I took this video at the High Desert ride in October. I rode Bo both days there and this was some of the trail on the second day. We finished in the top ten that day and were 1st in our weight division, so there aren’t a lot of tracks ahead of us – I would guess after more horses went through it got even more beat up.
Bo has had a fair amount of work in the sand lately between High Desert and the Git-R-Done rides, though I don’t think that GRD has very much deep sand – it was pretty much perfect footing for 98% of the ride. There aren’t very many rides like that.
With the most recent ride completion, Bo has now finished 7 rides since coming back from his leg injury! The last two rides were both two day rides where he completed 100 miles in 2 days on both.
I’m not sure how many rides it’ll take until I can really feel confident that we won’t have to worry about that leg anymore. Probably a couple thousand more miles….<sigh>. Who me, worry? About a horse? Nahhhh…..
I still have more that I want to write about the GRD ride and riding Bo on his first endurance rides barefoot. I just haven’t had a chance to get some better photos of his feet. Bo’s hooves have really improved a lot over this last ride season. I’ve learned so much this year during the process, it is like a continuing evolution. It was pretty great to get to finish some of our last rides of the ride season with such success by riding barefoot and not having a single issue or problem the entire time!
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I’m trying to decide which january ride to do….I’ve never done any of the PS rides offered in January so I wondered if you had a reccomendation.
I’ve decided that I’m only going to do one day at desert gold. I think doing 2 days, after doing our first 50 back from tevis only 3 weeks prior, is pushing it.
I want to do the 100 at 20 mule team.
So – do I do 2 days of 50′s? A 50 or 75 at GitRDone? Or one of the other 50′s?
I’m looking for a no frills ride in the duck style to get some miles in and test our rediness for a 100 miler.
You could do some or all of DVE and then do a day or two at Mojave. You probably won’t be riding at GRD in January unless you want to pay $500 to ride 50 miles! I usually don’t plan on the January rides anyway due to the logistics of getting there that time of year.
Multiple times I’ve done four days at DVE on the same horse, then done the 20 MT 100. I think that they are still offering the Fire Mt. Horse Excellence award – if you do DVE, 20 MT and then the EHSC 50 your horse gets a blanket.
The Bar H ride would also be a good training ride for doing 20 MT. Depending upon how much time you want to have between the rides.
Thanks for the input. I am kind of worried about the short time bewteen BH and MT. Ideally I wish it was closer to 6 weeks. Mojave is way to close to 20 MT for my comfort. She just doesn’t have the miles yet to do a bunch of rides in a short time frame (or maybe she does and I’m just being over cautious, hard to tell but I’ve been burned and I’m trying to stay away from the fire!).
Because of how the holidays fall and how DVE is scheduled, I don’t ahve enough vacation time to do any of DVE which is a shame. I had so much fun last year. If desert gold gets cancelled I’ll try to make the warmup ride.
I leaning towards Bar H or FM I guess. Thanks again.
Dear Karen:
At some convenient future date, it would be fun to read an essay from you on riding in deep desert sands for a long distance. We assume that it is a lot more work on the shanks of the horse, since he is driving off the rear legs and lifting his legs even higher for each step.
Thanks (in advance) for your essay on riding clean sand that is soft and deep.
With appreciation from Bob in Fair Oaks, California