Moab Canyons Endurance Ride Day 3

I slept pretty well in my tent despite the cold. In fact, if it hadn't been such a trial to get in and out of the sleeping bag, I might have removed a layer I was so warm. I got up at 5:30, fed Hoss and went into Dorothy's trailer to get dressed. The weather forecast had been for the days to get progressively warmer. I put on a tank top and my funky tights under my flames sweatshirt and windbreaker.

When I went to put Hoss's boots on, I noticed his hind legs were pretty swollen. The right hind pastern had several spots where the hair and been rubbed off. I put Body Glide on his pasterns to help prevent any further problems. I had picked up a pair of interference boots from Griffin's Tack, and put those on to protect his interference wounds. I figured the swelling would go down as we rode and warned Mary I'd have to adjust the boots, probably a few times during the morning as the swelling went down.

This morning we headed out at a pretty sedate walk. Hoss was feeling better than he had the previous morning, but he wasn't feeling the need to take off. Hadi was definitely feeling good. He was downright frisky!

After a little bit of a warm up, we picked up a nice trot with Hoss in the lead. He was keeping a pretty good pace. He was doing a very good job of being the leader to start out.

We let other riders get ahead of us. One rider was having some trouble with her horse and asked us to pass. Our horses weren't close at all, but her horse was getting very upset, so we accommodated and got ahead of them. They passed us up again later.

We decided to sort of baby our way along to the first vet check. We knew the first loop was shorter than the second, and we wanted Hoss to look good when we got into the vet check. So there was a lot of walking going on. Hadi evidently decided he didn't like this plan. I heard Mary hollering, and she had Hadi came blasting past us. Fortunately it was on a reasonably straight, flat section of trail, and Mary was able to ride it out. I got Hoss into a controlled canter, but made no attempt to catch Hadi. Hoss is slow, so he probably wouldn't have been able to catch him anyway, and I figured it would only encourage Hadi to run that much more. I just kept Hoss close enough we'd be able to stop and help Mary if she came off.

After we got back on, once Hadi had given up the idea of catching other horses, we rode along at a nice pace for a time until a group of 25 milers joined the trail. They were trotting along faster than we had been, and Hadi wanted nothing so much as to catch up to them. We tried to let them get away from us, but Hadi was not having it. We decided to get off and hand walk the horses for a time to get Hadi to cool off. He was feeling very good and appeared to have decided he needed to catch every horse he saw.

Once the 25 milers had gotten far enough ahead and we felt we were in more of a pocket clear of other horses, we got back on and rode on. We came upon the 25 milers, two girls and their mom, and they were short a horse. The mom's horse had gotten loose when she turned the horse around and the saddle slipped. She came off, the and the horse took off. She figured the mare had gone back to camp and was preparing to ride double with one of her girls.

We continued on our way, in no position to do anything to help them, although we kept our eyes open for the missing horse. The terrain was excellent, flat and not too deep, so we did quite a bit of trotting. I looked back at one point when Hoss was telling me there were other horses, and saw a group of riders trotting along with a riderless horse. They'd found the missing mare!

When we came in sight of the vet check, I hopped off to give Hoss plenty of time to recover. Once we walked in, he took a good drink and by the time we got to the P&R area, he was down. The vet commented his gut sounds were much better than the previous day and he looked much better.

I had sent a hay bag with alfalfa from home and bran. I mixed him a bran mash while he tucked into the hay. It was not easy. He kept trying to get the bran before I was done with it. Once I got the bran mixed up real well, I set the bucket I'd used to get water aside and gave him the bran. While waiting for our hold time to expire, I observed he was quite pleased to have a bucket of water right near him. He would drink from the bucket in between bites of hay. I'm going to have to get buckets to send out to vet checks in the future.

Once our hold was over, I gave Hoss a dose of electrolytes and we hit the trail again. This last loop was the first loop of the first day done in the opposite direction. I noticed many things I hadn't seen on day one. Not that it's surprising I missed things. Hoss was pretty fresh, so I was spending more time controlling him than enjoying the scenery!

We tried to stay in a pocket away from other horses. This seemed to work best for Hadi on day three. We caught up to a pair of horses being led by their riders and passed them up. Then the riders got on, and the horses caught up to us again. When the riders dismounted again, Mary and I set a good pace in an effort to get away from them.

We were riding through a wash with deep sand, walking, and I was drinking, when those horses caught up to us. They went past me without saying a word. I didn't think anything of it. Hadi was not pleased. When they came up behind him without warning he got a little goosy. Mary was rather unhappy about it, and I don't blame her. It's simply good trail manners to warn other riders when you're approaching and/or wanting to pass.

