Ponyhill

Having missed our scheduled 12 mile ride at the weekend due to rain/sickness, I opted to work from home on Wednesday and get it done then. Had pft feed the pones for me and worked from 8:30 until 1:30, and then took Fergus to Cool.

This was a section of "better footing" at Cool - i.e. we didn't feel like we were going to slip over

As it turned out, trying to ride on the trails was a complete blow out. We went out two miles with me scared to death to do more than trot 10 ft very occasionally. It was so slick that Fergus' feet were sliding 18" at a walk. Finally abandoned the trail option and returned to the trailhead and decided to try and finish our ride on the Dam Road.

Our saving grace - the verge alongside the Dam Rd

Fergus' bars were long and his feet soft enough from standing in slop that he refused point-blank to trot on the asphalt surface, so we were reduced to trotting along the verge on the side. My adductors got a work out pushing him over since he wanted to trot in the softest stuff and I was worried we'd go off the side of the bank. He was cheerful enough for the first out-n-back, but decidedly petulant when I turned us around and made him go back and go again. We finished with 11.7 miles total - not the most exciting ride, but at least we got some decent trotting in.

The part to the north was our attempt to ride on trail. The part to the south was us riding back and forth alongside the dam road, much to Fergus' disgust

Back at the trailhead I decided to trim his bars and shorten his toes a little - if I waited until I got home, it would have been too dark.

Finally got home after dark and set forth up the driveway... only to get stuck about a quarter of the way up. pft came down and took over while I hand-walked Fergus up and fed everyone. Unfortunately, he didn't have any more luck than I did, and ended up slipped slightly sideways on the driveway such that he couldn't even back down the hill without ending up in the ditch (3-H goosenecks need a run up to start turning and at that point he didn't have enough traction to go up). We abandoned the situation until morning, came indoors and I worked until midnight.

Trouble with photos is that they don't really show hills - or how steep our driveway is.

Sent my boss a "dog ate my homework" type excuse, citing "unable to come to work due to my own truck-n-trailer blocking my driveway" and worked from home for a second day in a row (thank goodness what I'm working on was perfect for home-work).


Despite waiting until later in the day for the driveway to "dry out some", we still couldn't get the truck-n-trailer moving, so we fetched the old white truck. It may have dubious qualities*, but it comes in mighty handy every now and again.

(*electrics are dodgy, lights work intermittently, driver's side inside door handle no-longer works, it has a short that drains the battery so pft installed a disconnect switch on it for when it's not being used, etc...)

White truck to the rescue

Pulled out the yellow nylon high-line rope and used the white truck's nudging tow-powers to give the little extra that the rig needed to get it out. Success! Huzzah!


Fast forward to this weekend. Yesterday pft fetched a yard of 2" road base and this morning he slowly drove the truck up the drive while I frantically shovelled the rock out the back. pft then used the truck to tamp it down - and the final result was quite good.

... and yes... it's wet 2" road base, meaning it weighs more.

Unfortunately, I still have to wait a while for everything to settle, so creative routing will be needed tomorrow to get in the scheduled 15 miles. I see lots of repetitive to-ing and fro-ing on the local lanes in Fergus' and my future.

And although we had enough rock to get the immediate problem area fixed, it wasn't enough to cover areas further up the driveway that are going to need some remedial care in the near future, so it looks like I'm going to have to shovel rock every weekend for the next few weeks.

Note: By peculiar coincidence, I read on FB that today in 2011 we had two transfer loads of gravel delivered for the driveway. Unfortunately, the ground is too squishy right now to do this, so it looks like I'm going to have to shovel rock every weekend (to fix the bald areas further up the driveway) for the next few weeks.


Edited to add: creative routing R us. Fergus and I managed 14.22 miles from home today - we could have finished with over 15, but I promised him that if he trotted all the way to the top of Becky's hill, we wouldn't have to do Brumarba ( = 1 mile) for the third time. He did, so we didn't. Finished in the dark having both had a good workout.


Thwarted from continuing on my hoped-for route by a downed-tree - hah, got around that one... only to find a second one just up the trail.

It's that time of year again, when energy levels are so low that you can't actually accomplish anything, so spend your time planning things you could accomplish if perchance that enthusiasm should return.

