Well, the good and the bad.....

Soooo. Kandace's Big Birthday Bash was last weekend.  The weather forecast was for rain and snow. Yep, snow.  Bundle up!  Sherrie picked Santana and I up on Friday, and we got to the cabin at about 4:30.   The weekend was a blast. Such a great group of ladies, not exactly sure how I got into this circle, but I sure am happy I did. Its kind of like in high school, when you aren't one of the cool kids, and then, the cool kids invite you to eat lunch at their tsble. These ladies are the cool kids, except unlike high school, they aren't snarky. But like high school, Silly String was used.....
It rained Friday and Friday night. Saturday morning it was COLD. And windy. And snowing. I got up and dressed, and went out to saddle Santana. Then, I got some sanity, and decided, I didn't know the terrain, and I DID know Santana would be a pill. I was tired from not sleeping the night before , and I just wasnt up for the battle, nor did I want to risk injury to Santana as we had a NATRC ride the following weekend.  Sherrie, Kandace and Cathy, of course, braved the weather. Their horses were full of helium for a while, they said. They weren't out toooo long. I was happy to be hanging back with a couple other gals, and, the most responsibility I had was to keep the fire burning. No problem.  I learned a new game that night. "Left, Right Center." No, it has nothing to do with politics. Just a really fun game that left me on my breathing machine.....I literally worked myself into a fit... silly game....
Sunday morning. The rain had stopped! Yahoo. It was warmer at 7am than it was at 3pm the day before. A beautiful day.  I was a bit concerned that I didn't have rear boots for Santana, and my desert horse had soft soles from all the rain he was standing in for 36 hours. I didn't know the terrain at all.  I hoped it wouldn't be too rocky.

So, off we went. After about three miles, Santana settled down, and every other word or phrase out of my mouth was no longer, "Damit Santana, knock it off!"  Santana took his usual position in the turtle position of our pack of six. I need to mention, Yankee, tho horse who by all rights should  not be walking this earth, and who I have admired for a couple of years from afar, was leading the way. He looked fantastic. When he pulled up in the trailer on Friday with three of his best equine freinds with him, it actually brought a tear to my eye. What an amazing horse. And I was getting to RIDE with him! Sigh....... There were several creek crossings, and Santana did great. I think he is FINALLY over his fear of water from back a year ago when  I tried to drown him....The scenery was beautiful. We were on FS roads for the most part.  We had Keko, Kandace's awesome German Shepherd trail dog, and Penny's new ADORABLE dog Annie along. They were great. It was a beautiful day, with great people, and great horses. It was, The Perfect Day.  We rode for about 16 miles, and got back to the trailers at about 4pm.  We loaded up and headed home. About an hour after unloading Santana at home,  I noticed he wouldn't put weight on his rear left leg. Crap. There was some swelling in the fetlock joint. Poop.  Sure enough, he got a bulb abcess from the rocks and his soft feet from the rain. And no boots. I knew better. I could have prevented this. I should have found boots for his rear feet, but,  I didn't. Me, the Queen of Preparedness. James, my hoofcare guy came out on Wednesday and confirmed the diagnosis. Santana was still Grade 4 lame.  No NATRC for us.  I polticed his foot, soaked it, or at least tried too (he was NOT cooperative on the soaking thing...) BySaturday, he was putting weight on his foot, and the abcess had drained.  I was really disappointed that we didn't get to go to CA and try to earn some points. The good news is the ride in two weeks was rescheduled for October.  Santana will not be ridden for a month while he heals.  The rest of the NATRC rides for our region will all be in October and November.  I wonder if I can ride him when he is wrapped in bubblewrap?

He is ok, really, he is.

