The need for speed - Mt. Adams 2014

Facts that you need up front:

1.       We were attempting 55 miles at Mt. Adams.
2.       We got pulled for gait irregularity at 45 miles.
3.       I am not sad about this outcome.

He was so calm. So very calm and focused at 6:15 a.m. on Saturday. My good horse, the Zen master, warmed up on a loose rein, gliding through camp like fog on the mountain.

And then he proceeded to try to pull my arms out of their sockets for 40 miles or so. 

What I said back in camp (half joking, half serious) was that if this is what improving his diet does, then I’m taking away the vitamins and feeding him straw from now on.

My theory is that starting close to the front of the pack borked up his brain. He was so calm and easy in camp that I thought, what the heck, why not start at the official start time? Why indeed. We let the hot shoes go and started in the bubble right behind the leaders. The problem was that it didn’t stay a bubble for very long. 

So there we were, caught up in the front 20 of the pack (50 horses in the 55-mile), leapfrogging with horses who would eventually top 10. And Blue was very game. Four weeks off after Grizzly, plus a month on glucosamine and a high-dose vitamin supplement did their work. 

I realize that I have been on my soapbox about control. Serious failure on my part this weekend. I put Blue in a position that made it very hard for him to settle. There were always horses in sight either ahead or behind. Often both. He was controllable, sure. I could hold him to a walk, trot, or canter. He would stop and back. He turned when we needed to. The problem was that I planned on a normal 7 mph trot and he gave me 10mph. He would not settle and sustain a normal travelling pace as long as there were other horses leapfrogging around, and we paid for it later.

I did the math at awards the Sunday. Blue did the first 31 miles in just over 4 hours (not counting holds). That would have put him roughly 5^th place if we’d been in the LD. And I’m fat enough we might have even BCed. 

NOT that I regret doing the longer distance. After 31 miles of going waaaay too fast, Blue was sure he was done. Heading back out for another loop was an important reminder that he doesn’t know everything. I know he is just a dumb animal, but there are times that I really savor taking Blue down a peg. Think you’re done, Boy? Not by a long shot.

He abruptly lost the spring in his step at 38 miles. (The same spot that he had a little meltdown last year.) I tell you, he REMEMBERS these trails. He whooshed into the water set on Martins Road at full tilt, certain that we were finally done and would be walking down to Steph’s front pasture. No such luck.

The six or so miles back up the hill to camp found him getting more and more sour. And sore. I could tell he was getting tired because he preferred to canter and walk instead of going at a consistent speed. It is possible that (hindsight being 20/20) if I had stopped, done some massage and stretching with him and given him a long break, we might have been OK to continue. But when we got back into camp at 45 miles, he was barely willing to trudge over to the vets.

His trot-out (which we have been working on) was abysmal. Dr. Jen asked if he was gaited. The real answer to this question is complicated. The answer I gave was that he shouldn’t be, and he’s very tired. And I would rather not kill my horse today. And that he probably used himself up in the first two loops, which was my fault. And Dr. Jen, who is a nice person when you just confess your sins instead of trying to fool her, said not to feel bad. It looked more like sore muscles in the hind end than anything mechanical. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine with food and rest. We would live to ride another day.

I don’t have the vet card, but I can tell you that he was all A’s up until then. His recoveries were good. He ate like a champ all day. The pull was no big deal. These things happen.

I can tell you that when we got home on Sunday it was raining hard. I still let him out in the arena so he could roll in the sand. He tore around looking mad as a wet hen, bucking and striking at invisible enemies. The old man had energy to spare. 

So this week I think I will go out at least a couple evenings and do some massage/TTouch/bodywork to see if we can release some of the muscle tension and speed up recovery.

If he recovers well and tells me he’s ready, we’ll go try another 50 at Klickitat in two weeks. But we will not be starting anywhere near the frontrunners. We will start in the back and stay there, where 7mph is a nice speed that we can maintain all day long with no fighting.

If he isn’t quite ready, we’ll save that strategy for Bandit or maybe even OR100. At this point in the season it becomes a matter of balancing terrain against temperature. If this summer turns out to be a scorcher, we may not get another chance to do a (relatively) easy 50 when it’s less than 80 degrees outside. Time and El Niño will tell.

PS: It was fantastic to see everyone in camp. I love how this ride gets such a great turnout, you see practically all of PNER and plenty of newbies too. You guys are all awesome. Thanks for the support and smiles!

