A flurry of updates 3: trimming thoughts

I've gotten a lot of barefoot trimming questions over the years, and I've been meaning to put up a megapost about trimming for quite a while.  But I'm the queen of Impostor Syndrome - I can't possibly be doing it right, so how can I explain to anyone else how to do it right?

One of the things I'm being forced to work on this year is, uh, owning my accomplishments?  I still feel like a fat, uncoordinated, clumsy nerd.  I'm a redneck who wasted a bunch of money on a pretty horse, and any minute now someone's going to show up, demand that Dixie sidepass on command, and confiscate my equestrian card.  I can't run, I always hurt myself.  I'm not a trimmer, I just bumble along trying not to fuck up Dixie's hooves.

But I have accomplished a lot.  I don't want to act like I'm a BAMF, but I also don't want to act coy and self-deprecating - that's really irritating too.

I got X-rays of Dixie's front feet last week, and you know what?  I'm not ruining her.  They're pretty healthy.  I'm proud of myself!  There's a good deal to argue about if I were out drinking with a bunch of pro trimmers, but in general, these are Good Feet.

Of course I didn't take pictures before the xrays.  I trimmed in mid-October and got the rads at the beginning of November, but here's basically what they look like, inside and out.

Mid-October trim.  The black stuff is glue from the glue-ons at VC, not some weird fungal infection or something.

 Probably the right front.

Early November rads:

I think, from talking to people who have a lot more experience than me, that they're pretty good.  She has a LOT of sole, and a LOT of wall.  Her digital cushion is really nice, especially after her rough start in life.  The outside of the right is a little high.  I can keep wailing away at her toes without worrying about taking too much off.

(You know what else is pretty cool?  That horse is pretty cool.  She just sighed, deeply, and stood patiently on the little blocks like a circus horse.  "You want to do what?  And I just have to stand here?  Ok, fine.")

Anyway, I've put up a page on trimming, and I'm not sure what else I should say.  Go take a look, please, and tell me if there's something else you'd like to see addressed?

VC post-ride

I've got two main thoughts that have emerged from our try at VC:  I'm getting closer to getting it figured out, and I don't think Dixie has peaked yet.

I was right about one thing, earlier this year when I started planning my season:  Virginia City is way, way harder than Sunriver.  I had such an unfortunate experience in Oregon, but I'm glad I went - the trip was super fun with my Worst Crew and Special Auxiliary Worst Crew, and Dixie made such a good* show of it.

* By West "to finish is to win" standards, which is all I've ever cared about.  Racing is awesome if you can do it, but there's plenty of good company wandering along at the back of the pack.

Endurance has really been an amazing journey for me.  I just can't think of a way to talk about it that doesn't sound cheesy as hell - blah blah personal growth - but it really is.  I had to learn to be brave to get started, and I had to learn to be a badass to push through 50s, and now I am learning humility as I try hundreds.  It's hard.

It's such a deceptively easy concept:  get your horse really fit, make sure your tack fits, and ride well for hours.  Nothing to do once you cross the starting line except watch the clouds and make sure you stay balanced, right?  But really, you're thinking very hard about a million things from the time you get to ridecamp til the time you unload the horse at home.  As soon as you get the physical mostly nailed down, you switch to the mental part of the game.

And my horse just keeps bouncing back stronger.  Dixie felt great, great, triple-word-score GREAT all day at VC.  I'm pretty sure I could've asked her for more and kept riding and maybe squeaked out a last-minute finish, but you know... I've rehabbed a tendon.  I want to never rehab a tendon again. She's an honest mare, and if she says she's tired I'm not going to push her.  She didn't choose this life, and she's not out to prove anything to anybody, and I'd rather live to fight another day.

Anyway, you're here for tack and stuff.

~*~ Tack and Stuff ~*~

Fortunately Lucy got a pre-start picture of us; unfortunately we're just blurry ghosts with glowing eyes.

