Karen’s Musings & Endurance Ride Stuff

Karen and Chief at DVE. Photo by Lynne Glazer (original coming soon)

I’m a little slow with this post but haven’t had a lot of time to really think about planning what I’d like to accomplish this ride season with my two horses.

What have the rest of you come up with – anybody have anything to share?  Please post links to other endurance riders who have posted their plans for the coming season!  What did you learn this year?

The 2010 ride season for AERC started on December 1st, so really…I’m a couple of months behind with putting down in writing my goals for 2010.

I have already ridden 300 miles – 200 of that on Pro Bono D (Bo), and 100 on Granite Chief (Chief…aka “Cheefy”).

Our 2009 ride season turned out to be pretty good.  I ended up riding 2375 miles.

Things definitely didn’t go as planned in a few areas yet we still managed to make lemonade out of the lemons.  In fact, it probably turned out to be one of my better ride seasons.  Fun, fun, fun!

It’s hard to say which seasons have been the best, better, or least productive and rewarding.  Last year was the first time I’ve finished both 1st (Chief) and 2nd (Bo) in my weight division in the West region.  We were able to get a lot of points because I rode both horses somewhat faster and even got several top tens and placed well in my weight division.  We still also rode fairly conservatively, especially considering the level of conditioning that both horses have.

Chief also placed in the top ten in national mileage with 1305 miles completed.  He’s won that award a couple of times so it’s nice to know that he still has what it takes after all these years to “go the distance”.

The biggest accomplishment was having Chief reach 9,000 lifetime miles.  That happened in spite of his terrible eyelid injury which resulted in a total of six minor surgeries to get it put back right and fix the scar tissue complications that we had.

Another exciting thing that happened is that Chief made Gold Medal XP horse for the third time.  He is a really great multiday horse, the best I’ve had in that category.

Other lemons thrown our way was having Bo get a slight ligament strain when he fell on ice with me in April.  Fortunately the rehabbing of that injury went well.  However it did require our entry withdrawal from the Tevis.   I went and volunteered and worked it instead.  That is always fun.  I’ve been riding, crewing or volunteering at that ride since the early 90′s.

More lemonade!

I also managed to complete two one day 100′s.  In February I did the 20 Mule Team 100 on Bo.  We had a near perfect ride, finishing 11th out of 28 starters. During the ride I reflected on the previous 100 mile rides I’ve had on this course on my other horses – Chief, Rocky and Dream Weaver.  I felt Weaver‘s presence the most and as it turned out that is the night that he passed away.  It was kind of an eerie feeling.  Weaver was the first horse I ever rode on a 100 mile ride.  He left me with a lot of great memories.

I missed going to the AERC NC ride due to a death in the family.

Later in September I was able to ride Tigger on the Virginia City 100 where we finished 10th out of 42 starters.  The ride only had a 43% completion rate so it was terrific that we finished.  Dave Rabe has done a tremendous job with Tigger and it was super nice of him to let me “borrow” Tigger back for a day.  I would like to do more one day 100′s if they fit into the schedule.  The problem is that they often don’t and I would rather ride multidays.

Bo's bare hoof after finishing both days of Git-R-Done barefoot!

It turned out that the rehab process for Bo’s ligament strain resulted in a lot of bonus benefits that I wasn’t expecting.  I was riding Bo every single day for about an hour and a half, most of that at a trot.  Barefoot!  This really helped to slowly strengthen and develop his feet since we initially started with a half an hour of walking and worked our way up.  Boy did those hooves toughen up, and self-wore so much that I was able to do almost no maintenance trims and also was able to see just how nice Bo’s feet were capable of becoming…and did become.

By the end of the season I was able to remove all four of Bo’s Renegade boots and rode him both days of the Git’r'Done ride totally barefoot.  It worked so well that I have been continuing to ride him on sections of rides (where the footing is good) barefoot.  I want to keep his feet this tough and healthy!  I will still use boots on both horses the majority of the time but will put more effort into keeping the horses hooves healthy enough so that they are comfortable in all footing types without any type of hoof protection.

Notice the stress rings growing out.

On the plus side, Bo’s feet were turning out great while Chief’s were taking a turn for the worse.  Chief didn’t handle all of the drugs and medication that he needed from the eyelid injury.  Which resulted in a bit of laminitis or what you see later on as stress rings growing out on his hooves.

Karen and Bo at DVE. Photo by Lynne Glazer (original coming soon)

Fortunately I was keeping a close eye (pardon the pun) on Chief and learned that by giving him a probiotic in advance of medications that he didn’t seem to be as reactive.  It was a fine line for awhile keeping him on bute or banamine for the swelling of the injury and the higher hoof temps….and  controlling the probiotics, feed and sensitivity that he was exhibiting from being medicated.