During my daily mucking sessions (when I do my best thinking), I was musing on the regular thought that none of us are getting any younger. Roo will be 17 during this coming ride season, Uno and Hopi 16, with Fergus being 15. Small Thing brings up the rear at 12. Having extra horses is my insurance for when the current Worker Bee gets broken. This only works, of course, when they do break, and thankfully we haven't been in that position recently, so I have the dubious pleasure of having more horses than time to ride, so have to prioritize. This is the plan for this year:

Roo - Decade Team Other than getting a single 50 on Roo this coming season to officially cement our Decade Team standing, I don't have any big goals for him. The plan is to to take both him and Fergus to NV Derby and do both days since it was so much fun last time (not)(fun times juggling screaming horses during vet checks in camp). To get him fit I suspect much of his conditioning will be at the end of a lead rope, as I prepare Fergus for his first ride of the year at 20MT, but it has worked before and is fun to take both of them out as a gang.

Small Thing - Tahoe Rim Ride  Thursday afternoon, I got the news that Small Thing and I had a place in the Tahoe Rim Ride at the end of next August. I've done this ride three times (on Roo - it's his best ride), crewed/volunteered twice, and figured it would be an excellent trail for Small Thing - tight and twisty with very few "big trot" sections ("big trot" being something he doesn't really have in his repertoire). This does mean I've got my work cut out for us, getting him ready, and I have no idea if he's capable of 50 miles - the furthest we've ever gone is 21 miles on the CA Loop - but it's this sort of push that I need to actually do something constructive with him, instead of putzing around.

Fergus - 100s As always, Fergus forms the core of my endurance goals. Having him means I can pick things I want to do, rather than having to limit the goal to the horse's capability. Of course I'll willingly do that if necessary - see above - but the freedom of being able to chose what I want to do is something cherished and never taken for granted. Fergus is such an outstanding horse and with our time clock ticking, I want to do as much with him while I still can. What has always excited me the most is doing 100s, so that's a big part of next year's plan with four 100s scheduled. A fun thing to do at the beginning of the year is see what's available and see how it fits together - and it looks like the rides I hope to do with Fergus slot together beautifully, giving him plenty of time between each one: 25 February - 20 Mule Team 100 (5 weeks) April 1 - NV Derby - Fergus April 2 - NV Derby - Roo (5 weeks) 6 May - Duzen Doozie 100 (5 weeks) 10 June - NASTR 75 (4 weeks) 7-8 July - Tevis Educational Ride - Fergus as a Mentor? (4 weeks) 5 August - Tevis (3 weeks - Tahoe Rim with Small Thing) (6 weeks) 16 September - Virginia City 100 (and hopefully a Triple Crown Completion)

So much to learn, so little time to write it all down.

(This post is almost all about trials and tribulations with Fergus this year, and as such often fails to mention "other stuff going on". Not that the other stuff wasn't good and interesting, but I had to stop typing at some point rather than just regurgitate the last four and half months of Interesting Topics)

Lameness

Back in May I was still trying to get the brown 15" Eurolite to work for Fergus and I. We were aiming for Tevis, I'd gone as far as ordering him a spiffy new purple halter and reins, and announced "provided nothing goes wrong, we should be able to pull it off".

< roll eyes > You just couldn't keep quiet, could you?

On a Sunday in late May, we did a nice training ride from Driver's Flat to White Oak Flat and back - lots of good climbing, a couple of interesting snake sightings and I was very happy with how he felt.

King snake taking a shower by the side of the creek below Francisco's. This was one of two king snakes we saw that day.

By Thursday he was dead-lame. We'd just had some rain, which caused me to freak out that he'd slipped in the mud and pulled something vital, but instead I waited two weeks for an abscess to pop out and it finally did. Rather that immediately giving relief, if anything he was even more lame at that point. Argh.

Finally, two and half weeks into it, I was able to get him in to see Supreme Lameness vet Marty Gardner (now permanently based in Ione, CA) who diagnosed his problem in about 15 seconds (no exaggeration) - an infected corn - had his assistant pare out the problem area with a sharp hoof knife, revealing the black pocket below. "A few weeks and he should be good as new".

But we were out of time - I'd needed that month to really get in some good conditioning and ramp Fergus up to where I needed him to be, fitness-wise. No Tevis for us this year.  :(

Trimming

It turns out that my method of trimming wasn't paring away enough bar, and the result was an impacted area of hoof - and the likely contributor to much of Fergus' toe-first landing and lameness-niggles over the past couple of years - if not longer (see our post-NASTR 75 story from 2015).

Thankfully, it's a relatively easy fix now that I know what I should be watching for, and although I still struggle with where the rest of the bar should be, at least I know enough to scoop out the heels more aggressively.

Hands up if you can spot the corner of the foot that Fergus was avoiding weighting on landing? (and subsequent location of the abscess) The good thing about Renegades is they are foot-specific, so the horse wears the same boot on the same foot giving you a very clear view of how he's landing and what problems may need addressing. From the wear pattern on this boot, I was aware of a problem, but didn't know what it was or how to fix it. Due to his "disability", I only got 100 miles out of this boot before he wore through the toe. I added another 100 miles to it before abandoning it.

