Conditioning Ride 12-6-2010

HR: 36

HR on Return: 52

HR 10 minutes: 44

Miles: 19.5

Time: 6 hours, 15 minutes

Average Speed: 3.3 mph

We had to leave the dogs behind for this ride. We headed on up to the mountains, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. Unfortunately dogs are not permitted in the park at all. And, after a couple of rides, they weren't terribly in need of exercise, anyway. They were more than ready for a day off. I wanted to get a long, slow ride in.

I parked at the Merigan parking area. After grooming and saddling, Hoss and I headed out for our nice little slow ride. I had plenty of podcasts and a book loaded on my iPod, so I was good to go!

Hoss was feeling a little confused. Didn't we ride yesterday? What the heck are we doing riding again? Well, that's sort of the point. Death Valley Encounter is four days. There are a couple of goals here. I need Hoss to get used to going out on long rides pretty much every day. He needs to get his back toughened up to having the saddle on every day. He is showing a little skin soreness from all this riding we've been doing! And I need to get my butt toughened up to many days in the saddle.

Once I got him saddled, Hoss was starting to show interest in going on a ride. This wasn't such a bad idea, after all! It was a nice cool day, which he really likes. Although I have trace clipped him, he has one of the fuzziest winter coats I've ever seen on a horse. Poor guy needs to live in Iowa or something. He's got a coat to make a wooly mammoth proud. I, on the other hand, needed my heavy sweatshirt and was still a little cooler than I'd have liked to be. I did forget to bring my half chaps along as well, which meant my lower legs were cold and exposed to trail hazards. I've got quite a few bruises and scratches because of that particular error!

I started us on up the Merigan Fire Road at a nice walk. Since we had ridden the previous night, and gone at a pretty good clip, Hoss was more than happy to do a calm, sedate walk. Yeah, we were doing the rent-stringer walk again. Oh, well. I'm hoping someday he'll start to walk faster.

I was planning on doing the trails that are used on the 25 mile Descanso ride in June, except to cut out about three miles. So off we were, and turned up the Sweetwater trail. Once we got up this trail a little way, I realized that we hadn't used this trail at the last Descanso ride. It had been cut out and we used the Blue Ribbon Trail instead, due to conditions on Sweetwater not being the greatest. Oh, well. We were going slow anyway, so it didn't much matter.

Yeah, it was a slow nice ride. When we got to South Boundary Fire Road, I ran into a client and her riding buddy whose horses live at a local ranch. We stopped to chat for a little while. It was quite funny, actually. For a moment they didn't recognize me! My client asked me who told me I could have a day off. We had a nice visit before we got on our way again.

The rest of our ride was across the highway, to West Side Trail, to West Mesa Fire Road, to Harvey Moore Trail, to East Side Trail, to some fire road the name of which completely slips my mind, to Saddleback Trail, to Merigan Fire Road. We saw a lot of deer. One pair stopped and watched us ride past from a distance. One deer bounded across the trail in front of us. I was so proud of Hoss. He didn't try to turn and bolt, instead he just stopped and asked me what it was.

Cuyamaca is such a lovely area. When we topped Harvey Moore, I could see all the way to Point Loma. What a view! I sort of understand why people like that sort of thing. I did take some pictures, but they don't seem to have come out very good. Personally I don't care much about a single view. I like to go around and see lots of them. So the view from my house doesn't really matter much, except for that which is my horses in the pasture.

While we were negotiating the East Side Trail, I realized that a) it was later than I thought, and b) I had forgotten about a section of trail. The result? I was going to be late! Oh, dear. I figured I'd be back to the trailer by 3:00 or 3:30, plenty of time to get home, take care of all the animals, and get on the road to bell choir rehearsal. Boy, was I ever wrong! At 4:30 I was still a good fifteen minutes up Merigan Fire Road from the trailer. I wound up emailing my bell choir director from the trail to let him know I was not going to make it. And this, the last rehearsal (aside from the dress rehearsal we will have this Saturday) before Service of Music! Oy! Of course, I don't miss much rehearsal, so I don't feel like I've done any serious damage to my ability to get through Service of Music.

By the time we did get to the trailer, the temperature had dropped considerably. My little weather station was reading 48 degrees. And there I was in my riding tights and a sweatshirt! My fingers and toes had started to tingle from the cold. At least I could switch my hands on the reins and stick one in a pocket to warm up. There was nothing I could do about my cold toes. So I got Hoss untacked and brushed out as quickly as I could, collected my data, and got him loaded up. I cranked up the heat in my truck and got us home, long after I should have been on the road to get to bell rehearsal. My wonderful husband had already fed the other two horses, and had Hoss's dinner set up in his pen for him. He also had a nice hot dinner waiting for me. It's so nice when he's home! He had even made me lunch for the trail.

All in all a good ride. Hoss did very well and looked pretty good at the end. His ears were perky and he looked like he was a little disappointed it was over.