The 2010 AERC ride season is coming to a close. Wind Wolves was the last ride I will get to before the 2011 season starts. For whatever reason (I may have known sometime in the past, but I've forgotten if I ever did), AERC starts its ride season on December 1. This is a good time to review my season goals and accomplishments for the 2010 season.
Of course, I did not start this blog until more than half way through the season, so I didn't post the original goals for 2010. When I set out for 2010, my goal was to get Hoss through four 50 mile endurance rides. We have accomplished that and then some!
In 2010, Hoss and I completed five endurance rides, for a total of 255 miles. We completed the following rides and distances:
Warner Springs Endurance Ride 50 in January
Git-R-Done 55 in April
Descanso Endurance Ride 50 in June
Manzanita Endurance Ride 50 in October
Wind Wolves Endurance Ride 50 in November
I am very pleased with our results. I feel that I had a simple and attainable set of goals. Well, I suppose it was a goal, specifically the number of miles I wanted to get.
There were many lessons along the way. At Warner Springs, Hoss kept tripping. Tripping doesn't seem to bother him at all. He just keeps right on chugging along. So I thought during the ride that he was being lazy. Of course, hind sight being 20/20, I should have realized that that much tripping was likely more than just laziness. A few days after the ride, I found the truly huge girth gall he had developed behind his right elbow.
Git-R-Done presented another set of challenges. The terrain was nice, deep sand in most places. Hoss mostly encounters hard, rocky surfaces at home. He found the sand a challenge. Again, he tripped a lot. If I let him look around even a little, down he'd go. Luckily he never hurt himself, but it was a clue that I needed to look for another shoeing solution to keep his feet more on top of deep footing. In pursuit of this, I found a wider shoe of the same brand I have been using with him. So far, so good. He has not tripped in deep footing since.
Descanso was pretty easy, but Hoss pulled a front shoe on the second loop. There was no farrier, and my daughter and her friend brought my daughter's Jeep up. My truck and tools were at base camp. So, I continued in the hopes that we'd be okay. It didn't take long for his foot to be dangerously short. I was fortunate in that some other riders had an Easyboot that fit quite nicely, and we completed with that. I have since purchased my own Easyboot to use as a spare tire.
Manzanita was a challenge. I always knew that the odds were I'd be confronted with electrolyte issues. My previous horse, Phoenix, never had a problem. Just give him a dose of electrolytes in food the night before, and he was fine. Hoss, however, presented a learning experience. I brought with me his regular food with electrolytes mixed in, which I gave him the previous night, plus another bag of bran with another dose of electrolytes. That was all I had taken with me. Manzanita presented us with hot, muggy weather. I knew at the first vet check that we were doing the ride on the ragged edge of disaster. I was very careful with him, and got him through, but I sure won't be leaving home without electrolytes ever again!
Wind Wolves was effectively perfect weather for a ride. I had read an article in Endurance News about an electrolyte study that suggested the most effective method was the give electrolytes the night before and morning of an endurance ride. This is what I did at Wind Wolves. The result was that he drank well and his recoveries were quite nice. At the end of the ride, his heart rate was 52, despite rain and cold, and without a rest period before seeing the vet. I also confirmed that he's just a tough guy. Despite having to remove his saddle in cold wind, and put the saddle pad back on cold and wet, he never showed the least discomfort.
The new ride season starts in a few days, and we will head out next month for our very first multi-day. The 2011 ride season should be interesting!
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