Snow?

It's endurance ride weekend! I'll be up in the north central Cascades, smack dab where there's a bunch of snow that's forecast here in the northwest portion of the U.S.  I think I'm ready. I don't have to worry about food this weekend, but I still have to finish packing my clothing and that basically means bringing everything under the sun.

Oh boy. Wish me luck and warmth!

Taylor Mountain Hill Work 9/8/19

Now it's been over a week ago, but Cortney and I planned a weekend outing to give Gwyn's butt a nice workout. Taylor Mountain is Tiger Mountain's neighbor with far FAR less mountain bikes and much friendlier to horses in general.

It almost felt like getting together to ride wasn't going to happen. For some reason one of my truck tires was low on air and Cortney had hit a pothole the previous day and the entire frame of her trailer broke from the impact. Thankfully, adding air to the tire was the solution though I've been keeping an eye on my pressures ever since. I loaded Gwyn then drove to Cortney's house to pick her up.

Good news too, Cortney now has a brand new trailer and it's so pretty :D

It was a beautifully cool day with on/off drizzling rain. The colors were just starting to turn and really it was the start of the PNW fall season, I think. Perfect to kick off.

This is a popular spot for local endurance riders to condition. Cortney recognized trailers, lol. By the time we returned, these three trailers were gone and three more had arrived. 

Today was my Scoot Boot stress test. We were planning on a lot of elevation and about the length of an LD loop. We weren't necessarily aiming for speed either. The goal was to get Gwyn just climbing and Taylor offers several options depending on how gradual you want your climb to be. We took an easier route. Haha.

Stress testing did not go as smoothly as I hoped it would. The previous rides didn't show any issues but this was both longer and harder. Plus Gwyn now has scratches from standing in bog water all day (I'm looking for a new spot to board her which is a whole other post) and her pasterns are a fungusy mess.

The first section where we opened up into a ground eating trot I lost a boot and never knew. We crossed a stream not long after, I looked down to check feet and boom, needed to backtrack. We did find the boot and lost the second as we were heading back. I stuck her boots back on and snugged the pastern straps up a bit more. They proceeded to mostly stay on the rest of the ride but I was paranoid.

Gwyn's appy nature shines through a lot on rides like these. We started with the hill climb pretty much off the bat and she will take breaks when she gets tired. Amira is pretty much 100 mile fit, and easily 50 mile fit and couldn't understand the breaks. She got her comeuppance a week later when Cortney went camping and rode the PCT. Amira had to take breaks, haha.

"Why Mom, why?"

The trails were gorgeous though, and as we climbed we entered the cloud ceiling so everything was softly lit, misty and green. It felt like we were riding through a fantasy novel. It's my favorite kind of trail riding weather.

Must outrun the Nazgul and bring the ringbearer to Rivendell! 

It was funny because Amira has Opinions about what trail rides are like. They are either lots of trotting at speed (her favorite) or slow poke walking with quarter horses. Gwyn fit neither. We were doing good speedy trotting but also needing walk breaks. That picture is her confused face.

Beaver Pond and sneak peeks of fall color through the clouds

We opened up and had a nice canter on a slower gradient and when I asked for a half halt I lost a boot again. When I went to put them back on I noticed some HUGE rub wounds from the heel straps. After that I was torn on getting Gwyn back to the trailer (we still had several miles to go) or going slow to minimize further injury to her heel bulbs. We theorize that she clips herself during half halts and pulls the boots off. They fully came off, with everything still attached. It was weird.

"Mom.. really, WHY?"

The day started to warm up and the sun even made a bit of an appearance. We tied up our rain coats with glee.

Then back to the trailer where I could make more assessments on the feet situation.

She's since healed completely and I've ordered gaiters and am talking to a rep about the fit.

Amira was perplexed by the GIANT trailer she had so much room in. 😂

As we drove back to Cortney's house, the skies opened up and it POURED on us as we unloaded. Fun weather for the day! As I was driving back to the farm the classical radio station was playing music from the Goonies and paired with the weather, it was just... perfect. Definitely have your sound on ;)

Bodywork, children, a lesson, and a trail ride

Before I left for GenCon in Indianapolis last Thursday, I had set up a time for my old Livejournal acquaintance/friend J to come out and give Gwyn a massage.