Ok. So. I laid off of Santana for two weeks, which, made me nervous as he has two big NATRC rides coming up in two weeks... I worry about him losing conditioning.... Anyway. I went riding after the lay-up at the Goldfields with the A Team of trail riding, Sherrie, Kandace and Cathy. I was in amazing company. I was leery and a bit worried about him. We did about 6 miles ir so, and , he seemed to be fine. But, then, I was told by his chiro-vet that she was a tad worried about his suspensory ligament, that it seemed a bit puffy. Not knowing ANYTHING about suspensory injuries, onto the great big WWW i went. YIKES!!!!! This could be really, really serious, like,yard art for life serious. I decided to contact my vet at Arizona Equine to have an ultrasound done. They were able to get him in the next morning. Dr. Voss did a basic exam and some lameness tests. (he is a lameness specialist...)Turns out, my panic was all for nought. Santana was just fine. No need for the (expensive ) ultrasound. He has some little "imperfections" that he has probably had since he was a baby, but, it was nothing that would ever affect his performance. He told me to ride him as if he never went tot the vets. That there was absolutely nothing wrong. THAT made me feel a lot better, as this weekend is Kandace's big birthday bash up in Prescott National forest. The following week Sherrie and I head to California for a NATRC ride, and two weeks later, another one. So, I really didn't want to miss out on all the fun if Santana needed to be pulled for all of this. But, he is fine. So, more posts to follow....

I broke my pony!!!!!

Welllllllll, today Sherrie and I headed up to the Goldfields to ride. On the dirt road to the parking spot, at 9:30am, ther was a Diamondback rattler on the road....not sure if he was dead or alive before Sherrie ran him over, but, he was definitely dead after....

Anywho, we unloaded the horses. AS I was grooming Santana, it was obvious his back was sore. Move to his feet. Swelling in his fetlocks. Pharoh had an owie too, around his girth area. Nope. Ride cancelled. Before leaving the trailhead I texted my new "wonderhands" chiro horse vet, and told her Santana needed her asap. By the time I got home, Dr. Deb had texted me back, and, having a soft spot for Santana, she would come out this afternoon (its Sunday) and work on him. She started out doing traditional lameness tests. Santana was dead lame on his front right and hind left. Terrific. She eventually moved onto the body work. He was very, very sore, to where secondary ulcers (very mild) had set in from the stress of the pain. Great. She did bodywork on him for a long time, but could on'y do so much do to his pain. She was here for about three hours. Three hours. She left me with holistic meds for the ulcers and pain meds are on order. No riding for at least a week, maybe two. Hose his legs down twice a day. ( I also just ordered fetlock ice wraps next-day -delivery.) The next NATRC ride is in CA and is in about a month.....IF we can go, I don't know what kind of shape he will be in. I am the best possible position to chase points now, if I am going to do it, and this ride is important. I over worked him this week, though the lameness in his right front has been a bit of an ongoing problem, not sure why. Dr. Debra suspects there could be an abcess brewing in there. Argh. She will re-check him in a few days.....

So, I went from being on top of the world with Santana, to worried sick. Heavy sigh.

If you need an awesome vet around here, contact Dr. Debra Tibbetts. www.HealingHandsEquine.com

