Ride Story, finally

Earlier that day, I brushed my beautiful white pony and braided her mane. Then I got real frisky and spot-washed the manure stains and scrubbed her tail. It came out almost white :) I suppose I could've washed her completely, but I have gotten really sensitive to wasting water in the desert, so I didn't. Then I bought a bale of alfalfa for a ride treat and headed home to charge my phone and hang out with my husband. I kinda feel guilty when I run off to a ride and basically leave him alone all weekend.

I rode to the ride, so I dropped off a bunch of stuff at the arena before I went to get Dixie. As it turns out I didn't drop off the right stuff, but that's the story of my life. ;) Then I drove over to where Dixie stays at, got her saddled, and rode over to the ride.

Ridecamp was at the Lemmon Valley arena, with plenty of room. There were at least 40 entries - I was 319 and I think I was at the end of the LD list. Dixie vetted in just fine with all A's. Aarene, she trotted out really really well! She's finally figured out the ready-let's go! trot out thing!

I tied her to ~C's trailer and let her eat hay. She is such a peculiar and contrary beast - she didn't want the perfectly nice alfalfa, she wanted her normal boring everyday hay. I barely remembered to boot her up before the 50s left at 7 pm, but I did.

Dixie freaked out when the 50s left, but it was only a minor freakout. I played Words with Friends til about 7:50, then managed to get on board and we headed out to the start. Apparently I pushed the start button on the garmin an hour earlier when I'd saddled her up, and I didn't notice til a couple miles out, so my GPS start isn't anywhere near the starting line. Anyway, here's the Garmin info for the ride.

We started out last due to standing still to mount issues, but I let her stretch out and trot really fast to catch up to the last horses. She wasn't nearly as out of control as at Rides of March, thank god! She spooked pretty hard at the dolomite trail markings at first, but she got used to them in a couple of miles.

The long bit headed north is pretty familiar territory, and she did really well - rateable and forward and full of energy. When the sun started to sink and we headed east, we encountered difficulties. Dixie just could not believe that I was riding her away from home in the dark. I kept her moving at a good pace until we hit the rocky part of the hills. The sun was totally down, and the moon was trying to rise behind the eastern hills, so it was amazingly dark. Plus it's the rockier part of the trail, PLUS when the moon did rise we were riding right toward it and it wasn't really helping.

Eventually, two people passed us and I let them "pull" us along. Dixie decided the only thing worse than being stuck pointed away from home with her evil bitch of a human was to be totally alone with her evil bitch of a human, so she tucked in with the others and headed up the hills.

Riding up the rocky pitch-dark hills was totally worth it. At the tops of a couple of ridges, you get really stunning views of Reno at night. And there was fog! I couldn't really believe it at first, but there really was fog oozing off the hills. Dixie spooked hard at a couple of innocuous bushes at first, then settled in nicely.

I rode the trail once before (in the daytime, in the opposite direction) with ~C, so I knew about how far we had to go. I think that helped me a lot mentally. Eventually, about the time the moon was high enough to see the rocks, we came out of the rocky hills and into the sandy canyons. I saw something very strange as we were coming out of the canyons back to the subdivision - somebody a couple hills over was shining a flashlight up into a hill. It wasn't the (awesome) ride staff, it was just Some Dude doing Something Weird at night.

We walked through the subdivision and pulsed straight in at 60, then I let her drink and eat hay for a while before we vetted in. She didn't drink til the third tank at mile 15 - I hope she figures out drinking soon. It makes me nervous :( But anyway, she got a B for gut sounds and everything else was A's.

The hour hold flew by as I staggered around in a total daze. It was 12:30 am and I was desperately tired, but we were so close to being done! I ended up drinking a bottle of electrolyte water and a cup of black coffee, then chowing down on some Advil and a fruit roll up. Midnight snack of champions, eh?

I pulled her boots for the second loop, because I knew it was short and sandy and she still goes a little weird in boots. There's something off with the fit on the right rear boot - it was full of sand again, and an O-ring had broken, and the toe velcro was half undone. But it was still on!

We rolled out at 1:30 with the same two people I'd been riding with before. Dixie felt like I hadn't ridden her at all, just as fresh and perky as you could hope for. Her heart broke when I made her keep going past the turn to go home, but she wasn't really that upset. The second loop runs right past the sand pit where the dirt bike guys ride, and we rode on a little ridge past some people hanging out around a campfire in the sand. I wonder if they knew we were there?