It was during this time that I learned how highly sensitive to drugs and meds that Chief is.  During the entire time I’ve owned him I had never given him any drugs other than what the vets administered to do his teeth and when they gelded him.

Now I know that Chief is “druggie”  lightweight and if I do need to give any kind of meds to him in the future I will get him on the probiotics right away and really keep a close eye on his hoof temps, overall demeanor and watch him like a hawk.

During this last season I learned that no matter how much I’ve learned previously from doing high mileage seasons that things change and there is still a lot to learn and experience.

I learned how to successfully rehab a suspensory ligament strain.  In the 25,000+ miles my horses have completed in AERC this was my first suspensory injury.

Next time I will pay closer attention to that small nagging feeling that something isn’t right even when nobody else, including vets can see anything.  If something doesn’t feel right, when it normally does feel right….don’t be stupid and ignore it! (guilty as charged)

I learned that I don’t like gluing hoofboots on my horses feet.  I’d rather strap the horses hoof boots on– that way when we are done riding they can go back to being barefoot.  Their hooves stay healthier that way, and it’s easier on my back too.

I learned that there is a reason why horses shouldn’t be competing even on trace or minute amounts of drugs that might still be in their system.  Not because of performance enhancing reasons but because it isn’t worth the risk of what might be going on internally with a horse.

Riders should be less concerned with specifics relating to the AERC drug policy and instead realize that if a horse needed drugs a week or two prior to the ride, that it won’t hurt to give that horse a break.  It’s easier to miss a ride, than it is to miss a horse.

I learned that if Chief suddenly starts pulling and acting obnoxious for no reason in situations where he didn’t before, that I need to figure out what the problem is.  This time it turned out that he had sharp points on his teeth and needed dental work.  Now my horses get their teeth checked even more frequently.  Once a year is not enough.

Most of all what educational topics that were reinforced to me in 2009 is that an endurance rider needs to be flexible and have the ability to improvise.  Just because you think you know something, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done or accomplished in a way that is different from what you “know”.

Chief being obnoxious! He was just showing off for Lynne Glazer (the ride photographer). See, he still needs to learn a few things!

There ain’t nothing wrong with making lemonade out of your lemons!  Anybody thirsty?

Sometimes things work out the way they do for a reason even if that reason isn’t obvious at the time.

I missed getting to do the Tevis but got to do Virginia City.  Bo’s injury kept him from doing some rides but really helped benefit his hoof health.

Having Bo miss a few rides gave Chief the opportunity early on to do enough mileage to place him 1st in my division, top ten in national mileage and also garnered us our 3rd Gold Medal XP award…as well as helping with the lifetime mileage goals.

Chief’s subsequent eyelid surgeries near the end of the season gave Bo the opportunity to prove himself on a couple of two day rides which gave him the points he needed to place 2nd in my division, behind Chief.  I feel it’s better to look at what we did accomplish rather than what didn’t happen.

For now I need to kind of take a wait and see approach to how things are going to go for us in this new ride season.  I would like to do at least one 1-day 100 this year.  I’d also like for Bo to reach 2,000 miles.  He’s at around 1700 right now.

The circumference of our planet is 24,901 miles.  I’m not too far away from riding that many miles in AERC competition.  Actually, I’d like to reach both 25k and 26k mile in 2010.

Ultimately I’d like for Chief to achieve 10,000 miles.  He’s at 9175 right now.  I’ve never had a horse reach this kind of mileage before.  Weaver made it to 6300 and Rocky to 7600.  So I don’t really know what to expect or what the future holds for us.

I’d love to be able to keep riding Chief simply because I love riding him so much, and also because I think he needs some more practice learning how to behave like I would for him to!

Finally – the best lessons that I took away from the 2009 ride season is not to take anything for granted.  Appreciate every minute and every mile with each horse.  Learn from the downsides and negative things that happen.  Keep a positive outlook and no matter how important it seems at the time, no ride is worth it if it causes harm to your horse.  Listen to your gut feeling if something doesn’t seem right (when you know what right feels like) even if there are no other signs.  There will be other rides.

When you can — Go Ride, really ride!  Then come back and have a nice big glass of ice cold lemonade!

Ride photos on this page:  Grand Canyon XP:  Steve Bradley.  Virginia City 100: Merri Melde.  DV Warmup/Coso and DVE: Lynne Glazer.

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