Hi, yall

I haven't forgotten about you, it's just a) it feels like nothing important happens in the off-season and b) once you get behind, it becomes a more and more insurmountable task to catch up.

So here's the rundown:
I moved Dixie to a barn in the Oakland hills, with 50+ miles of beautiful, secluded trail access. I moved her because she just kept losing weight at the barn in Portola Valley. I could have done a more thorough job of trying to investigate why she wasn't getting enough to eat, yelling at staff, etc., but honestly, why? They were not doing an adequate job with her, and it's not like there's a shortage of barns.

The new place has very small stalls. :( But they try very hard to give the horses daily turnout in individual pens. The stalls are mucked 3x daily and the horses are fed 3x daily. Three weeks after moving her, Dixie's put on at least 50 lbs, and I've almost stopped apologizing when I introduce her. ("Hi, I'm Funder, this is my TWH Dixie and I know she's too skinny and we're putting weight back on her ohgoddon'tjudgeme!")

We had a chance at tying for high mileage TWH for the year, but it didn't happen. I couldn't afford another ride, my horse was too skinny to ask her to do another ride, and she was body sore. It sucked. :(

Today I had a chiropractor work on Miss D, and if I'd had a free hand to take pictures I would've! Dixie Does Not Like to be Touched, so her expression kept flipping between "don't touch me. don't let her touch me!" and licking-chewing-"how interesting!" I was down with a cold all weekend, so I didn't take her out for a walk after the adjustment - I'll go ride tomorrow or Wednesday and hopefully she'll be happier.

White horses are easy to take pics of, but it's hard to show muscles or lack thereof. You may have to take my word for it: that horse was very thin IRL when I moved her. Here she is right after Red Rocks:


One month later, two weeks after being moved to a barn where they feed her as much hay as she needs:


Last week, looking lovely on a walk in the woods:


The Oakland hills are astonishingly pretty.


Lots of really great hills!




Also, the days of letting the cats freeload on our largess have ended. Our cats have jobs. Our cats are business cattes.




I have yet another adorable video of Dixie rolling in the sand for you, but it's still converting. Will edit this post when it's ready.
edit: Work it, girl.

Dirty Dixie rolling in the sand from Funder on Vimeo.

Red Rock Rumble 50

What a thoroughly excellent ride! You're gonna get seven thousand iphone pics and the exhaustive blow-by-blow on this post - it was that much fun.

So Friday I packed up and headed back to Reno. Red Rocks is just north of town (one exit up from where our house our rental house is).


I love how odds are I know somebody at any ride in the region, but Nevada rides are definitely "home" for me. So we pulled in and found a nice spot and I unloaded Dixie. I led her over to the water - I didn't think she'd drink, but she might like to stretch her legs, you know how you do. A guy, Wayne, immediately came up to me and asked if she's a TWH. (That happens all the time, but usually it's not quite so immediate!) We talked for a few minutes - he was starting his first 50 on his TWH!! - and then we decided we knew each other. A lot of "did you ride X?" and "did you volunteer at Y?" and we finally worked it out. I rode 10 miles with him at NEDA Frenchman's Creek last year. He's moved on from the Arab who dumped him at the start (go Team Sensible!).

The sky was fabulous. The weather was lovely - highs in the low 70s both days.


The grey photobombed my picture of the mountains! (She also started her first 50 on Saturday.)


After we vetted in and got settled and I thought about it a little (but didn't overthink it!) I went and found Wayne and sort of offhand offered to ride with him if he'd like the company and he didn't mind going slow. He said it sounded great and we decided to meet up in the morning.

The sunset was amazing - this is looking to the east and it's just the early stages.


The colors got better


and better


and better.


Ride meeting was excellent. The ride was two loops: the first 30 mile loop had a 15 minute out check at 10 miles, then finish that loop back in camp for the 1-hour hold, then back out for a 20 mile loop across the road.

Then I woke up to an amazing sunrise.


I had a secret weapon on this ride: I'd done the first loop back in February. (BIG thanks to C!) I headed out with Wayne on Rocky and we picked up B, on a green little grey Arab, pretty fast. We had a great time and the first part of the first loop flew by.

This is an accident, but I like it. Lotta footing like this all day.


Here we are, back at Dixie Lane!


We had an away check at 10 miles - almost a gate-and-go, with a 15 minute hold. Just long enough for the horses to gobble down some fruit and the humans to hit the porta potties. Then we started the Big Climb (and the Big Rocks). We climbed up this valley, around that hill, then up on a proper mountain.