After the sand pit, back in the BLM land, I saw a huge shooting star right over the hills to the east. Of course I can't tell you what my wish was, but you can probably guess. :)

By the final vet check, Dixie was through with this trot out bullshit. She had a mouthful of hay and felt she'd done plenty of work and I kind of had to drag her up and down the line, so we got a B for impulsion. Everything else was A's - her gut sounds were back up - so I can't complain.

Then I tied Dixie up and watched her eat and ... fell asleep in a folding chair. Because I'd failed to bring anything for me to camp in. It was unbelievably cold, but I borrowed a horse blanket and draped that over my head and got a nap for a couple hours. A million shivering years later, the sun came up and Dixie was ready to go home. I saddled her back up and made her walk home - she wanted to trot home! But I couldn't handle any more trotting that day.

M says Dixie took a lot of naps on Sunday, but she's none the worse for the wear. Cool tight legs, totally sound, didn't run off too much weight, perky attitude. Yay horse!

This is plenty long, so I'll do a gear post and publish it in the morning.

Pix

So I stayed up late Friday, but the cats woke me up early Saturday morning. Then I went off and rode all night Saturday night and got a bit of sleep sitting in a folding chair watching my horse pig out. I staggered through Sunday somehow til 6 pm, when I crashed out. Today I meant to come home and write up the ride story properly, but my other love (Dr. Who) called to me and I had to watch the season finale. No spoilers for the American viewers! Anyway, the Doctor took up all of my awake time, I'm afraid. I need another good night's sleep. Here's some pictures, though!

Pre-ride:


Ready to ride:


Vet check, 12:30 am


Today:

Moonshine'd

We completed our second LD! Fantastic trail in the moonlight. Dixie was strong and full of go the whole time, except when we headed up into the hills *away from home ohno!* The other LD turtles had to "pull" us along for a while.

Ride time about 4:30, total time 5:30. HR at the final vet check was 48. She didn't drink til mile 15, but started drinking and eating nonstop after that.

The four people I was loosely riding with were nice. One BIG Champagne Gold TWH, a foxtrotter mule, and two Arabs. Dixie and the Arab mare hated each other at first sight. :(

A couple things went wrong on the human side, but the horse side went perfectly. More later.

YAY DIXIE!

Sent from my iPhone

Assembly is reverse of disassembly

Anybody who's ever repaired (or attempted to repair) a car knows and hates those words. Chilton's, you're a bunch of jerks. Whenever I take my tack apart to clean it, I always end up with a pile of parts and a sort of vague memory of how disassembly was accomplished. So far I've always gotten it back together, but it's never easy.

Today was saddle cleaning day, in preparation for the Thing I Shall Not Name Lest I Jinx It. I soaped and oiled my saddle, replaced some hay string ties with pretty blue nylon cord, reburned the holes in the nylon stirrup leathers, and washed the cordura fenders... and the nylon latigos. The fenders and latigos were white and stiff with dried-on sweat, yuck.

It's been well over a year since I rerigged the saddle to also use the back girth rings - I remember standing in that barn in Ohio, ineffectually trying to figure out how to tie the knot from the wrong side. (If you ride with an English girth, none of this makes any sense, but if you ride with a western cinch, you know what I'm talking about.) Anyway, I was dreading the reassembly of the cinch, but it was pretty painless!

I did have the sense to quit while I was ahead. I didn't unbuckle the end of the breastcollar - I have never gotten a Conway buckle back together on the first try.

Doctor WTF?!

I realize only like 3 of my readers watch Dr. Who, but oh my god what the fuck just happened in today's episode??

Also: to make this somewhat horse related, today I purchased a goat halter for Billy.

Gratuitous goat

I didn't end up competing at the 4H show on Saturday. It was a big show, and none of the Western classes started before noon, and I just didn't want to sit on the ground for 4 hours. I packed Dixie's saddlebags with hay and let her eat and hang out in the commotion until the brand inspector arrived, then got her inspected and headed back home.

Her goat, Billy, was very glad to see us. He spent the whole time we were gone lounging in the other horses' pen, but as soon as he saw us approaching he leapt up and ran over to Dixie's pen and started chowing down on her hay. He is a very funny fellow. They were pretty cute eating together, so I wanted to get a picture. As soon as I walked up with the camera, I got a bunch of these shots:



I was patient and eventually he got bored and went back to the hay with Dixie.