You can see for miles, and ,miles, and miles

So. Saturday Sherrie and Pharoh picked up Santana and me at 7:30 am. we were of to a place called Camp Creek. It is up about 3200 feet around Cave Creek.....
We got to the trailhead on a beautiful day. The parking area was empty. Sherrie backed the rig up, and we unloaded and tacked up the ponies.
This area is spectacular. The footing was awesome, not a single rock to be found. The trails were all single track, unless you went into the bigger washes which we avoided, as our good friends got run over by other horseback riders a couple of weeks before in this same wash....and of course, there are the snakes.....it is indeed, snake season. Those of you who have beed folowing this for the past thre years, know, I HATE snakes. I am petrified of them. I don't like to see photos of them, let alone actually see one, or worse yet, be chased by one. You also know, for me, riding season is OVER when those things come slithering back out.
But, I am riding with Sherrie. Snakes are but yet one more thing she is making me endure in my quest to be a NATRC competitor. I have to keep Santana in shape, so, I have to ride with the snakes. More fear to deal with. Lucky me.
We set out to the west a bit. There is very little flat area as we were riding lots of ridges....then, we headed back to the east. Santana's first mile was a battle for me... after gaiting so nicely just the day before (and two days before that) on the trail, behind Pharoh, he was convinced he should trot. So, there was some arguing going on. Eventually, I won, and I got him gaiting behind his favorite cousin. Yahoo! I am making some progress here. He starting to figure it all out. Afer about thre miles of steep hill work, I noticed that I hadn't attached his breast collar neck strap over and across. Opps. A few miles later, at lunch, I noticed one side of his halter bridle was unsnapped. Opps. Wow. You'd think I had never saddled a horse before.
We continued on, following lots of single tracks. At one point, we were dumped into a wash that we followed a very short distance. After the fact, Sherrie mentions that a snake went across her path, but, it wasn't a rattler. I guess she thought that made it OK in my book. NOT!!!!! Ewwwwwwww. I had goose bumps. Yuckkkky. We continued on up another single track along another ridge. This ride was nothing but hill work, and lots of it, some quite steep. At one point, we could see the Superstition mountians, Weaver's Needle, the fountain at Fountain Hills, and Four Peaks (and some snow still on it) all off into the far distance. We could also see trails that just kept ging all the way the what I believe would be Fountain Hills. It was a mazing. No houses or towns in between. Just rugged mountains and trails. We decided at one point, we should head back, as we still had a ways to go to get to the trailer. We were going to gait all the way up a fairly long expanse of trail, all mostly uphill. Santana stayed behind Pha. At one point, he umped a little ditch. No biggee. And I was proud of myself for staying on... about this time, Santana stopped. He just stopped, and did NOT want to go further. Weird behavior from him. I asked him to move and he refused. I got all over his case and told him to MOVE!!! SO, we started gaiting again, up hill. Then I heard it. The familiar sound of my roller buckle on my cinch. BIG OPPS! My girth had come COMPLETELY undone. I yelled (we call this using our playground voices, thank you Karen Kafka...) at Sherrie and told her to stop. I think at this point the woman must have thought I was a complete moron. I kicked my feet out of the stirrups and jumped off Santana without moving the saddle. He tried to tell me when he stopped earlier. He tried. I didn't listen. I guess I have a pretty balanced seat after all, or, I would have been under his belly when we made that little jump...Anyway, I cinched him up, and we finished our ride. We did eleven pretty hard, pretty fast miles.
When we got back to the parking area, it had filled in with other vehicles. No horse trailers, just ours. Some idiot parked RIGHT next to the trailer, making it almost impossible to tie a horse. Sherrie was a very unhappy camper about this, and didn't intend to let this guy go unpunished........He was also pulled up to the step-over making it almost impossible for a horse and rider to get in or out. WE untacked the horses and watered them. Left over water got poured at the doors to the truck, making a really nice, muddy area. THis simulated pee. Somehow, horse hair was all over the front of the winshield, like by the wipers. The horse are shedding, and, well, thats what happens when you park so close. And, horses poop. Poop just so happened to get all over the door handles to the truck and to the car parked behind the truck, also making it hard for us to pull out . If he wasn't parked so close, the poop wouldn't have hit his truck.... How in the world horse hair got into the trucks ice/food chest is beyond me. I guess horse hair is like plaster dust... it gets into everything.

Its working....

Well, in my last post I told you I as going to to try some ground work to work on his gaiting. I did two days of just ground work in my pasture. The third day, I took him to our public arena. Wouldn't you know, he was a gaiting fool. I took him on a trail ride. He was trotting and pushing thru my seat and hands again. So,I thought a bout it. I really didn't want to use a bit to try and correct a problem like this. I gave it some thought, and I ordered him a pelham bit. that way, I had a snaffle rein, and a SLIGHT leverage rein. Back to the arena we went, just so he could get used to the mouthpiece. He continued to gait. Then, a trail ride......Well, he offered gait from the git-go. Not fast, or strong or super consistently long, but, it was gait instead of trot. He tried to start pushing thru my seat, then hands. I put the second rein on to the curb part of the bit. He did NOT like that, and thought about launching me to the moon....but then he settled down. I took the curb rein off and went to just the snaffle rein.....We went 6 miles of almost all gaiting. Yahoo! I think I had taught him to gait in the arena, and that on the trail, he should trot. Amazing what we teach them and don't even realize what we have done....
We went out again today on the trail. He is offering almost nothing but gait. Again, it isn't very fast, or strong, but I think he is getting the idea that THAt is what I want.
This weekend, Sherrie and I are riding Saturday and Sunday.......This could be interesting!

Hello? Santana, you DO know I am here, right??

