The best laid plans...

I had hoped to write a post today summarizing Rusty's first week of training...but that kinda went off the rails by Monday.  It has been raining heavily here since Tuesday, so that has put a stop to riding outside and the other, even bigger problem is that Rusty pulled a shoe (luckily I found it in the paddock!) on Monday.

Yep, Rusty has front shoes.  I thought alot about whether to shoe him or not and I decided to give it a try.  I wanted to do some riding on gravel roads and he just can't handle that barefoot.  I know that hoof boots are really popular, but since Rusty doesn't like stuff on/near his feet, I didn't think that was the best option for now.

I've been trying to get in touch with my farrier all week, but I haven't heard back from him yet.  I want this shoe reset to see how things go - if Rusty keeps pulling shoes, then I will have to go back to square one and try and desensitize him enough to try the boots.

I went out for a long ride last Friday with two other people at the barn.  Rusty was really good and we covered about 11kms or about 6.8 miles!  We did a fair bit of trotting, but myself and the other girl were getting tired. Endurance lady literally trotted circles around us with her arab!  :-)  We were happy to let her trot ahead and then come back and meet up with us again.

The good: we did it and Rusty fared quite well. His legs were cool and not stocked up after the ride.

The bad: my right ankle turned to mush about halfway through the ride. I could barely do a posting trot after that point. I ended up putting alot of weight in my left leg instead. This caused a saddle pad rub on Rusty's back - I felt bad about that.

The funny:  Rusty walked right by two little girls squealing and jumping on a large trampoline as we rode by their house (while the other 2 horses panicked) and then proceeded to spook and snort at a regular orange pylon on the road - the kind that you use in riding rings all the time for pattern work!!!  What a goof!

Ahhh!!!! Scary pylons - don't make me circle those things!

Follow up: I need to double check saddle/pad fit and really work on strengthening my ankles.  I did some google searching and there seems to be some decent info out there on how to do that. We'll see if it works!

So, I'm hoping I can get the farrier out this coming week and get ol' Rusty back out on the trails...well, as long as our weather gives us a bit of a break, that is!

On a side note, it seems there are a couple of different meanings to "Competitive trail" out there.  Here, competitive trail is often a 25-40  mile ride and riders are scored at before and after the ride and at each vet check.  There is also a minimum and maximum time and I think points are awarded/taken away for being over or under time.  The winner has the horse in the best condition that is "fit to continue" based on the points that have been scored throughout the ride.

In this province (from what I can tell) we don't have competitive trail rides with obstacles - which is too bad, since that seems really fun.

Intro to Endurance mini-clinic

The last mini-clinic I attended this year was once on endurance riding /CTRs presented by two experienced endurance riders.  One is involved with Endurance Canada and the other is a long-time competitor and Arabian horse breeder/trainer.

I was pretty excited about this clinic, as I've been slowly reading up on endurance/CTR, as I've always thought it was something I could do. At the beginner levels, you don't need a special horse or special tack.   You can work at home building up mileage and conditioning on your horse and then compete or do training rides if you are interested.

The two ladies gave a great presentation with a lot of really useful information.  They gave us an overview on basic conditioning and what to expect during a ride, including vet checks and holds.  I won't go into the details here - it is easy to Google endurance riding and you will find lots to read up on. 

It turns out that they are going to hold a "hands-on" clinic at my barn sometime in June. It would involve trotting the horses out in-hand and learning the procedures of the vet checks and holds, followed by a 6-12 mile ride! I'm really excited about that and hope that it actually happens!

Rusty really isn't the greatest horse for serious endurance riding, as he is older - 18 (give or take a year or two) - and has large muscles in his back end.  Heavy muscling in the back end makes it harder to cool the horse out during holds and vet checks. Not a big deal, but I can't see myself doing more than 25 miles with Rusty. 

There is also one other major problem with being interested in endurance riding:

Horse transportation.  Or lack thereof.