The other horses got a distance ahead of us, and we figured they'd be gone. We were wrong. It wasn't long until we caught up to them again, as they'd yet again gotten off to lead. Mary asked them to please warn her when they were approaching to pass, as Hadi was very easily upset by other horses coming up behind him. We passed them and continued on.

By this time both horses really wanted nothing more than to stop and eat every bit of grass they saw. We would let them stop for bites from time to time. I took to only letting Hoss eat if I pointed out something for him. He was starting to stop on his own, rather than waiting for permission.

Once again that pair of riders caught and passed us. This would be fine, except by this point we realized we were, in reality, going faster than them with their frequent dismounting, but couldn't stay far enough ahead not to deal with them. Every time they got back on, Hadi wanted to keep up with them. We'd pull off and let the horses graze in an effort to get the other horses away. Hadi figured out he should snatch a bite and then continue so he could chase the other horses. Hoss, on the other hand, was more than happy to keep eating.

After a bit, we inevitably caught up to them again. Just in time for Wipe Out Hill. On day one, we'd come up this hill, and although Hoss had slipped a bit, it wasn't terrible going up. I knew going down would be harder. It's recommended to lead the horses up and down this hill, and I am considerably slower than Hoss. I briefly considered hooking his breast collar through his reins and sending him on down without me. I discarded the plan because I was worried he wouldn't be able to figure out what to do on his own. So I kept hold of his reins and started on down.

We were about halfway down when I heard him start to slip. I looked back to see if there was anything I could do for him. I have an impression of horse legs going everywhere sort of like a cartoon horse in skates. Then his foot caught the back of my leg and swept it out from under me. I landed on my right side very hard, sliding just slightly down the hill. I hit my hip, arm, and ribs. Fortunately I managed to release Hoss's reins. He got himself stopped and waited for me to get up.

The two riders who had been ahead of us and stopped to wait for us at the bottom of the hill. Mary was at the top waiting for us to finish the hill. I am told Hoss sat down like a dog on the hill before he managed to get himself stopped. My fall evidently looked a lot worse than it was. I was asked by everyone if I was okay. I thought it an odd question considering I was sitting up and moving around, although not quickly. I was assessing the damage! I realized later my reply should have been, "I'm counting the bones."

Hoss waited for me to get up and gather up his reins. We made it the rest of the way down the hill without incident. At the bottom I checked Hoss over. He didn't have any obvious injuries and seemed happy enough. He wasn't particularly subdued, so I was pretty confident he wasn't injured.

We waited for Mary and Hadi to get down the hill, and we hand walked for a time. I wanted to make sure both Hoss and I had a chance to work out any kinks resulting from our unplanned adventure. It also gave some time for the other two riders to get ahead of us a ways.

The rest of the way back to camp we went pretty slowly. Mary tells me I looked rather gray after that fall, and I can tell you my right hip hurt an awful lot. I had hit damned hard. The muscle I'd landed on was protesting rather loudly. Still, we did our best to make good time. I didn't want to be out there any longer than necessary. Walking, in my opinion would just prolong the agony. We trotted as much as we could. Hoss never took a bad step.

At one point, within a mile or two of camp, Mary asked if I'd rather walk or trot in. I allowed as I didn't really care, but we'd get there faster if we trotted. So we trotted.

When we got in to camp and the final vet check, we were allowed to present without unsaddling first. The only problem with this plan was Hoss was starving, and the only hay on the ground was – orchard grass. His heart rate wasn't coming down. I explained to the vet he was really hungry and I couldn't let him eat what was available, so I'd rather take him to the trailer and let him eat for a while before presenting.

Hoss dug into his hay like he hadn't eaten in a month. I made him a bran mash which he sucked down in about two seconds. I got him untacked once the heart rate monitor showed him consistently down to 60 beats per minute. I threw a light blanket over him. Once he had slowed down his gorging, I took him back to the vet, where he cleared the check with no trouble.

Back at the trailer I gave him bunches of hay and beet pulp. I removed his boots, observing the rubs on his pasterns weren't any worse. The boot on his left hind I had to cut off. I got out my nail nippers and cut through the hose clamp to get it off. Both hind boots were damaged on the outside toe. I don't know if he did that on Wipe Out Hill or somewhere else.

I have to say that, while the boots are working fine on his front feet, I consider them a total failure on his hind feet. I think I may try a different brand of boots. I don't want to go back to shoeing him unless I absolutely must.

We got all three days finished, and got some nice completion awards in the mix. Of course, all Hoss cares about is the food!