Make money in the horse business

Haha. Made you look! As far as I know, it is impossible to make money in the horse business. If you are here you almost certainly know the aphorism: How do you make a small fortune in the horse business? Start with a large fortune.

You know from reading this blog an all the others that endurance is, shall we say, a money-intensive pursuit. What with all the custom saddles, veterinary attention, remedial farriery and whatnot, it is a wonder I can feed and clothe myself.

Lots of E-riders have side businesses to help defray the cost of competing. Heather has her hats. Aarene is an overachiever who writes entire books. I know others who have gotten into various ventures like Scentsy, Pampered Chef and the like. I started a thread on AERC facebook today to see what others are doing, too. A lot of them were in-person sales. I am not so good at sales. Even worse at "in-person."

So I am here to thank Shana for dragging me back into theworld of model horses, where I have a few marketable skills.

If you are a friend on Facebook, you probably caught this picture of my workbench overflowing with horses in various stages of customization. I consider them my plastic nest-egg.

You think I’m kidding? Feast your eyes on this guy:

Photo by Mel Miller. Horse by Mel Miller. Photo is presented here purely for drool-inducing purposes.

Now, granted, the horse above isn’t one that I did (I wish!). He was created by an outstanding artist in the Seattle area, Melanie Miller. But let me direct your attention to his final bid price at auction: http://myauctionbarn.com/auction_details.php?name=Seattle-Native-Lonesome-Glory-by-Mel-Miller&auction_id=149218

Yes. That customized plastic horse cost the same as my last two real horses put together.

He started out as this guy, a model you can buy at your local feed store for about $40.

And while I am nowhere near Mel in either skill or the prices I can command, the last one I completed paid for my entry to Grizzly Mountain and all the gas to get there and back. 

I call him Money In The Bank.

Was creating him profitable? Probably not when you figure in all the hours I spent. On the other hand, I do enjoy the sculpting and painting, and I want to be doing it anyway, so the actual cost of that time is hard to calculate.

My real job is salaried, so I can’t exactly pick up extra hours when I need pocket money. Not complaining, BTW. Love my job. But I’m hoping the models will help with the shortfalls when they happen. It would be nice to have a comfy, model-shaped cushion next time Blue decides to maim himself or the truck catches on fire or whatever.

So, here’s who’s on the workbench right now:

Totes Magotes! Is a sabino ¾ paint/Arabian. Tons of individual hairs. He started out a minimal sabino that quickly got out of hand. Now every time I walk by him I feel compelled to tick in a few more white spots.

Big Red’s name is an homage to my alma mater. He’s a chunky QH reiner-type. I’m thinking blood bay with dapples.

 

The Paso Twins are going to be a seal brown tobiano and a flaxen chestnut. One of them is going to be donated as a raffle item for Shana’s Sweet Onion Live 3 model horse show in August. The other one will be a sales piece.

I'm working o a breed assignment for this gaited pony. Galiceño? American Walking Pony? It has to be someone who can rack because that’s what he’s doing. I completely rebuilt the head from scratch on an armature and am ridiculously proud of how it came out. I’m a lousy sculptor, but I am learning! There are tons of great tutorials out there that didn’t exist when I first got into custom model horses in the mid-1990s.

Don't you just wanna smooch his chunky little pony face?

Barred M Masquerade has a sad story. I actually finished her in time to show her at Bethany’s Card Shark Live back in March. She did great, winning both of her classes and getting a lot of attention because of her weird (but well-documented) color. Well, on the way home she suffered a tragic tail-ectomy and a severed ear. I tried to superglue them, but the pieces didn’t match perfectly and my paint touch-ups were too obvious.

At the show, before her career-ending accident.

Today, back in primer... mostly.

I resigned myself to starting over. She went into a bath of paint stripper to take her back down to bare plastic. After weeks of sanding and scrubbing, she is just about ready to paint again. Should I do the crazy color again? Do I have the energy? Or is it time to make her a more sedate, “normal” mule color?

And when these guys are done, there are a bunch more plastic ponies in the peanut gallery, just waiting for me to approach them with a hacksaw and a vision.

In the meantime, though, I have a real horse I'm taking to Mt. Adam's this coming weekend to attempt 50 miles. The weather looks marginal for Saturday, which is a shame since it is going to be gorgeous all week. Hopefully the rain will stay away long enough to preserve the footing and give us an easy trip. Wish us luck!