Up and up. Dixie had "latched on" to a giant bay Arab who was just ahead of us, and the Arab loved her back. His owner would urge him on and he'd trot off maybe 100 yards up the hill then he'd refuse to trot any more, and Dixie would powerwalk to catch up to him. Eventually we humans gave up and rode together, and I kept telling her how far we had to go. ("Well, at some point we make a right and it gets a lot steeper, and I think we end up on top of that peak," "I think if my GPS is right it's less than two miles further," etc.)

It's six miles of steadily increasing climb. There's an eagle nest in a house-sized boulder about a third of the way up, but that pic didn't come out. I like to think I could barely see Pyramid Lake, to the right beside the tallest peak in this shot.


I, um, kind of lost Wayne in there. He was back there with the grey Arab, and Dixie was hot on the heels of the bay Arab, and I hate climbing that stupid mountain (although I love it as soon as I'm up top!) and I decided I'd just dawdle on the downhill and hope they caught up.

Eventually, we made the peak. There's no water up there, and neither of our horses had drank at the trough at 10 miles, so we didn't linger too long. The Sierra Nevadas are the range in the furthest distance.


The next 2.5 miles is quite steep downgrades, so we hopped off and led the horses down. It's Nevada, so we import rocks where necessary to meet the Nevada AERC Quota.


Eventually, we got to the first of two huge spring-fed cow troughs. Both horses dived in and we were thrilled! I squirted Dixie down and refilled her bottles and we slithered on down to the second trough - where the devil cows awaited us.


Once Miss D starts drinking, nothing will stand in her way, not even cows.


Wayne and Rocky showed up again at that point. YAY! We walked another quarter mile or so, til the grade finally leveled out a bit, then we all mounted up and zoomed away. We trotted the whole valley back to camp, with me calling out landmarks and my estimated distances to camp.

The Arab woman (whose name I have sadly forgotten) and I were both fairly worried about time, and we wanted to pulse down fast and get out of camp on time. Dixie was in the mid-60s when we got in, so I yanked her tack and squirted her neck and got her down inside three minutes. The other two got down almost as fast, and we all vetted ok.

I warned my friends that I hadn't ridden the second loop! We headed out across the paved road, down some sand roads, past a cow pond, and up the tiny creek that feeds the pond. We saw a ribbon down low on a sagebrush, then a trampled ribbon, then all the ribbons were gone. We wandered long enough to decide we were definitely lost, so I whipped out my phone and called the RM. She reassured us that we're on the right track and sent us "up the canyon" - we checked one canyon, didn't see ribbons, rode up a small hill, and saw ribbons in the other canyon.

Lost. You just can't trust cows. They are not very bright and they sure do think surveyor's tape is tasty.


Found. Here's the canyon!


This was mentally the hard part of the ride for everybody. The cow path up the canyon was very well ribboned, but it was incredibly narrow and impossible to trot. It was probably 5 miles of walking, but it felt like 10 miles and this was where we became utterly convinced that we were turtling. I kept checking the GPS and running the numbers and I was pretty sure if we could just keep a 4 mph pace we'd make it, but the others were more worried.



Also, they were mad. At the meeting, the RM was bragging about all the deer, antelope, and eagles that everybody'd seen in the weeks leading up to the ride, and we hadn't seen anything! They were pretty unimpressed by my eagle nest, so I started playing "spot the eagle."

I announced any bird larger than a sparrow as "Look! An EAGLE!" Please behold this lovely black-and-white "eagle," slightly smaller than the red-and-buff hawk-sized "eagles" we also saw all day.


Wayne and I also started tallying gates. When we'd been split up, we'd both had to open the same gates, and when we were together we kept both getting off to open a gate and stretch our legs, but he was sure he was two up on me. Arguing about that, spotting eagles, and interpreting the map kept us perky til we finally hit SAND ROAD again.

We stopped at the world's best oasis - a NASTR member set up two tanks, two hay piles, 25 lbs of carrots, 25 lbs of apples, and a couple gallons of people ice water! We were deliriously happy and couldn't stop thanking him. He insisted that we were NOT in last place, that there were about 10 riders behind us, and I re-ran the math and reassured my friends that we'd finish JUST FINE.

Away we went again. Up a hill,


...down a hill, then back across the road to the Red Rock Hounds.


At the barn, another fabulous volunteer had LEMONADE for the humans and apples and water for the horses, then she opened a gate for us (robbing me of the chance to even up the score with Wayne) and let us into the pasture. The TWH were pretty uninspired about getting through the pasture til a big bay pinned her ears and bluff-charged us - yes, when I say "into the pasture" I mean into the pasture where the foxhunting horses were grazing!