I'm still loving the Specialized saddle.  Dixie's so comfortable with it that she trots about 10% of the time, instead of the 80% she was trotting with the evil old saddle.  I kind of wish I'd sprung for the full seat cover instead of seat + leathers covers, and I may pick up a used full seat cover at the convention next spring to try it out.  I get (painless!) bruises on my thighs, just below the seat and above the stirrup leathers - not a big deal, but not ideal.  A full seat cover would prevent that, I think, but sometimes a full cover makes the twist too wide and causes its own set of problems. I'm willing to try a used full fleece, but not really willing to shell out $$$ for a brand new one.

We're still rocking the discount pad and girth.  I often think about buying Dixie a really nice pad, like a Supracor or a Haf pad or something, but her back isn't the slightest bit sore so I'm not going to change what's working.  (Nothing says love like how much money you can spend on - wait, horses do not care about that.  Horses want food, companions, and fun.  They don't want status-symbol gear, unless that's the gear that's most comfortable for them.)

Most of my biothane is American Trail Gear at this point.  Somehow I'm still using the same Zilco headstall I've used since I gave up leather, lo those long years ago.  When I'm spending imaginary money, after I get a fancy pad I get a blue/purple halter bridle with stainless hardware, but again, the rope halter + snap-on bridle works well enough.  Dixie gets sweaty and itchy with just that minimal amount of hardware, and I don't want to strap even more itchy bits of plastic to her head if what we're doing now works.

I'm getting the hang of the extra-long rope reins + running martingale.  I really like it, but reins / tailing ropes are very idiosyncratic so you might hate climbing rope reins.

I don't usually ride with a cantle bag - I sored a horse with one once and I'm pretty paranoid about letting it touch the horse's back, and if you've got it strapped on tight enough to not touch the back it's almost impossible to get shit out while you're riding.  But it's great for hundreds/night rides, to hold all your emergency gear and the spare boots you probably won't need but can't go without.

I still love/hate my Griffin's pommel bags.  They're so big and floppy, ugh, but they're so big!  They hold literally everything I could ever want.  I can shove like two pounds of carrots in one side and still have room for my food, my camera, my vet card, the fly mask, etc. in the other.  And they have velcro pouches to hold vet cards and powerbar wrappers and crap.

I'm pretty happy with the diabeetus socks, too.  We were too tired to sock her directly after we pulled, and she got a tiny, tiny bit of fill in all four legs overnight.  We socked her Sunday morning and I left them on til Tuesday morning with no problems.  The front socks could be a bit smaller and they sank about an inch, but they're not so tight that they caused any problems.

I was really sore Tuesday, and I wussed out and asked Orlando at the barn to pull them, and he had no problem yanking them off.  They really are easy to use.

Dixie is in small front / XS rears, which are the smallest sizes they offer right now.  Somebody told me they're thinking about making even smaller socks, and for $40 a pair I might get a pair of XS fronts when they're available.

~*~ Me ~*~

I've got my outfit pretty nailed down.  Running gear for my top half - a sports bra that clamps the girls in place, some technical running shirts, and however many more layers I need to stay warm in the Inevitable Snowstorm.  Butt Butt'r, Tights Lady tights, good wool socks, and that one pair of shoes that has never done me wrong.  No underwear.  Death to underwear.

I added gaiters at Virginia City.  Dirty Girl Gaiters is a little shop that makes custom ultrarunning gaiters - these are not the clunky things that keep out goatsheads and rattlesnake bites, these are super thin and come in patterns designed to soothe the soul of endurance riders.  They hook on to your shoelaces at the front, and attach to the heel of the shoe with velcro at the back.  After I put them on, I literally never noticed them again til I was trying to get undressed the next evening.  And instead of picking up a rock every time I got off to run, I got one tiny bit of gravel in one shoe the whole day.