This is the matching boot from his right front, same mileage. I can still see where he's loading up the outside edge, but no where close to how he was wearing the left foot.

Unfortunately, standing funky for over a month while his foot healed up, meant that Fergus' front feet got totally out of whack with weird additional medial height, necessitating aggressive rebalancing = taking off more foot than I really wanted to.

16" Specialized Eurolite

Right about when he went lame, a 16" Specialized Eurolite popped up for sale just 30 minutes away from me, so I grabbed it. It turned out to be an older tree (pre-2010, the trees were much flatter) which actually suited Fergus' long flat back better. It wasn't nearly as nice a saddle as the brown 15" one, but it was the right size and came with fenders. Someone had added some rather pathetic breast collar D-rings to the front of the saddle that I figured would come off the first time they were put under any strain (they did).

I fiddled around shimming the saddle for me (it didn't need much adjustment to fit Fergus) and was relatively happy with how it felt, even if I couldn't really keep my balance in it very well.

By early July, we were back up and running again. I took Fergus and Roo over to NV and spent a happy afternoon riding 20 miles with Crysta, Pam and Connie - climbing NV-style (aka never-ending) and both pones did great. Even with Roo leaping about on the end of the lead rope, I was able to ride nicely in the new saddle.

Pam, Connie, and Crysta after climbing up to the pipeline trail. Pam and Crysta went on to finish Tevis a few weeks later.

These two were a handful, happy to be out. Gorgeous views over Washoe Valley

The Monday after Tevis we rode CA Loop with Ash (on Roo) and KT (on Ani), and then at the end of July we spent a few days up at Packer Saddle just north of the Sierra Buttes and I was able to put another 25 miles of slow climbing on his back end.

Letting the horses take a break at Francisco's after doing CA Loop

Headed south from the Pack Saddle campground to access the PCT

On the Deer Lake > Pack Saddle campground trail - they are planning to reroute the PCT onto this trail

And so we headed to Bridgeport in mid-August, not nearly as fit as I wanted, but at least upright and sound.

Bridgeport - Eastern High Sierra Classic (EHSC)

I hadn't ridden the Bridgeport ride in six years and it was definitely time to go back. It was on the schedule last year, but cancelled at the last minute due to a fire near the trail. I love this ride, but in retrospect, it really isn't a good choice for Fergus - lots of very tight twisty places to muscle him around, resulting in a weary rider.

Weary or not, it really is probably one of the loveliest rides in the West Region:

Going for the "high energy" look :)

It was the first time I'd done an e-Ride with him booted on all four feet - a little nervous-making, but the Renegades stayed on - with just one emergency toe-strap replacement when the velcro filled up with crud. He didn't feel totally comfortable over rocky footing yet (remember I'd had to aggressively rebalance his feet, so they hadn't had a chance to grow out properly), but we finished and he looked pretty good at the end, considering.

Following our first distance excursion, the 16" Eurolite was deemed "OK". My calves were sore and my crotch was burning. The first few miles of riding felt like I was a complete beginner, with absolutely no balance or control over my floppety body. I hated riding in a new saddle and hated that feeling of discombobulation. It was "OK", but I wanted that usual feeling of "being at one with my horse" back again.

I'd originally intended to ride both days, but Fergus was a bit tight in the right rear glute towards the end of Day 1, so we opted to go to the hot springs on Sunday instead. It poured with rain - score on two counts - I wasn't riding in it, and all the people cluttering up the pools scuttled back to their cars, leaving deserted, quiet pools for us to soak in.

More Tweaks

I had four weeks to get things straightened out before Virginia City 100.

(three weeks if you consider that the following week Ashley flew in from AZ to ride Roo at the Tahoe Rim Ride - I was along as crew and driver, and volunteer at the out-vet check. The ride went great and we all had fun. And best of all, Roo didn't dump her).

Crewing. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. Roo in his jammies

On others' recommendation, I tried shortening my stirrups a hole (necessitated punching a hole in the fenders, since they were on the shortest setting). That felt like a jockey, so I punched another "half-hole" in between and that felt reasonable.

I spent an afternoon playing with bits of felt and various other pieces of padding and learned some things about rotating pelvises, thigh angle, and how the two affect how pointy your seat bones feel. The best padding turned out to be bubble wrap, but was deemed insufficiently durable for a 100 miler so I had to abandon that concept. I added padding, I took padding out, I cut padding up, etc. Poor Fergus had to deal with me getting on, riding 30 feet, getting off.... repeat for an entire afternoon. He was a good boy, although the couple of times we set off down the lane, only to return within a minute or so got him very confused and he suggested that maybe the ride ought to be a little longer?