Grizzly Mt 2014: Might as well go 50

This is a ride story without pictures. Sorry about that.

The thing I forgot about Grizzly Mountain, or probably more accurately, The Thing I Didn’t Think About Until After Decisions Had Been Made, is that it is a loooooong LD. Not a 25. Not a 30. It’s 32 freaking miles. And, with one tragic missed turn and a hefty chunk of backtracking on my part, it was really more like 35 or 36. And really, if you are going 35 miles you might as well go 50.

But of course by the time we had finished those 35 or 36 miles, it was too late to go 50. We signed up for the LD and we were done.

Heather and I have been talking over email about our season plans, such as they are. Purchasing Bunny has put Heather in a completely different bracket than me, so as she’s contemplating 100 miles as a season goal, I’m hoping to tackle half of that.

Luckily the principles are pretty much the same, no matter the miles. Heather’s been gently nudging me toward this more analytical approach:

1. Figure out a conditioning schedule that works for you and the horse. This one has been tough. My new work schedule with the commute is kind of an unholy bargain. I love where I live and am happy with where Blue is. The tradeoff is that I lose 2 hours of daylight to I-5 every weekday. Two hours. That’s like… 15 miles of riding time down the tubes. So our conditioning schedule has been, shall we say… spotty… since the fall.
2. Figure out how long it takes him to recover after a hard ride. This was easier. Using this blog and a few notes I had made in Blue’s veterinary binder, I figured out that a month between competition is best for Mr. Blue. I used our fantastic experience at Renegade two years ago as my standard for “peak performance,” then worked backward to figure out how we got there. Why Renegade? It is a hot summer ride with tons of elevation changes and technical trail, yet Blue powered through the whole thing with instant recoveries and EDPPMF up the wazoo. That’s what I want every time we compete!
3. Play to his strengths. In a perfect world, every ride would be wooded singletrack on firm (but not very rocky) footing, and it would be 65-70 degrees out and sunny but with plenty of shade. There is a ride that is usually like that. A ride that Blue has excelled at. A ride that is not very far away. A ride with good management and a comfortable camp. A ride I have done enough times to know the trails well. That ride is Mt. Adams. I decided months ago that we’d be working toward an early-season 50-mile completion at Mt. Adams, and Grizzly would be the stepping stone.
4. Time the rides for maximum performance. Grizzly is exactly one month before Mt. Adams. It was perfectly placed to give us a performance boost going into May. I wanted to do a moderate to fast LD at Grizzly as a prep for attempting a 50 at Mt. Adams. Time will tell if this strategy works, however!

The drive to the Crooked River Grassland (home of both Grizzly and Prineville/Still Memorial) is very different from my new home in the city. On paper, it should have been a faster, shorter drive than the one I took from our old base in Silverton. The difference, of course, is traffic. The first 10 miles of the trip used up the first 40 minutes for a not-quite-three-hour drive. After that, smooth sailing over the embarrassingly scenic Mt. Hood Highway, through the equally but differently scenic Warm Springs canyon, and up onto the semiarid flat lands of central Oregon.

Camp was already bustling when I pulled in, but I found a primo parking spot 10 yards from a potty and 15 yards from a water trough. It was a lovely afternoon in the desert—sunny, quiet, not too hot, so I set about getting everything ready. 

I don’t know if you guys have this moment when you get to camp, get out of the truck, and are just completely paralyzed trying to figure out what to do next…? Is that just me? 

So I set up the corral behind the trailer (closer to the water), went to the motorhome to actually sign up for the ride, came back and set up the inside of my trailer for sleeping, took Blue out for an overly enthusiastic warm up over the first few miles of the course, came back into camp like his tail was on fire and vetted in (pulse at 52—yikes!) and then set about making my e-lyte syringes and filling my packs.

Ride meeting and bedtime. I will speak only briefly of bedtime. I remind you all that I am jealous of your campers, your LQs, your setups with room for a buddy heater, dog or spouse. These I do not have. It was 35 degrees that first night. That was the actual test of endurance, in case anyone wants to know what the hardest part of the sport is.

Morning dawned clear, cold and still. I EDPPMFed and stretched myself and my horse. Sauntered down toward the start. Watched almost everybody leave. Had the mildest of disagreements about an appropriate speed for starting. Picked up a jaunty trot in a nice little bubble. Rode a good chunk with a rider I’d never met before and her lovely half-mustang mare. Missed a turn. Saw hoofprints but no ribbons. Went back (as apparently had the hoofprints I was following). Added a good two miles to the trip finding my way back on course. FLEW through the rest of the 22-mile loop, including the notorious powerline road. Taken at a power-trot instead of a trudge, it really isn’t so bad.