I got way, way behind on hydration.  I had the water, I knew I should be drinking the water, but it was so pleasantly cool all day that I just didn't drink it.  Every time I saw Mel she was like "you're not drinking enough" and I was like "yeah yeah I'm on it this next loop dude" and I was so not on it.  I paid the price, too, with the worst DOMS I've ever had.  I know what wikipedia says, but for me, DOMS is very strongly correlated with dehydration.  If I drink vast amounts of water and take my electrolyte pills, I'm just a little sore; if I badass on through without enough water, I'm crippled.

I did eat pretty well.  Mel says I should have eaten even more, and I could've, so I will next time - but it felt like I was eating a lot, anyway.  One of the nicest things about having crew is that you can spend virtually the entire hold eating without worrying about anything else, and Mel was constantly shoving tasty food at me.  Except once when she shoved the nastiest Totino's-looking pepperoni at me, and I got the bag open before I realized it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen, LOL.

Things I ate:

• Almond Goo - this time I went with crunchy fresh-ground almond butter about 4:1 with nutella and salt to taste.  Crunchy was interesting; I usually use smooth.  
• Powerbars - Cliff Builder bars, chocolate peanut butter.  They're AWFUL.  They're vile.  I hate them so much, but they go down and stay down and that's as good as it gets.
• Nuts - I think I had some nuts too.  I hate nuts, but again they go down and stay down.
• Hard boiled eggs - shit yeah, as long as somebody's willing to peel them for me when I get too stupid to operate them.
• Freeze-dried strawberries.  Unexpectedly delicious.  Didn't realize the packet contained bananas too til I'd eaten most of it - I kept wondering why some of the strawberries were so UGLY, but I ate them anyway.
• Chocolate covered espresso beans - smart crew pours a handful in the rider's hand every time they head to the out timer.  Rrrrrr nothing fires you up for the sleety SOBs like a handful of espresso beans!
• Hot food - when you've done your 50 miles and you think you can't possibly go on, eat something hot and get back on the horse.  
• Mini Babybel cheeses - they're pretty tasty, and like hardboiled eggs, they are individually wrapped so they don't get too manky in camp.  Pro:  they are easier to open than eggs. Con:  I bet they're reprehensible if they get hot.

Things I didn't do:

• For all of my threatening and whining and complaining, I did not drink anything alcoholic the whole day.  Nothing hurt so badly I wanted to take the edge off, and I didn't want to lose what few wits I had left.  Like I said at the beginning, it's a really thinky sport at the longer distances.  I was too busy thinking about Dixie to drink - was I pacing right, was she comfortable, how long can we stand here and eat/drink before she starts to cool down and stiffen up, etc.  I reserve the right to drink the water-trough beers on 50s, however.

One of the things They Warn You About when you start talking about hundreds is how you just can't keep eating all night.  It's true.  At a certain point your stomach phones your brain and says "Excuse me?  We're closing for the night, you may want to finish your business with me."  It's weird and I can't describe it any better than that - I just knew that at some point soon I wouldn't be able to eat any more, so I started shoveling the food in even faster.  

Everybody does what works for their own physiology, so YMMV, but I can't run on carbs.  I hate the sugar rush / crash, and I crash harder than other people, so I try to eat balanced food - lots of protein and fat to fill out the carbs.  Maybe you can negotiate a deal with your stomach where you keep eating those pure sugar gels, like the Honey Stingers, all night, but I can't manage it.  Anyway, eat a lot all day, cause you probably can't eat much in the dark.

~*~ Boot Talk Time ~*~

So I went with Easycare Glue-Ons for VC.  Glueing boots is a leap of faith - "never do anything new at a ride," but who wants to go to the trouble and expense of glueing boots for anything other than a hundred/multiday?  At some point you just have to leap and hope the net is there, yknow?