Very cushy, but not very durable. It was worth a try, though.

I finally realised that part of my problem was not having enough security in the front of the saddle to snug myself behind. Although I had the additional "knee block" shims in there (see pic here from May), it wasn't enough. A lightbulb went off and I fetched the knee blocks out of my Sensation saddle.




These are designed to velcro onto the underside of the saddle - and on a saddle with flaps, are completely covered. Unfortunately, the Eurolite only has shortie flaps (which is how come it's "light"), so the velcro-face was sticking out towards me. I'd had this problem with the shims I'd been using and had wrapped them in a couple of pieces of fleece, but I was worried that would wear through during a 100 miler, so instead popped them into a spare pair of Equiflex Sleeves - purple, to boot - to keep me from snagging onto the exposed hook-velcro.



(Ann's question this morning about "d'you have a pair of socks on the front of the saddle?" made me realise that, yes, a pair of socks (if I can find some purple ones) would be a better option, to save the more expensive EquiFlex Sleeves).

And voila! The saddle was ready to ride.

Virginia City 100

I slept the best I have ever slept at a ride the night before VC100. Having just stuffed 4.5 weeks-worth of work-hours into the previous two weeks might have had something to do with it, but it was good to feel that calm.

Fergus has developed a man-crush on KT's horse Ani and insisted that he couldn't be more than 5 feet from him at any time which got a little old (especially as we were milling about at the start and he was very naughty), but it worked out OK.

photo: Bob Hall

The saddle felt great right from the start - I was able to stay in it, despite Fergus trotting his Biggest Ever Trot (separated from Ani, he had to catch up). I got a nasty rub on the inside of one knee, but that was more due to a new pair of tights than the saddle, and liberal application of anti-chafe gel helped the problem (that, and switching to fresh clothing at the 50 mile hold).

He was in massive glue-ons for the ride - feet still not where I wanted them, I was leery to trim any more off. 3.5 glue-ons on the front were probably a little too big, and we lost the left front at about 33 miles just before Bobcat Canyon on our way down towards Washoe Lake.

My boot bags could only accommodate one 2WW Ren and I didn't have any gloves big enough to fit his front feet, but Ren #1 was enough - off we went again in mismatched boots. I was actually glad my "spare" was a Renegade, since I wouldn't have been able to get a glove on there very easily with all the excess glue still on his foot.

Arriving at the Washoe Trot-by with an extra spare. photo: Diana Hiiesalu

photo: Diana Hiiesalu

At the Washoe Trot-by I borrowed a rasp and scraped off the excess glue on his hoof wall so I could get the boot on there better. I then replaced the "spare" in the boot bag with Renegade #2.

Multi-tasking - KT's mom Carol elytes Fergus, while Renee feeds him mash, and I rasp. Many thanks to them both for their crewing help. Photo: Diana Hiiesalu

Removing excess glue, so I could get the spare Renegade to seat nicely Photo: Diana Hiiesalu

During this short "break" (hah), Fergus was tormented by stinging insects and was flailing around and I was foolish enough to get in his way and got nailed by a flying back leg. That hurt, but luckily it was a sideways blow, not a full-on kick, so although I had a spectacular bruise to show for it, and whiplash of the lower back, at least it wasn't my head.

Photo: Bob Hall

Back at camp at 51 miles, Renee procured a size 3 glove from Tami Rougeau to replace the mismatched Ren.

Leaving camp after this hold, he was nice and loose (I've had horses be stiff at that point, from standing for an hour) and he was very motivated going across American Flat (read "I must be in front, trotting way faster than everyone around me").

At 60 miles, climbing up to Jumbo Grade, I looked down and noticed my pommel bag flapping around. Realised it was because the ring that it - and my breast collar - were attached to was no longer attached to the saddle. The wimpy ring (remember that one at the top of the page?) had given way. I had to work around this wardrobe malfunction by attaching the breast collar lopsidedly. Fergus apparently didn't notice, thankfully.

At 63 miles, just after the Jumbo #2 hay stop, he lost the second front glue-on, and the spare Ren went back on again until the hold back in camp at 76 miles where Renee snagged second size 3 glove from Tami. At least we were in matching boots now.

(thanks goes to ride partners Kerrie Tuley and Cortney Bloomer for noticing the flying footwear, as I might not have). 