Blue was a horse-eating machine at this point. If someone was in front of us, he was going to catch them. Once caught, they were nothing to him. Less than nothing. Blue was looking for the next horse to catch, these other horses already forgotten.

That is not to say that I was allowing shenanigans. 

[STANDBY WHILST I MOUNT MY SOAPBOX]

One thing that I really hate to see is riders giving up on control and just letting their horses go. I had been guilty of this with Otto once, but never again. You are putting yourself, your horse and everyone else on the trail in danger by not being in control. Just because he can do the mileage at a gallop doesn’t mean he should. Just because your wooly, green, first-time horse thinks he can keep up with a seasoned veteran at the front of the pack doesn’t mean you should let him. This is a hard lesson for both horse and rider. If you are lucky, like I have been, you will have the opportunity to repent. If you are unlucky, you probably won’t last long in the sport. Choosing an appropriate pace is a big deal.

So anyway, no shenanigans. Blue wanted to go, but he was “with” me the whole time. (I don’t know how else to describe that feeling, but you know what I’m talking about. You and the horse are working as a team and reins and spurs become mostly irrelevant.) So I let him make some of the decisions about speed, and he did very well at it, passing five competitors in fairly quick succession.

But at the vet check he was hot and his pulse was hangy. I walked him into camp a good quarter-mile, and he was still at 64. He dropped and bounced a few times. Dr. Jen said everything else looked good. He was well-hydrated and had plenty of gut sounds. His attitude was normal. She surmised (as I did) that he was probably getting hot now that the morning chill had burned off and we’d gone 20-some miles. She said to take him back to the trailer, strip his tack, get him fed, and expect to ride out of camp on a much happier horse once he was cool.

Oh, how right she would be… eventually.

By that time (about noon), it was plenty warm out. Direct desert sun and no wind makes even 60 degrees feel quite warm. I decided to switch all of my “performance” gear (wicking/fleece everything) for summer-weight tights and a long-sleeve t-shirt.

We left camp at a reluctant jog. Blue was certain that we had completed our LD. (At any other ride, we would have. :)) The nice thing is that the second loop is half as long as the first one and, I would argue, a bit more interesting. We caught and passed another rider. We rode through a herd of cows. Like… they were right there. Close enough to reach out and pet their adorable beefy faces.
 

Dean and Tiffany, doing the 50, caught us. They were being very conservative about speed because Tiffany’s horse was not quite right. She said he felt a little off in the hind end, and they were experimenting, trying to figure out if more movement would work the problem out or aggravate it. Blue happily left them behind again and began powering up the big hill. The big hill is an excellent place for singing The Grand Old Duke Of York at the top of your lungs. You march yourself to the top of the hill and you march back down again. Blue was more than happy to comply, passing two more riders like they were standing still.

Somewhere along that hill, the weather changed. It was like someone flipped a switch. The clouds rolled in. The wind began to howl. There was no more question of being too hot. I started wishing I hadn’t left my jacket in camp. Luckily, we were almost done when we got to the bottom of the hill.

The final test, if you want to call it that, it crossing the highway back into camp. Blue was not tired. I know he wasn’t tired because a gust of wind caught the ribbons on the “Ride Camp ->” sign and he spooked so hard that I’m still wondering if there isn’t some Arabian in him after all. What a dork.

As soon as he pulsed down I rushed him to the trailer to strip his tack and put a cooler on him. It was so very cold. The wind was howling so hard and so loud that Dr. Jen had me turn Blue as she listened to his gut sounds, putting him between her and the wind each time. 

We got our completion, which was all I wanted. The wind was so awful, I seriously considered packing up and going home, but the mileage we'd done made it hard to justify. Blue needed his rest. OF course, by then, the corral had blown over and was laying in a heap. Once I was changed and recovered, I dismantled it and moved it to the leeward said of the trailer so Blue could be out of the wind and still have room to move around.

(I would regret this move in the middle of the night when Blue started using the trailer as a scratching post, rocking me awake and kicking the tires. Note to self: Never use the trailer as one side of the corral again.)

Overall, I was very happy with the whole experience. When we got home, Blue GALLOPED circles in the arena while I emptied the trailer. When I turned him out with his friends, he went thundering down the hill, obviously sick of human company.