Tami kindly glued for me.  I was busy hand-feeding Dixie tiny bits of hay to keep her mind off of whatever weird shit was happening to her feet, so I didn't get any pictures.  Both Easycare (pdf) and Renegade have really good articles about how to apply glue-ons, so if you're interested in the nitty gritty, check their sites.  The tl;dr version follows:

Start with freshly trimmed hooves.  Clean them up, make any last-minute tweaks, and rasp the outside of the hoof wall.  Roughing up the hoof wall gives the glue something extra to stick to.  Put squishy rubber stuff in the sole of the boot and hard-setting epoxy stuff in the walls and slap the pre-sized boot shell on the hoof.  Run an extra bead of epoxy around the top of the boot wall to help seal it.  Hold up another foot and distract the horse, so she won't wiggle and torque the boot sideways as it cures. Repeat three more times, and voila!  Glued.

Glue-ons fall off unpredictably.  It has something to do with the age of the epoxy, or the quality control on that batch of epoxy, or the moisture content of the hoof, or the horse's way of going, or the alignment of the stars; no one's really sure how all those variables come together.  It sounds like bullshit, but I've seen some real bullshit with shoes, too - the first ride I ever volunteered, somebody (hi L!) had to walk like five miles back to camp when her horse half-pulled a shoe.  It got stuck half-on half-off out on the trail - she couldn't even pull it to boot him.  Sometimes shit just happens.

Easyboot glue-ons come in boxes of four and they're about a hundred bucks (or less) per box.  You also need two kinds of epoxy and two kinds of epoxy glue guns.  It adds up to probably what you'd pay to shoe for the ride - but again, it's not the kind of money I want to spend to try them out at an easy 50.  The Renegade glue-ons are less expensive, but they're very much one-shot deals.  

I'd heard a lot of horror stories about trying to pry off the damn glue-ons a week after the ride, and after I fell I really wasn't looking forward to boot removal.  I actually called the farrier, yall, but when Thursday rolled around and he still hadn't happened to come by my barn, I pulled the boots myself. With Easyboots, it's not that hard.  (And again, I'm so glad I'm free from the tyranny of farriers.)

Get your mallet and the widest flat head screwdriver you can find.  Put tasty food in front of the horse and explain to her that she is only required to stand still.  Start tapping the screwdriver down between the boot and hoof and prying.  This is where the Easyboots really shine - the Renegade glue-ons are solid "plastic" and Easyboots are flexible "rubber."  (They're both high-tech composites, not plastic and rubber, but you know what I mean.)  You can pry the hell out of the Easyboots and they won't tear or distort too badly.

 After you pry the glue loose all the way around, jam the screwdriver down to the sole and pick the foot up and pry the whole thing off.  If the glue's loose all the way around it will pop off magically.

The rubbery stuff will still be packed in around the frog.  Pry that shit out.  It's stanky.

PRO TIP:  if you didn't fall off your horse earlier that week, this is the ideal time to trim.  Everything is stinky and mushy and you've got a lot of new growth.  If you fell off your horse you can skip this step and go have a lie-down.

I was really, really pleased with the glue-ons.  You're not supposed to re-use them - it's hard to get them clean enough for the glue to stick to the boot again - but you can turn them into Gloves, which is my plan.  

The shells are the exact same shells used for the Gloves, so all you need to do is buy gaiters and drill a couple holes and you can re-use them.  I happen to own seven 0.5's that no longer fit and two 0's that do, so I am really happy to have four shells that I can turn into 0 Gloves.  

Renegade glue-ons are slightly different.  They're harder material, so they don't flex.  This means the glue seal at the top doesn't break as easily, and depending on all the other factors (see above re: epoxy, stars, etc) they might stay on longer.  But removing them is more like removing glue-on shoes, with a lot more destruction and cursing and yanking.  There's no way to reuse them, FWIW.

I was really, really happy with how Dixie's legs looked after VC.  She's pretty badass and she's used to long miles on shitty rocky trail, but I think the cushioning effect of the squishy glue in the boots really helped a lot.  

I feel much improved from this time last week.  I will still go to great lengths to avoid sneezing or coughing, but I've got full range of motion with minimal soreness.  I'm not quite ready to trim, but hopefully later this week I'll be able to get started on all that new growth!