That is my big roadblock.  There are 3 rides throughout the summer within a 2-3 hour drive from my house.   I don't have a trailer and don't really know anyone that could trailer me - that is alot to ask of a friend/acquanitance...  I could hire someone to trailer us, but I just know the costs would be extremely high. For example, it cost me $120 to have my old barn owner trailer Rusty to our current barn and it was only about 40kms (25 miles) round trip.  She didn't charge me a set-up fee either. 

I think my plan for now is to just work on conditioning Rusty and see what kind of distance we can do at home. If I really enjoy the riding and training, I will have to decide what I want to do longer-term.  It may require another horse and purchasing a second hand trailer.  I'm in no rush, but we'll see where this takes me.  I've just been thinking over the winter that trying to learn to show dressage or hunters or something just doesn't interest me anymore (it used to) and showing western pleasure seems a bit boring. (and I don't like how the higher level horses move - yuck!)  So, endurance/CTR fits nicely with where I want to go with my riding (I think, lol!!) - you can compete (or just go out and finish and have fun) but you don't have to be a pro or have a huge budget...

So, we'll see where we end up at the end of summer... I don't suspect Rusty knows what he is in for!  :-D

Western showmanship clinic

While I was on my blog break this winter, I went to a couple of short clinics at my former barn.

It was fun to get out and do something at a place with the nice indoor arena! I do miss having an arena, but I love riding out on the trails/roads much more, so I think I made the right decision to move.  I like that I can still take lessons from my old trainer and get to ride and work with some different horses.

So, when the opportunity came up to try the showmanship clinic, I thought why not?  Showmanship isn't that hard, right?...and I did some showmanship when I was younger.  I went along with those thoughts until the day of the clinic. On the drive over to the barn, I did some shaky math and realized that the last time I did anything even resembling showmanship was when I was 12.  *Gulp*

That was 24 years ago!!!  *double gulp*

I then put my thinking cap on and remembered that we didn't even do showmanship, it was just halter!  So no pivots or patterns.   I was starting to regret getting myself into this situation, but I knew everyone participating would be friendly and patient with me.  I was assigned a show experienced QH mare named Stormy and we were off.  I did better at remembering the patterns than I expected - I sometimes get nervous and forget what to do.

Image from Google images

The lady doing the clinic was a well know local APHA/AQHA breeder and judge. She was funny and was a surprisingly good speaker.  She explained things well and gave everyone lots of tricks and tips on what the judges are looking for.  She even gave us a few pages of handouts afterwards so we would have notes to refer to later.  I was really impressed by my friend's hubby, who did the clinic with their yearling! This yearling was better behaved than some horses that were much older and experienced. My friend and her hubby have been doing alot of ground work with this little guy and he could set up and pivot like an experienced show horse!  (I have some pictures of them from another clinic that I'll post about next week.)

photo credit: Cappy Jackson - from equisearch.com

I had a bit of a tough time - I would be concentrating on setting up the horse or trying to do a pivot and I would forget about my hand/arm position - or vice versa.  There are a surprising number of things to remember about hand/body position as well as trying to remember the patterns!  I had fun though and learned alot.  I could see myself trying some showmanship classes at a fun show some day. I also went through old issues of Horse and Rider magazine and found a ton of great articles on showmanship with things to practice.

I'm going to try and do a bit of showmanship practice with Rusty on days where I don't feel like riding. I think it is good to work on other things once in a while - it keeps the brain sharp!  Although, Rusty has a heck of a time with pivots/turn on the haunches... I'm not sure if he is just stubborn, or if he has a bit of arthritis in his hocks and it makes turning more difficult. We have some difficulty doing a turn on the haunches under saddle as well, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was the problem as well!  :-)  

My first three rides of spring

So I've officially had three rides (+ one lesson) so far this spring.  Not a huge number by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure feels good to be out riding again.  I have three more rides planned for this week as well. I'm going to aim to bump that up to 4 rides + a lesson a week, as the spring progresses, if all goes well.

I have to admit that Rusty tricked me with a bit of attitude on my first ride.  We went out with a girl at the barn who does endurance and competitive trail. She09- has a cute feisty arab and they do a lot of mileage.  I knew Rusty wasn't in shape to keep up, but she slowed down to accomodate us.    We tried to trot the 1/2 mile or so back up the laneway and Rusty started acting up - going sideways, bucking, etc.  What a goof!