We finally got them moving and I quit taking pictures again. Through a couple pastures, around a couple ponds, over a dirt-covered booming wooden bridge, through a couple more pastures full of ribbon-eating cows. When we'd lose the ribbons, we'd just split up and move down the pasture and keep looking. Eventually, we found the right gate going up the canyon. (I opened it, thus leaving Wayne only one up on me for the day.)

One more big 1000' climb, back up to the plateau where camp is. The bit through the hounds is familiar to me, and I kept promising my friends that we'd have one more huge climb then we'd be THERE, a mile or less from camp, just one horrible slog at the end and done. The woman on the Arab got a big trot out of him and they disappeared up the canyon, but Wayne and I were happy to walk our gaited beasties. And we did WALK - I think Wayne did half the canyon on foot, and I did the lower quarter, rode the middle, walked another quarter, then rode again to the top.


There were a LOT of "false crests" but this, this really was it. When we slogged up to that rim we were on the plateau, looking at camp.



Both horses looked at the trailers and perked right up and offered a trot. (Or a gait - Rocky actually step-paced ALL day!) We finished at 5:54 - a whole HOUR and six minutes before cutoff.

And I got another amazing sunset.


We vetted out ok, decent CRI. Wayne's palomino had a better CRI than Dixie! He's the sleeper hit for sure. Dixie was a little body sore - she made snarly faces whenever anybody touched her. Not back sore; she didn't flinch for back palpation. It wasn't specific, like the girth had rubbed her or the saddle had squished her withers. She was just generally sore on Saturday night. She'd recovered by Sunday morning, and I think our season is done anyway - if it recurs next year we'll try to figure out what's going on.

I hiked and RAN probably 4 miles of this, which doesn't sound like all that much but it's the most I've done before. I'm not a very fast runner, and hills at elevation just KILL me going up, so I can only reasonably get off and run the downhills. But anyway, I felt great all day, and I'm deadly sore today but I think I'll bounce back pretty fast.

I have had such a perfect season with my mare - I am so proud of her. And me, sure, but mainly I'm impressed with Dixie!

Ride Bear 25: We remember how to do a proper LD!

I know, I'm such an absentee landlord blogger.

So last weekend, Dixie and I went to a local ride, Ride Bear, to do an LD with a brand-new endurance pair! M has an adorable opinionated Haflinger named Fetti, and last weekend was their debut ride. Dixie'd had several weeks totally off, with nothing to do but eat tons of hay, hay pellets, and beet pulp. She was looking much less like a greyhound, and I was hoping she would be feeling good.

Dixie was SO excited to see the trailer! She loaded great, hauled quietly (ridecamp, in Gilroy, was maybe an hour away), came off the trailer and had a quick look around, then started eating.


Camp, before it filled up.


Majestic. Fastidious. Immaculate.


In the morning, Dixie had a tiny meltdown when the 50s left, but not too bad. There were maybe 15 LD riders, so we just let the first 4-6 leave then we headed out. Our ride strategy, such as it was, was to make the mares walk for the first couple miles. The only real hills of the LD were in the first couple miles, and we didn't want them to get frothy and go insane at the start. We hopscotched for a bit with Julie Suhr (on a very green chestnut) and her friend, but eventually we got in front and stayed that way. A guy on a cute spindly little Arab passed us and towed us along for a mile or so, then we fetched up on Pete and Leslie and rode the rest of the day with them.



Pete and Leslie are gaited riders. Pete was working on his homebred SSH/Arab gelding's first AERC completion, and he'd wheedled his wife into keeping him company on their good TWH mare Ladyhawke. Sadly, Ladyhawke took an instant dislike to my precious angel Dixie, so Leslie and I had to stay pretty far apart, but other than that, everybody got along great and seemed to pace well.



We had one away vet check. Everybody pulsed down right away and vetted through with no problems. Some awesome volunteers offered us food and held horses while we headed to the porta potty. If my horse develops superpowers, it's from this mutant carrot I fed her at the vet check:



M and I were a few minutes late leaving the check and we had to put the pedal down to catch our friends, but the mares were in great shape and we just plowed along for a couple miles and caught up to P & L.



We saw a whole family of mule deer. They were super cute :) but I don't think I'll ever get used to these spookily tame California animals. Are there really so few hunters? I mean we rode down a trail less than 50' from three adults and two bambis and they didn't even bother to wander away. You can see a deer silhouetted under the tree:



And just a couple miles from the finish, I saw a boar! My very first pig sighting ever. I've seen deer in every state I've ever lived in, but this is my first boar sighting. I was very glad that he was across the ravine looking for acorns - boar can be pretty scary.