~*~

Maybe there's something big I forgot to talk about, but I can't think of anything else right now.  Hit me up if you've got questions.  I'm working on a big post about How To Trim, since I've had a few questions about how I learned to trim, but it's not ready yet.  

Dixie Summer 2013 Hoof Post

I've been really working hard (or at least working often) on Dixie's feet and they look amazing.  Here's some before pics, from the end of April.

Too much toe, too much heel, too much everything.

And here they are in mid-August, heels as wide as I've ever seen them.  I could probably take more off the toe, still, but it's easier for me to just go at them once a week and keep them looking exactly like this.  I trimmed, then rode 10 miles bare, then hosed her off and finally at the last minute remembered to take pics.

This one looks awesome - front left.

 This one is still stretched.  Too much heel probably.  Front right.

 Right again.

 Right and left.  Left and right?  Words is hard.

Equine infrastructure improvements

This one's just a little roundup of Stuff I've Had Done to make endurance easier, in a general sense.

So when we went to Sunriver, I stopped for gas (in Weed, CA, and if you think they're not capitalizing on that name, you are sorely mistaken).  I was prodding at things while I was waiting for the tank to fill, as one does, and when I shoved at the spare tire mount on the tongue it fucking broke off in my hand. Oh. Shit.

So I threw the spare on top of the rest of the shit in the truck and away we went. But throwing the spare on top of the rest of the shit is really, really irritating, so I wanted to get a new spare tire mount installed, plus I wanted some attachment points to tie a bale of hay in the horse compartment.  I asked my semi-local endurance group (Quicksilver Endurance Riders) but their recommendations, universally, were for this one dude in Morgan Hill.  That's like 60 miles of shitty traffic from where my trailer lives, so I turned to Yelp and found Barstadt & Donitch, like a half a mile away, and talked to them about it.

They did lovely work!  I got the spare tire mounted where I'd originally wanted it mounted, above the fender on the driver's side.  (Yes, that's a shitty place if I have to change a tire on the road, but mounting it on the passenger side would interfere with the hi-tie/horse care, and I hi-tie a hell of a lot more often than I change tires on the interstate.  Plus that's what US Rider is for.)

They know what they're doing.  The problem with trying to DIY it was that the perfect attachment point is between two of those metal studs, and I really wanted it attached to the studs.  They bolted horizontal metal straps down, attached at each stud, with the actual mounting rings positioned in exactly the right spot to snug the bale down as smoothly as possible.

 Works with the divider in use...

 And with the divider open.

The shitty bungee is for photo purposes only, and after I took those I went home and found a nice new racheting tie-down.  Nothing is impossible where horses are concerned, but it would be very difficult for Dixie to get a foot in that strap.  

My hay stayed put for the whole Tahoe Rim trip - with just Dixie, riding backwards, to Lucy's, then we popped Roo in the front stall and put Dixie riding forwards in the back stall.  It's out of the way for her and much, much easier for me than loading and unloading a huge Cali bale in the back of the truck.

Mel and I persuaded her brother to weld me a homemade hoof stand too.  I picked it up on the trip to TRR and OH MY GOD NO ONE TOLD ME HOW AMAZING THEY ARE.  I had become gradually confirmation-biased over the years - I knew a hoof stand would be nice to have, but a mass-produced retail hoof stand costs as much as a ride entry!  I'd done ok trimming without one, and that just proved that I didn't really need one.  I still think you don't need one but lordy mercy they're nice to have.

Anyway, T said I had to paint it so it wouldn't rust.

 Black was boring though.

 I made a bunch of stencils and did it up in my usual tasteless style.

You'll know it's me when I come through your barn

I'm gonna trim that horse in style

I'm gonna drive everybody wild

'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.

(Thanks, Johnny!)

2013 Tevis Educational Ride, Foresthill to Auburn

...or, Only One Day?  You Wuss!

Apparently they tweak the Ed Ride a little bit every year.  This year, there was a bike race on the upper part of the trail on Saturday, so we were scheduled to ride the trail out of order.  Saturday was Foresthill (60some miles) to Auburn (100 miles), and Sunday was Robinson Flat (30some) to Foresthill (60some).

