Conditioning Ride 11-17-2011

So, yes, I'm nuts. I made the decision and sent in my entry for Lead Follow. I spent much of the week between my last conditioning ride and this one figuring out how to get Hoss's HRM set up so it would work and not rub all his hair off. After many exchanges on Ridecamp, I concluded I had two problems. One was clearly Hoss has a nutritional deficiency which is resulting in his hair being brittle and his skin friable. In answer to that, I've started adding ground flax seeds to his diet. It will take months to decide if this is effective, but in the meantime it seems like a good thing to try. The second thing was I did not understand where I was supposed to be placing the side electrode for the HRM. Roger Rittenhouse, who devised the HRM system I am using, was a great deal of help and was able to make it clear to me what I was missing. I found it funny while reading his website I came across a statement he made while obviously somewhat frustrated by the inability of others to understand what he was saying. He responded to some posting on Ridecamp partly with the following: 

remember I have developed this and been doing this longer then any others 'selling' hrms - for horses. but hey HOW difficult is it figure this out?? (sic)

Well, he hadn't met me, had he? No matter how many times I read the directions, it seemed like all I could hear was Charlie Brown's teacher. It took a while, and some serious dumbing down of language on his part, but I got it sorted.

But before we could be making any attempt at 75 miles, Hoss needed to be seen by his favorite equine chiropractor, Dawn Fletcher of Medicine Hat Animal Chiropractic. So on Monday, three days before this ride, Dawn came out to see Hoss. Poor guy was definitely out and very sore. Dawn spent a great deal of time working out some muscle spasms in Hoss's back. Poor guy really hurt, but he did his darnedest to stay with her. I think Dawn really enjoys working on Hoss. He's pretty cooperative and has clearly decided she's good for him. Of course because of how badly out he was, Dawn had to say no riding for twenty-four hours, but of course I gave him more like seventy-two. It wasn't like I was in any condition to be getting on him in twenty-four hours anyway.

Now armed with the proper information to get the HRM working properly, I needed to get out and actually test it. Additionally, leaving the dogs home for the weekend knowing they would not get daily walks, it was really a necessity that the boys get a good bit of exercise. So I loaded Hoss in the trailer and the boys in the truck, and we headed down to Hollenbeck for a good ride.

Hoss's left hind swelling issue has not gotten any worse, but it hasn't gotten any better, either. After our morning walk it was improved, as it always seems to be post-walk.

I got Hoss's boots all on – the Easyboot Edges on the fronts and the Renegades on the hinds and the interference boots on his hind fetlocks – then got the saddle on and started messing with the HRM. The short lead electrode goes under the saddle pad on the left side, underneath the saddle seat where the stirrup hangs from. This one I've always seemed to be able to get in the right place. The long lead electrode with the pigtail is the one that always eluded me. I had been placing it far too high. It needs to go behind his elbow. I decided to put it behind his elbow and pretty close to the center line of his chest (his sternum). Once I'd placed the electrodes and gotten the cinch tightened right (not too tight, which creates its very own set of galling issues), I got the watch out and got it set up. It instantly picked up a signal and within seconds I had a reading. 35 beats per minute. That's not half bad. And I was very thrilled to see the watch getting a very consistent signal, even before I'd gotten Hoss working and sweating.

When we hit the trail, Hoss felt very rough. Much rougher than usual. I made him take a good long warm up before letting him trot again, and worked on getting him collected and extending properly. It felt like he was going up more than forward. It took some time, but he did start to smooth out.

I decided to do some mid-ride recovery checks, so after we ran as fast as we could up the hill to the top at Hollenbeck, I stopped him and watched his heart rate. At one minute, he dropped from 137 to 100. At two minutes he was at 88. That's pretty good recovery, from what I understand.

By the time we got to the flat back part of Hollenbeck and threw in a good breezing, Hoss was feeling quite smooth. He had a few moments of wanting to canter canted oddly, but I was able to support him with legs and reins to straighten him out. We did a few lead changes. I'm not yet able to do flying lead changes, so this was accomplished by dropping to a trot and picking up the other lead. Hoss was more even side to side than he has been in the past, but boy, the left lead was horribly difficult for me with the injured right hip.

Clearly Dawn's visit did a great deal to improve Hoss's overall wellbeing and way of going. His canter today was much more even side to side than I think it's ever been. The only issue was my inability to ride the left lead well. It just hurt too much. Mostly I just went as limp as I could and trusted I'd end up where I needed to be on the downs.

The next morning, Hoss's left hind swelling wasn't any worse than usual and went down with the walk.