I haven't seen any ill effects on his this week. His feet are about the same. He's not obviously stiff on the lunge line. I did notice one small, open scratches lesion on one of his white feet, so I've been treating that as aggressively as I dare. I would hate to miss out on a 50 at Mt. Adams for something as stupid as scratches.

Your Mileage May Vary: Thoughts on Hoof Boots

You can say this about most topics in endurance: Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV). But there are some people in this sport (as in all great passions) for whom the answer is My Way or the Highway (MWOTH). 

There is no single right answer for electrolytes, conditioning schedules, nutritional supplements or behavioral training. With any method, YMMV.

 

He's gotten a bit pudgy over the winter. We are two of a kind.

So you gotta feel bad for the newbies. Some poor 19-year-old posts to your Facebook group “Which is better, hoof boots or shoes?” and the entire board braces for impact as the MWOTHers come out to play.

When I read the passionate responses, nay, declarations, of the MWOTHers, I can’t help but think how lucky they have been to find a solution that works so well for them they are willing to pretend it’s the only possible one. Because I will tell you something about my experience with horses: They are all really different. 

Blue is in boots because shoes didn’t work for him. That is the only reason. If I thought I could put him in shoes tomorrow and not immediately have problems, I would sooo do it. Why? Because boots are a  &^$&@#$-ing hassle, pure and simple. They are fussy and inconvenient—just one more thing to worry about on the trail… where I have enough to worry about already, thanks very much.

My conditioning ride this weekend was a perfect example of why boots might not work for some people. All I can say is thank goodness I was riding alone.

Every little thing he does is tragic. Oh, horses. Do they ever stop hurting themselves? 

NO, THEY DO NOT. 

Had Blue been in shoes, this little scrape (looks much worse than it is—it was basically a glorified rug burn) would have required nothing more than a smudge of Neosporin. Because he is in boots, and the boots have a gaiter, and the gaiter sits exactly on top of this scrape, a bit more elaborate booting protocol was needed.

That’s athletic tape on top of vetwrap on top of gauze on top of desitin on top of Neosporin. No big deal. And PS: It barely budged through our whole ride, including through miles of fetlock-high mud and two trips though a stirrup-high water crossing.

The aftermath: filthy, but still quite functional.

Trial and (plenty of) error. As part of the ongoing thrush drama, I decided to try padding Blue’s front boots to give him a little more cushion and support. I am not convinced they make a significant difference in his comfort level or his way of moving, but I will tell you one thing. They sure change the way the boots fit.

Or don't.

You wouldn’t think that 6mm of soft padding would cause such a fuss. At least, you wouldn’t if you were me. And then you would be surprised by just how much fuss it was as you kept having to dismount to put the boot back on.

Are they still on? 1-2-3-4 GO! Something that I never did in my shoe days was stop and check that all four shoes were still nailed on after a tricky obstacle. Now I do it every time. And when I say “stop and check” I mean STOP and check. I don’t know how else to confirm the boots are there than to stop the freight train, lean over in the saddle and count to four.

Steady-state riding. What’s that? In his book 4^th Gear Endurance, Dennis talks about steady-state riding, which basically means asking the horse to go at a consistent pace that is right on the threshold of his ability. For Blue that is a sustained 10mph trot. And we might have been able to do that this weekend if his footwear had been nailed on. That same front boot kept popping off, so finally I took it all the way off to get a closer look. As is turns out, it wasn’t a problem with the pad at all. The heel hardware on the gaiter had pulled through the rubber part of the boot and was basically just flopping around.

I wasn’t carrying a spare, so it was time to improvise. I washed the boot off in a large, deep puddle. (Plenty of those around.) I had my truck key tucked into my shirt, so I used it as a screwdriver to take the whole thing apart, realign the pieces and tighten it back down. 

All told, this probably took 5 minutes to fix, but it was long enough for me to feel the chill wind and decide it was time to stop bushwhacking head back to the trailer. 

I guess the moral of the story is this: Boots are not for you if frequent stops drive you crazy. You need some flexibility in your conditioning plans to allow for boot malfunction under normal circumstances. And during the transition/learning curve period, you might as well plan on not having a plan. 

We still did 13 miles of worthwhile riding on Saturday, but they were not the 13 miles that I had planned. If you have a plan and a schedule you really must keep, the boots will derail you every time.

So which is better: Boots or shoes?