I wasn't 100% sure of things, so I didn't push the issue. I tried trotting a couple more times and got the same result.  Bucking. Not my favourite thing. Rusty's buck is pretty tame by most standards, but still not his best behaviour.  I ended up walking the rest of the ride, vowing to work on his attitude when trotting with another horse beside him.

Fast forward a couple of days and I had realized that I had been tricked by my horse.  He bucks, we walk. Rusty wins.  D'oh!

Once I realized that, I knew I could give him a bit of a smack with the crop next time we trotted and he would be fine.   The endurance girl and I went out again.  This time we had a very successful ride.  We covered about 3 miles at a walk/slow trot, with only one tiny half-hearted buck!  A-ha! I win!  :-D

By coincidence, endurance girl and I met up at the barn on Sunday and went out for an even longer ride. She covered 3-4 miles on her own while I tacked up, we did about 4.5 miles together and she did another 4 on her own when Rusty got tired.  We did lots of trotting and some cantering on the neighbouring farm's track (which is a total blast).  

So, without further ado, here are a few pictures...

Rusty and another mare were snoozing in the sun when I arrived:

I quietly tiptoed out to see if he would let me pet him while sleeping...  This is a bit of a novelty for me - I'm only at the barn for a couple of hours at a time,  so I rarely catch him having a nap...  He sat up and let me take his picture.

I went around beside his head and sat in the hay.  He sighed and flaked out again, but wouldn't let me touch his head.

After 20 minutes or so, I was mean and got him up to head into the barn.  We got all tacked up with his new breastcollar and we were ready to go:

Endurance girl came by on her loop to pick us up.  Rusty is looking at them here.  Not a bad picture from my little iphone...

This is a picture on an old laneway on a farm down the road.  On the right is a cool creepy abandoned house. The horses walked right by with no problem, but the arab mare kept her eye on the place the whole time...

Rusty got pretty tired on me at the 4 mile mark - his head dropped and his pace slowed. I have to be careful to try and condition him better before we attempt more distance, since he had alot of time off this winter.  And he's old.  :-)  It does motivate him to keep up with his little arab friend though - she is a super fast walker, so he has to work hard even at the walk.

I'm really excited about riding - there are a few new people at the barn who are more confident riders, so I expect to be pushing my boundaries alot this year!  

The great bathroom reno of 2011

I'm totally taking the easy route here and posting bathroom reno photos instead of horse stuff. I'll get to the horse stuff later this week.

Our bathroom was in a pretty sad state - we decided this winter that it was finally time to do something about it. We found a great contractor through a co-worker and that sealed the deal.  We probably could have tackled the renovation ourselves, but with both of us working full-time, it probably would have taken way more time than necessary.  As it turned out, the contractor had it done in 5 days!  Not too shabby.

I did a bit of the demo work because it is fun and satisfying to rip out the old stuff.  You also don't need any special skills - just can just wreck stuff!  And wrecking stuff is one of my specialties!  lol

Here is a close-up of the first tile that I removed:

The vanity before.  Notice Richard in the mirror giving the room a "thumbs down"?  Also, all of the light bulbs started burning out the week before we started the demo. I figure it was a sign...  :-)

The very snazzy 1970's shower.  The contractor demo'd the shower and found "1972" written on the wall.  Yikes!  39 years old.  Good riddance old shower! 

Annnnddd - the new vanity!

 Snazzy mosaic tile backsplash (it has a couple of shades of blue and grey in it, but looks dark from this angle) and a modern faucet that actually works!

 A tiled floor and a toilet that doesn't use half of the Earth's water supply in a single flush! 

And the shower - I love the shower.  The same mosaic tile as the backsplash runs in a strip along the wall.  This is a small bathroom - about 12x12 max, so we just fit stuff back in the same dimensions as the original.

And my two little assistants - Charlie on the left and Roxie on the right. They love the bathroom window - it faces east and there is a lot of sun today, so they were watching the birds and basking in the sun.