It's pretty crucial to preride FH to Auburn.  Yes, Tevis is held during the full moon, but it's black as tar under the trees.  You have to believe that your horse knows the trail and trust her to move down it fast enough to finish, and your horse deserves to know where the end is.

The logistics of Tevis are mindblowing, but the logistics of the Ed Ride are even more amazing to me.  You must have crew for Tevis, and your crew moves your rig from point to point to meet you.  You don't have to have crew for the Ed Ride - the outstanding volunteers will move your rig for you.  I'd signed up to have ~someone~ move my trailer, but Wayne talked his friend into coming and we ended up having Dean move my trailer to haul both horses around.

So here's D the day before.  She's just a tiny bit thinner than I'd like, but not too bad.

This year, they did a staggered start.  Mentor-rider teams left every five minutes, so we wouldn't get caught up in that "fresh horse racing with the pack"thing.  The three of us left at 6:30 on the dot.

We rode through the tiny town of Foresthill, which was oddly deserted - on race day, everyone in town brings lawn chairs and coolers and sits by the trail/road, cheering the riders along.  Bill Gore was there taking pics, and of course he got some beautiful shots of Dixie.

About a mile outside of town the first disaster started to unfold.  My Pretty Princess started slinging her head.  That was the fourth time she's done that - once at Washoe '12, when the flies came out by the lake. Once at Rides of March '13, when the old saddle was pinching and I was sick and riding like shit.  Once at Washoe '13, when the sleet came in sideways.  And once at TevEd, and I didn't know why.  I wasn't riding like shit!  The saddle and tack fit perfectly at Washoe a month previously!  I couldn't see any flies!  What the hell, horse!

And she wasn't just flipping her nose up and down.  When she does this shit, she will drop her head between her knees and toss her head so hard the reins will go over her ears.  She'll thrash her head back to my toes.  She is paying no attention to her feet when she's doing this, and I knew if she tripped we'd go over the damn cliff and it'd be a bad scene.  I got off at one point and tightened up her girth and crupper - maybe the saddle was sliding forward and hurting her shoulders?  Obviously I took no pics at all, but trust me, it's a gorgeous trail.  Just wide enough for one horse to comfortably trot, lots of natural water and small rock pools, very nicely maintained trail.  Lots of gentle up and down but nothing too killer.  Dixie started drinking at 12 miles, maybe, and kept drinking great all day.

I just chocked up the reins as short as I could and booted her forward every time she tried to toss her head and toughed it out.  By the time (10 am) we got to the first vet check at Francisco's, I was ready to pull.  I came in and the volunteers asked how my ride was going and I blurted out my woes.  A volunteer immediately knew what was wrong.

"Oh, it's flies!  I live out here and my gelding does the same thing.  There are hordes of teeny tiny biting gnats out right now.  Slather on some fly spray and see if that helps."

So I did.  I got her pulsed down and vetted, borrowed some fly spray, and just coated her head in it.  If you're one of the four people who's been reading this thing all along, you'll remember that back in '09 the spray bottle was our biggest nemesis.  Dixie used to absolutely panic if you went anywhere near her with a spray bottle - like galloping around the round pen til she was completely lathered.  Well, it's 2013 and she's learned to tolerate all kinds of previously-intolerable bullshit from me, so I just yanked her head down and squirted her all over with fly spray and she was a big girl about it.

She'd rolled in the red dust at FH the day before and she was just manky with it.

And she did not toss her head again.  Lesson learned #1.

So we headed out again.  The river crossing was lovely and not too deep.  There's a dam higher up the American River, and on Tevis Day they hold the water back so the flow is very low.  But they won't hold it for the Ed Ride, and the river gets pretty high after 1:30.  We got there well before and the water was only up to the horses' bellies.  I knew I shouldn't, but when the water touched my feet it felt so good and cool that I let my feet get wet and it felt amazing.  Bill was there again, taking more gorgeous pics of my gorgeous girl.