Eh… no comment.

The Seven Dwarves of Thrush

We’ve had a very busy few weeks between work and weather and houseguests, so I hadn’t ridden my horse in a while. How long? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m not one of those overachievers who keeps a conditioning journal. 

One of the upsides of the new barn is that everyone is in love with my horse. This means they want to ride him just for the fun of it. This means I am getting free exercise/training from people who know what they’re doing. This is very good when I wake up one weekend and realize we haven’t done a real conditioning ride since early January. 

What is not good is (are?) Blue’s feet. Those twin abscess holes, still very visible, are pretty much old news. That damage is done. What worries me now is what you see when you pick those nasty feet up off the ground. All of his frogs (except, possibly, one of the hind ones) bear more than a passing resemblance to a fine gruyere—spongy, crumbly, stinky, tender, rubbery, slimy and moist. On second thought, I won’t besmirch the good name of a tasty dairy product. Let’s call these the Seven Dwarves of Thrush.  

In the mud pits of February, these little guys always show their ugly faces. And fighting them is a constant, exhausting battle in Blue’s case. For some reason, things are especially bad this year. It might be the new environment and whatever microbial life is in the mud here that wasn’t at the last place. It might be that a very dry fall and early winter gave way to a snowstorm, followed by a deluge, followed by above-average temperatures. Could be that I’m still trying to adjust Blue’s diet to work in a place where I don’t have as tight control over what he’s getting as I used to. Many possibilities.

Regardless of the cause, the result has been multiple frog blowouts and great flaps of rotten tissue to carve out of his already not-so-great feet. I shudder to think what it will look like when those wall abscesses grow down to the sole too. GAH. GAAAAAAAAAHHHH.

But even this year’s megathrush seems fairly run of the mill compared to Blue’s poor, flinchy back. Boy does not want me to put the saddle on him. He also would prefer not to be brushed with anything firmer than a feather duster. 

Coming down the long hill at Hardy Creek on Sunday, he was pretty much unwilling to go faster than a mincing trudge. Tiny, slow steps, the very opposite of his attitude going upwards an hour before or his usual downhill scramble back toward the trailer. I have suspected for a while that the Specialized was starting to dig him just below the point of the shoulder on the left side, and this increasing sourness at saddling (imperceptibly gradual, but after a few weeks away from him to gain sufficient perspective, the tail wringing and outright avoidance this weekend was very obvious) and wincing down the hill pretty much proves it as far as I’m concerned. Time to get out the shims again. Probably it was time to do that a long time ago, but it is so hard for me to tell if the saddle is doing what it’s supposed to or not. 

When the sweat marks all look great, but your horse is doing his best Bartleby the Scrivener impression, what does that mean?

I feel like the icing on the cake was a few nights ago when I went out to do a serious thrush treatment. I was planning a wash/soak with antibacterial Dawn dishsoap (thanks for the tip!) followed by betadine. They say you have to be careful with betadine because it can dry out the hooves. I can't imagine ANYTHING  drying them out right now. Hair dryer? Heat gun? Nuclear blast?

So anyway, I got out there all excited to do something productive on the thrush front, and I find my horse has one eye swollen shut. If you're a Facebook friend of mine, you've probably seen the photo of the abrasion on his eye. Happy to report that he's back to his normal appearance now, thanks to just under a week of atropine, antibiotics and banamine. Only time will tell if there has been lasting damage to his vision. :(

I feel like if Blue was a human, CPS would have taken him away a long time ago. “Your child has hoof rot and a sore back and the same time... and now you've been poking him in the eye with a stick? Ma’am, please step away from the animal.”

Seriously, please don’t report me. I’m working on this.

2014 PNER Convention: “The year of the hoof”

Officially, this year’s convention theme was “Hobby or addiction?” —and while that is a really valid question (!), it wasn’t the one addressed by the majority of our speakers. Instead we were treated to a wonderful assortment of talks about hooves—anatomy, biomechanics, lameness, shoe v. boot, and more.

Obviously, these topics are relevant to my interests. Sadly, I found myself leaning over to Heather all too often and saying “Blue’s are actually worse than that” when one of our esteemed speakers showed a picture of what they would call “extreme aberration” of hoof angles. Whatever those pictures showed, make them 25 percent worse and you’re talking about Blue.

And it wasn’t just the weak angles. It was the narrow frogs, the contracted heels, the crushed tubules, the bruises and, now, the abscesses. 