We left the 76 mile check and rode the next 16 miles on our own, much to Fergus' sadness. Getting sleepy at midnight was not good - I knew we still had at least another four hours to go. I sang, Fergus trudged, I worried he was going lame (he was weaving back and forth across the trail and travelling crab-wise - I later figured out he was smelling the vegetation by the side of the trail to sniff out the sparse bunch grass), I sang some more. I felt queasy so sang quieter.

At the 92 mile check we caught up with the two riders ahead of us - Carolyn and Alex - and, lo, Fergus was miraculously cured. We went from "definitely going to be pulled for lameness" to "holy crap, could you be any stronger or more obnoxious??". Fergus charged out of there like he'd only gone ten miles and proceeded to barrel back down the trail towards camp. Attempts to slow him down - and get him off the side of the trail when someone in a vehicle needed to pass - were met with distain and pushy behaviour.

Comparing this bargy horse with the sad sore one from the previous year, I was pretty thrilled (not to mention it woke us both up).

We crossed the finish line at 3:48 a.m. (21st out of 44 starters) and were back in camp and off the horse by 4:30 a.m... 24 hours after I'd gotten on the previous morning.

< proud of my big bargy horse >

The vet detected slight loin soreness at the final check, but I don't think it was any more than the result of a horse that wasn't as fit as he could be doing 100 miles and walking a good part of the last loop. By the following morning, any residual soreness was gone. My body was fine too - no pokey aches from treed saddle digging in.

I declare the saddle a success for both of us!

Extra D-rings

You can never not have enough D-rings.

This week I took the 16" Eurolight to the saddle guy in Newcastle and asked him to properly attach those front D-rings again; replace the rather wimpy leather holding four of the others on (it was only a matter of time before they wore through and fell off); as well as adding two custom D-rings on the back of saddle behind my leg.





My task for this coming weekend is to design and sew two new boot bags that will accommodate two sets of 2WW Renegades snugly on the back of either side of the saddle. I love my old sausage bags, but they were designed to fit two of Roo's size 0.5 gloves. I can just get a single 2WW in the bag, but it takes ten minutes to wiggle it in there and ten minutes to wiggle it back out again, and as VC100 showed me, carrying enough spares for each foot really is important.

So my Endurance Plan this year is going about as well as my Endurance Plan went in the second half of last year, that's to say, not swimmingly ... i.e. we haven't managed a single ride yet this year. I'll admit to feeling heightened anxiety (read "mild panic") at this point akin to a newbie who's never done any rides. I don't feel ready, I don't feel my horses are ready, I don't feel our equipment fits, I'm not fit enough, etc, etc...

Part of the problem has been trying to work out saddle fit for Fergus. After spending the first few months of the year trying out various saddles, finding some that worked for him, but not for me, I finally settled on a Specialized Eurolite. As someone warned me, they are good saddles - once you get them dialled in for the horse. ...And we're still at the "getting it dialled in" stage. We're close, but given our past saddle fit problems, I'm super-picky.

This weekend, after about 14 miles, I finally felt like I'd just about got the saddle to where it needed to be for me, but found some interesting sore spots on my undercarriage today. To say I mourn the use of my Sensation* would be an understatement.

(* I'm still using it on Roo and Uno, so get to be reminded of its loveliness at regular intervals).

The nice thing about the Eurolite is the removable seat. A saddle fitter helped me by showing me just what could be done in terms of making it more comfortable for me. As a result, I now have more of a twist in the seat than I ever felt would be possible thanks to the creative use of a Sensation pommel bolster and some carefully positioned Specialized shims:

Pommel bolster + shims to add twist and make the seat work for me

Knee rolls. Look bodged, work great.

All these items were hidden under my trusty sheepskin... until I rode a few times and discovered that either my bum is too big, or (more likely, of course), I have a long femur (grasping at straws), resulting in feeling like the seat is too small and falling out the back of it. As it turns out, the Eurolite is a 15", my Sensation is a 15.5", and the UltraLite I demoed (which felt HUGE) was a 16". Of course.

So I sadly ditched the sheepskin cover, and proceeded to rip the crotch and knee out of a (thankfully old) pair of tights on the exposed hook-velcro on the shims on two short rides. Hmmm.

Found a few scraps of purple fleece and used them to wrap around the hook-velcro, and, voila, properly cushioned shims. Except that the purple is... well, purple, and doesn't really match anything else. I shall try to find some non-purple scraps of stretch fleece.



This was the latest in shimming on the underside for Fergus, plus widening the cushions in back to flip the front up more:

Fergus is fairly flat-backed, so needed some shims to offset the rock in the tree

we rasped down the center area of the cushions to give him more space in his bulgy areas closer to his spine ...and the latest mod was widening the area between the cushions just in the back to try and alleviate some pressure in front.