\m/

The climb up after the river.  Don't we just look like we know what we're doing?  ;)

The second section wound along above the American River, and we started to see other trail users.  Two guys had fishing poles and those floating chairs, and Dixie was like, oh that's NBD and walked right past them.  She has the best brain :)  The river was just gorgeous below us.  The day was starting to heat up, but I was drinking and eating and I felt fine.  The last section of road into the Lower Quarry was pretty hot and rocky, and the horses were all hot coming into the second check, but they made it.

"I hate you, human.  Are we ever going to turn around?"

Dixie took a little while to pulse down, but once she did she stayed near 50.  A lot of hot-and-tired B's on her card, but she was eating and drinking and we only had six miles to go.  We headed out along the river again.  We worked up the canyon, away from the big Hwy 49 Foresthill bridge (it's like 700+ feet high above the river) and popped out at No Hands Bridge, which is much lower and shorter and used to be a railroad bridge.  It's not infinitely wide, but it's easily wide enough for a car and it's got some little guard rails and well it's called No Hands Bridge so when I saw the photographer I had to do it.

Just beautiful.

A selfie.

 Look, Mom, no hands!

And then the evaporative cooler on the back of my helmet dried out.  I got hot.  I went from "huh I'm kinda hot" to crushing heat headache & making bad decisions in about 20 minutes.  I was out of water for Dixie, I was almost out of water for me, it was blindingly hot, and Dixie was huffing along at about 100 breaths per minute.  I got off and started walking her and that just got me hotter, but I'll be damned if I hurt my horse when I can possibly spare her.  I walked uphill in the heat, which isn't something I can do, but Dixie was so hot and we were only two miles from the finish and I was just terrified that I'd colic/thump/tie-up her.  Finally Wayne and Becky convinced me to get back on - I probably looked half-dead - and we dragged ass into the fairgrounds.  I took my helmet off because it was SO HOT and I didn't care if I fell off and died.  

There's a big rock tank of cool water just at the border of the fairgrounds.  I yanked D's bridle off and she went in up to her nostrils and drank, and I soaked my helmet and stuck it back on and the cold water running down my back was better than drugs, dude, it felt SO GOOD.  I yanked all of Dixie's tack, hung it on the fence, and walked her up to the hoses.  She was probably at 120 when we came in. I sprayed her down for a few minutes - somebody was talking to me so I don't really know how long it was, less than five minutes - and checked her pulse.  She was down.  I took her over to Melissa Ribley and she vetted out perfectly.  We did the thirty-whatever miles in 7:15, a completely respectable pace.

It was Dixie's first point-to-point ride, and I think she just lost heart toward the end.  She can be directionally challenged, but she knew that we were nowhere near the trailer and she couldn't understand why we hadn't turned around yet.  But when I yanked the saddle at the fairgrounds she knew we were done, before she even saw her trailer.

Here she is back at Foresthill.  I really think she looks almost exactly as good as she did the day before. I know it's not the same angle but I was doing real good to take a post-ride pic, period.

I fought that crushing headache til after 6, but I did manage to do one extremely smart and productive thing:  I trimmed her hooves.

Friday night I'd gotten Kevin and the Easyboot people to come look at Dixie's horrible feet and ridiculous boots - everybody who looks at the way her Gloves fit double-takes, because there's just no way they should stay on.  But they do!  Oddly, I lost two back boots on Saturday, but the fronts stayed on.  You can kind of see how abysmal they look in the Lower Quarry pic, if you're a boot nerd :)

Anyway, Kevin said take off a lot more toe, at the very least go back to the white line.  It's the kind of thing I know, and if I was looking at someone else's hoof pics I'd say "well duh, pull the toe back," but that's why you need outside eyes sometimes.  Dixie has incredibly thick hard feet, and I was dreading working on them.