Dixie and I were in at 12:05 and pulsed down at 12:07. She had a great CRI (56/48) and generally spent all day trying to pull my arms out of their sockets. I was, as always, incredibly proud of her!

After we vetted out and visited with our friends, I took Dixie to the hose (a hose! LUXURY!) and washed her off, then let her roll a couple times. I packed the trailer, talked some more, and realized I was totally completely done at 2 pm. There wasn't any food for hours and hours yet, and it was 90+ degrees, and my house was just a couple hours away. So we totally skipped the dinner and awards ceremony and headed home.

Hoof improvement

Let's recap! Here's how nasty Dixie's hooves looked a week ago, when the packed-in sole came out:



On Tuesday, I trimmed.





By Thursday, her heels were opening up.


And today, they look really nice. I could take the heels down a bit more, but her frogs look way better - the deep black crevices on either side of the frog have filled in.





Yay!

The white things you see in a few of the pics are teeny-weeny gauze squares, dipped in tea tree oil, crammed in the cracks of her frogs. I've been picking her feet out every day or every other day and replacing the gauze. If she wasn't in such a barefoot-unfriendly situation - in a tiny paddock, bedded with shavings - I might not worry about it. But the thing is, when I put her feet down and walk away, she waits like 3.4 seconds before she goes and stands in poop. I think the tea tree gauze is a physical barrier that keeps the manure out of her frogs and gives them time to heal.

Gotta go ride tomorrow. We're doing the 25 on Saturday at Ride Bear - she should be just fine, but we need to get out and blow the cobwebs off.

The ugly

One of the things I try hard to do is share the fuckups, disappointments, accidents, etc. in my horse life. When my shit goes wrong and I think "god maybe I shouldn't blog this," that's when I make sure to blog it. So, first, please click through (if you're looking at this in Reader) and watch this video.


Dixie trotting, Sept 2012 from Funder on Vimeo.

Man, that is a fine moving horse. Unfortunately she's, like, the polar opposite of how a gaited horse should move! No flashy high action, just a real businesslike smooth easy trot. So already I'm kinda cringing - look, look at my amazing TWH endurance horse's super efficient trot. You're doin' it wrong, Funder.

(She's still so skinny. Gotta get those ribs covered - but it's only been a week of the Fat Camp plan.)

So I've watched the clip over and over, in slow motion even, and that mare is absolutely landing flat/heel-first. She's not toeing it at all. She's just flowing along perfectly.

And look at this hoof! It's a little long, yeah, and a little underrun at the heels, but that's a fine looking hoof.


Earlier this week, Tuesday or Wednesday, I checked on Miss D and that sole was looking like it was maybe ready to come out. Then I was laid very low indeed by some minor food poisoning and I wasn't able to get back out til this weekend. On Saturday I arose from my deathbed and went and shot that video - plus picked up Dixie's feet and had a look-see.

The packed-in sole was definitely ready to come out, and her frogs were absolutely eaten up by thrush. I don't know how much you can see from these shots, but here goes...





That was midway through the prying session. I got some more sole and bar out of all four feet, but I only took those shots. Then I scrubbed purple thrush stuff all up in her feet. This is a terrible photograph, but I think you can see how deep the crevices are.



Today I went back and packed those crevices with tea tree oil gauze.



Now that the sole is coming out, her heels are hugely long.



This is the bit where you might disagree with me: I'm leaving the walls alone for a couple days. My first instinct was to scrape out the crumbly sole, treat the thrush, and trim to live sole as normal, but I'm going to wait. I kinda think that the walls are protecting her poor frogs. I know they need to get back to ground contact and start doing their job, but I also think it's a good idea to let them heal up for a short time first.

Also, I think that my horse has no nerves in her feet or something.

***

You remember my sweet tack trunk I made out of a vertical tool chest from Home Depot? Yeah, it didn't work out so well. I mean, it worked fine on perfectly flat indoor surfaces, but it was almost impossible to accordion open the chest on bumpy outdoor ground. It's been demoted to living in the garage holding "stuff I might one day need," and I'm trying something new for in-trailer storage.

It's another tool chest from Home Depot - this one is like a trunk, with a telescoping handle, wheels, and a lift-off lid. Fits in the back under the saddle rack.


Holds the "I might need this on the road" stuff.


BIG removable top tray comfortably holds all my trimming junk.


Mr. September's a big handsome fellow, but his human appears to have misplaced his clothes!


And finally, I stole a couple of Tahoe Rim ribbons ;)