WEll, our ride on the AZ Trail (section 18 and part of 17) was not butt puckering. Sherrie's husband Lynn went with us (or I did I go with them?) and we didn't move near as fast Sherrie would normally go. We did 14 miles, which was a nice mileage ride. It was beautiful, the wildflowers were in bloom, and it was green. HOWEVER.....My horse, when he was behind "John" (Lynn's horse) was a jerk. Not bad, no bucking or anything like that, but, he was completely blowing all of my aids off. Now, he didn't know this horse,but still, I am the boss, supposedly. Santana normally works off my leg and seat aids for speed, AND for stop. I do not use the bit for control, only communication. Well. Forget it. He was not listening to my seat aids at all, so, I moved to his face. He was blowing through his bit (snaffle) as well. I thought about it all night, and I realized that I haven't practiced any of his groundwork and Whitesell exercises in months... I put Santana in training this summer, and he learned a lot there,as did I . He was gaiting the best he ever has after the training. ANd, I think I have messed that up. In the arena it is easy to concentrate on my form, and his. On the trail, I am thinking about a lot of other stuff (other horses, terrain, ect). I need to go back to the basics, REALLY work on my muscle memory for my form, get my weight off his fore so he can gait, and go back to where he was responding to my aids with just the SLIGHTEST cue for speed and stop and back and direction. . He was SO light in the bridle last summer. He wasn't nearly finished with this stuff, and I dropped the ball by not continuing to practice it. Now, I need to go work with my horse....

Twister, on horseback

Ok all you Fate of Kathryn fans.....
So, Friday, I convinced Sherrie that she should play hookie from work and go riding. I am not sure what I was thinking. We decided to go to the Goldfields because it is pretty close and good training grounds. The trailer gremlins showed up at her place and popped the plug out from her little trailer, so, no lights, brakes, ect, so, I drove. No biggee. So, the morning didn't start quite as planned. Sherrie suspects Pharaoh has ulcers, and we think he wasn't feeling quite up to par. But, push on ....

Now, I have ridden at the Goldfields several times with Sherrie. The last time, we came down this very steep, slick rock-at-an -angle-gee+i-wish-my-horse-had-velcro-on-his-feet kind of trail.....I took a picture from the bottom, but it really does not give you good perspective...

Anywho, we decided to let Santana lead today to see if it helped with his wanting to rush behind Pha. Ok fine. So, we followed a wash for a while. Then there was a fork. Sherrie told me to go up, so we did. BIG mistake. We got off trail. We got into a place that we should not have been. And , we were uphill. Sherrie went ahead at this point because I am still a novice trailblazer. Wellllllll. I don't remember exactly the first butt pucker section, but it was going uphill in poorly placed rocks and cactus. I was sweating through my jacket at his point, and the worst was, unbeknownst to me, yet to come. As I have said in previous posts, "what goes up, must come down. Well, Sherrie and Pha went down the hill. I was stuck. I couldn't SEE how to get down to where they were.. All I could see was Santana skating a$$ over tea kettle down this embankment. "Weren't you paying attention?" Sherrie yells at me... Um, no. No, I was not. I was trying to not die. She came back up to give me step by step instructions on how to get down this section. "Ok, keep him moving forward. At that next rock (really, which of the 52 scattered rocks ARE you referring to?) turn him on his fore. LEave his back legs there. No, move his hind right over to the left, but don't hit that cactus. Look at me. LOOK AT ME. Breathe. Are you breathing? I don't hear youuuuuuuu. Now, move his shoulders to the left. Now move his back legs up 6 and 1/2 inches. Ok, now, move his front right to the right over that next rock. Watch out for the cliff Ok, now, move his barrel only to the right while moving his rear left to the center. There you go. Now, wasn't that easy???" I was drenched in sweat. "BREATHE" I hear Sherrie say again. And again. And again. Now, I KNOW she would never put me in danger, but, mentally up on that hill, I just shut down. In all honesty, I have probably done harder stuff. But, I had shut down. Santana knew it, and I could just feel him wanting to go straight down that hill to get to Pharaoh since I had checked out on him....Man, these horse are so smart and demanding!
We went on , now on the actual, nicely worn trail and came to a jeep road. At that point I was quite sure we had covered about 9 miles.....nope. 3. Three miles. Felt like Tevis, not that I would know what Tevis feels like....
We rode some more, then Santana did a weird canter thing coming down a little hill. He had lost a boot. The gaiter had it still attached, but, there was no putting it back on. And Pharaoh wasn't quite up to par, so, we decided to head back to the trailer and call it a day. We only did about six miles.... but tomorrow we head out to Happy Camp road.. another trail I THINK I have ridden and know, but, I have never ridden it with Sherrie.......stay tuned....