I was thinking about going to volunteer at the NASTR ride, but my husband wanted to spend time with me. Awww :) We ended up going shopping and had a nice day together.

Yesterday I took Dixie on a big ride - 20 miles in just under 4:30. I booted up and tried stashing my water in the pommel bag - I think I like it, but it needs some modifications. Some friends called when I got out to her barn, so we met up with them for part of the ride. It slowed us down considerably, but it was fun for me and good for Dixie.

We headed out at a fast clip for the first 7 miles to meet up with my friends who were trailering in. It was my first time riding with them. They're normal trail riders, and the woman's a little timid, so we just walked. Walking is fun for a change but it sucks after an hour or so! But the conversation was good.

We headed up into the hills. I was looking for a trail over to Antelope Valley to take me back home by a different route, but the BLM fence is actually in good shape along that section. There was one dirt road, but it had a cattle guard. The scenery in the hills is fantastic right now - lots of wildflowers, lots of different species of grass. Some dirt bikers zipped by and Dixie was unfazed, yay!

After the others headed back down to their trailer, I tried to work my way south along the ridge to head home, but my trail didn't work out. We headed back down to the foothills and gradually back into the valley. Dixie acted like she could care less about the two other horses while we were riding with them, but once they peeled off away from us, she was somewhat distraught. She screamed a few times, spent too much time looking for them, and wanted to head back down to their trailer, instead of home. At one point she was looking off toward where they'd gone and stumbled hard, to her knees. Before I decided to leap off, she lurched back up and walked out fine. Kind of scary, but she did a slightly better job of paying attention to the trail after that. And as far as "don't leave me!" panic goes, hers wasn't bad at all.

Our only other encounter was some people out shooting cans. When they saw us coming, they stopped shooting, and I talked to them briefly. Dixie was fine with them once she realized they were people, and the (distant) shooting didn't upset her.

Gear:

I think I like the new pad. It didn't get sweat logged like I feared it would, and it didn't rub. When I stripped her tack, her back was evenly sweaty and all the hair was laying correctly. The boots all stayed on, but the left rear had a lot of grass seeds and dirt in it. I think I didn't get it aligned right when I put it on - I'll have to pay closer attention.

Getting the water bag tube out of the pommel bag, drinking from it, and stuffing it back in securely was impossible at the trot and annoying at the walk. I think I'll sew a tube hook on the other side of the pommel bag and let the tube ride across the pommel and hang off the far side. My backpack has a compartment for a camelbak, and the right strap has a hook for the tube. I never use the backpack as a camelbak - I have a real camelbak bag for when I want to use it. The hook on the strap does an amazingly good job of snagging securely to spaghetti strap tops when you take the backpack off, so I'm looking forward to removing it. I am very tired of my backpack trying to disrobe me! If I mod something up, I'll take some pics to share.

I took pecans for a snack and they were great. Dixie liked her De-Lyte Bites. I took one serving to see how she'd like them, and she thought they were good. I brought an electrolyte goo thing for me, and I really needed it at about 15 miles when I got the "don't care if I die in the desert" blahs. Some goo perked me right up and got me home.

My poor knees were the weak link. I am toying with the idea of switching riding footwear again - I think padded hiking boots plus padded enduro stirrups is too much squishy. I love the stirrups so I might try some very thin soled tennis shoes.

Questions!

So we should be good to do the LD at Moonshine on the 26th, right? It's just under 2 weeks out, and we just did our big training ride, so now I can just bomb around if I want and have fun again?

Shoe/stirrup recommendations? Or I guess more precisely, knee recommendations? Yesterday I would've paid a vet tech to inject me with Adequan behind the barn!

Any thoughts about one Renegade full of dirt when the rest were self-cleaning?

New Plan?

So there's a brand inspection tomorrow at the arena because there's a 4H open show as well! It's one of those Nevada Weirdnesses - in the south, horse shows are all at night. They don't even start til 7 pm. It's still intolerably hot, but at least it's not hot and sunny. I guess out here all the shows are in the morning, because it's pleasantly cool then?

Anyway, I think I will enter Miss Thing in some easy classes. We will get destroyed by snotty teenagers who have been showing their whole lives, I'm sure, but it'll be good for her to do something different. This may tell you something profound about my character: I don't have a tag for horse shows. ;)