 - not record breaking, but not embarrassing.

Next official ride I'm planning on is the LD at Rides of March. I've got plenty of time to put some speed on her, and if she's still yaklike I'll clip the underside of her neck in early March.