After the ride, I thought "I should pull those wet boots off and let her feet dry out."  I sat there for a moment in the shade, and then I thought, "... and I really should trim them while they're soft and wet."  It was so hard to force myself to trim - I had to do one foot, then stagger back to the shade and drink another bottle of elyted water, then do another foot, etc.  But I got it done, and soggy feet are so much easier to trim.  I think in the future on trim days I'm going to boot her, hose her legs, ride for an hour, then pull the boots and trim her soggy feet.  It was that much easier.

And ~oddly enough~, the boot fit looked much better after the trim.  :rolleyes:

Then I decided not to ride Sunday.  It wasn't for points or miles.  I want to do Sunriver 100 in two weeks, and I really didn't want to override her and injure her.  I live close enough, and I have wonderful friends in the area, and I can come back and ride the canyons some other weekend before we try Tevis next year.  And the consequences of getting heatstroke in the canyons are very high - there is no easy way out, if I heatstroked out down there.  I do not know if I could walk out if my horse couldn't haul me out, and it just wasn't worth it overall.

I was so close to doing everything perfectly, too.  I know that if I get conditioned for the heat, if I keep my neck cooler wet, and if I eat and drink regularly, I can do this.  But I wasn't conditioned, and I really didn't want to injure myself, so I pulled.  Partly I feel like shit for not being Tough Enough and Badass Enough, but I think that's just pride talking and I made a good decision.  :-/

So I played trailer driver on Sunday!  We all got up at 4 am, loaded Vader and Mocha Jack in my trailer at 5:15, and headed up to Robinson Flat.  Wayne's friend and I waved them off at 7 and headed back down at 7:30.  I packed up my camp and loaded Miss D and got on the road for home at 9.

Next: the usual post-ride gear/training stuff.

My new year starts in March

Hey, yall. I feel like I haven't had anything to say, so I haven't said anything lately. But the long dreary winter of my discontent is finally fading away and life's about to be fun again.


Dixie and I have been climbing hills. (My new iPhone is awesome at most things but dear god it really sucks at taking motion shots.)


We go up a hill, then I hop off and we run down together, then I clamber back on and ride back up. Repeat, over and over again. Doing all those hills - combined with the awesome barn guys actually feeding my horse - has improved her conditioning somewhat.

October of last year:


Early February - filling out, but still very fuzzy:


Early March:



With endurance, as with all things horse, it's just one damn thing after another. Dixie and I have worked hard to do all those hills, and it's obviously paid off - except that now her saddle doesn't fit so great anymore. She's filled out a lot and it's not quite wide/flared enough in the shoulders anymore. Our first ride is in less than two weeks, so there's no changing saddles now, even if finances allowed.

The AERC convention is next weekend, so I'll be doing a lot of window shopping there. I am leaning toward a Specialized, just so I can shim it to fit her properly - I just need to figure out what size/type *I* like. They're not terribly hard to find used, and they hold value well enough that I wouldn't really mind buying one new if I had to.

In other shameful news, I finally picked up a rasp. I hadn't trimmed Dixie since last year. Awful, I know, but she wasn't growing a ton of wall and we were doing all our miles barefoot. But I finally decided to cram her feet in her boots, and I had to whack off some toe and heel to make it happen. The boots still fit! I think I will order a Fit Kit before I buy new boots, just to test out 0's and 1's too, but I think she's still a 0.5 all around.

One more conditioning ride tomorrow and I'm done. I don't know if Dixie's ready for a 50, but I'm out of time so it'll have to do. There's rain coming in on Tuesday, then I leave for Reno on Thursday. We'll just do some light work next week, then I'll pack the trailer and haul back for Rides of March on the 16th!

Hoof pics, if you care to see them. Reminder: her heels are always contracted, no matter what, from the shoes and stacks when she was a yearling. When I say her frogs and heels look good for Dixie, I know they look awful in comparison to normal horses, but it is what it is with her. :)





No, I didn't take any after I trimmed. I just took her heels down level with her frogs and knocked her toes way back to the white line and called it good enough for now.