I find myself in an almost permanent state of apology for Blue’s hooves. My new farrier, who came along as an accessory to the new barn, is a barefoot guy. An Easyboot guy, even. I was excited to meet him and show him how much progress had been made and tell him what my hopes were for the year to come. But of course, these things are never as simple as I imagine them.

Farrier day arrives and I cleaned off Blue’s feet to find these.

Yes, those are twin blown abscesses. Perfectly symmetrical, twin, blown abscesses. I say that so that I can point out the one silver lining. At least they are symmetrical. My horse may be messed up, but he’s messed up evenly. Whoop dee freakin’ doo.

Hoof growth wise, it is hard to say if these date back to Foothills or OR 100. It was almost certainly one or the other. I can’t imagine a training ride being the culprit in this case. 

Chuck, the new hoof guy, was incredulous when I told him Blue is perfectly sound on everything except loose, chunky gravel. But he really is; I swear to you.

Or maybe he isn’t. Maybe all of his feet hurt equally, so they balance out and there’s no apparent limp. It could be that. 

My only solution for now is to be more diligent about using the boots everywhere except the arena. 

Now, you maybe have read Amanda’s blog about padding the inside of Easyboot Gloves. This is not what my clinical friends would call “best practice,” but I’m tempted to give it a shot after all I learned this weekend.

Hopefully, with the help of hoof guy, my own regular follow-up trimming, religious booting, improved diet and more natural living conditions, the hooves will get a chance to improve drastically this spring.

I am curious if padded boots would increase Blue’s stride back to where it was when I bought him. So I’m gonna order some and try it. I can't imagine it would hurt.

This post should have more pictures, but doesn't

Quick recap of December/January:

1. New house!
2. Christmas with the in-laws in Boise!
3. Happy New Year!
4. Strepto-pneumo-rhino sleep all day bug.

Yes, I've been sick the past couple of days, which I really hate. Enforced sloth doesn't have any of the sweet, getting-away-with-it vibes that you get from being lazy on your own terms. So I spent most of the past 48 hours in bed, mostly sleeping, mostly feeling rotten. And also really jealous of the people who are outside riding on such a nice, clear couple of winter days.

The thing about spending several days in Boise is that it reinforced to me how much better we have winter here. Well, better being relative. It is much warmer here than it was there, out in the desert. And so far, knock on wood, it has been a dry winter here too. Granted, that can be bad for people who ski or who depend on spring runoff. But for me, it means that riding is not a slog... all the more reason to be mad that I'm too sick to ride.

Recently, members of the local OET chapter had been making rumblings online about a new riding area to check out—sort of a "best kept secret" near Oregon City. Turns out there is this large logging tract about 40 minutes from my barn that is, at least for now, open to recreation. Everyone calls it Olson/Unger, which just refers to the nearest intersection. A small group of PNER riders went up there and flagged some loops of varying lengths, though the entire property is a honeycomb of nice singletrack trail and logging road. I've done my last two weekend conditioning rides there, and I absolutely love it. It's a shorter drive than Hardy creek and, so far at least, less muddy than the State Parks. I haven't taken any photos on the actual trails, but I do have a record of Blue's opinion when we finished:

Blue is doing really well at the new barn. I need to do an entire post on the new place but for now let me just tell you that being outdoors 24/7 in a sloped, moderately muddy pasture has done wonders for him when it comes to negotiating wet trails.

He's also getting more regular work now, in spite of my sickness, because Jake, the young guy who cleans stalls at the new place, is smitten with him. The owner of the barn approached me (because Blue is such a good, mellow horse) to ask if I'd let Jake take lessons on Blue. This is a win-win as far as I can tell, since it means my horse is getting supervised exercise on weekdays. Jake also likes to get him out and lunge him or take him for short "trail rides" around the pasture.

However, as Jake seems to be getting a bit attached to my horse, I'm wondering if it would be in my interest to turn this arrangement in to a formal lease. Jake has said that he would consider taking on some of the expense of putting Blue on a bit more robust supplement regimen, and that certainly wouldn't break my heart.

I could see making a contract that Jake has free use of Blue Monday through Thursday on the barn property for some amount of money (reserving weekends for me), and then adding a vet clause in case of injuries to the horse and a liability clause in case Jake hurts himself. I've never done a lease before, though, so these thoughts are in their infancy.

Have any of you been in a lease contract before? What is usual? What is important? Tell me in the comments! :)