The mare herd. The paint filly has taken a liking to me and Gwyn

Odd cuts on her mouth. I wonder if it's something she's eating in the pasture?

We accidentally got the puppy stuck. The kids ran wild while Gwyn got her massage

Bodyworker's notes included:

• overall body condition is good yay!
• Tenderness in hamstrings and low back
• pelvis was pulled forward into her low back on her right side, stood in a hollow pelvic posture
• left shoulders and base of neck were adhesed
• poll locked up, more on the left
• good lumbar sacral range of motion
• good limb flexibility after massage

Follow up:

• benefit from hamstring stretches after exercise, drawing hind legs forward under her body
• stretching the shoulder forward adn back will help maintain suppleness

She was starting to fall asleep. I think it was feeling good. 

 Her shoulders were uneven. She's showing me how to do stretches.

Containing Hazel helped by the end.

 My friend came out with her daughter for a pony ride. Everyone took a turn and Gwyn was foot perfect, even with giant dump trucks driving in and out of the property. They belonged to a dairy farm in Monroe and they lease one of the far fields and were amending the soil to prepare for winter wheat planting.

In stark contrast to previous times she's been put up on Gwyn, Hazel was thrilled to ride Gwyn, and wasn't scared. Now she wants to ride more. I'm plotting already.

Friend's child

Then I had a lesson the next week with Cortney and Jim.  Cortney brought her 'baby' Reign. I worked on applying the stretch to really establishing Gwyn being in contact and not throwing it away or holding it too tightly. Apparently I went too far in the opposite direction from no contact to too much.

Gwyn is dubious, I just got off but the lesson wasn't over...

Demonstrating how it's done.

Sunset in Fall City

I can do it too right after Jim rides her.

Gwyn proceeded to be an absolute ass loading onto the trailer and Cortney and I had to chase her around before finally being able to catch her and load her up. Of course once she decided to load, she was fine. This ultimately was a foreboding incident.

I also got new toys.

Over the weekend I was determined to get out and ride. Between a DnD session that I was running being planned at the last minute, to Eric working an extra day on Sunday, I wasn't sure how I would fit it in, but Eric got back early enough that I thought I could fit in a short, local trail ride at Lord Hill.

Goober knows she's in deep shit.

I decided to load in the resting pasture since it would be fully contained. Unfortunately, it's also several acres in size and Gwyn has... become herdbound and is NOT food motivated. She got away from me twice before I even asked her to load, so she's also starting to anticipate my efforts to mitigate her previous running away attempts by twisting and pulling the leadline out of my hands.

I am not happy with her. I need to get gloves. Or a fucking chain over her nose. Either way, she was cantering and trotting across the pasture for between 45-60 minutes. Then once I caught her for good I lunged her ass from the bottom of the field up to the trailer, tied her to the trailer and got my lunge line set for loading and she walked on with no fuss. She arrived sweaty. And then I made her fucking work on those trails. I had no sympathy.

Cars aren't supposed to use this lot. It's got the easiest entry to the park because horses so the humans use it even though they have a dedicated path that just happens to have more elevation change.

It was nice and cool in the forest. There were surprisingly few bugs and no mosquitoes. It has been pretty dry, though I did see some spots of marshy water.

The light had that beautiful, end of summer, evening golden look to it. It was hard to capture on film.

I didn't bring a whip or crop since I wanted Gwyn to walk all the hills and not power up them through the magic of momentum. She was tired and not at all motivated to move forward.

She did seem to move well with the scoot boots on though, which bodes well! This trail is not barefoot friendly.

There was one other rider who left right before I did. I only saw her at the very end. We ended our ride at the same time. No drama getting on to go home. We'll see if the lesson was learned. I was not about to lose that fight of stubbornness.

Also, her dam's influence shone through on this ride. When she was going away from the trailer she minced her way downhill in the scoot boots and I thought for sure something was wrong and the boots were rubbing or something. But once she realized that we were heading back toward the parking lot, she moved out and power walked up and down hills with no issue. Stella used to do the same thing. She'd gimp her way away from home and the moment we would turn around, the head bob would be gone.

I checked her feet all over at the end. No rubs after 4.5 miles. We walked, trotted and cantered. We'll see how it holds up to longer distances. I'm already planning an outing with Cortney on Saturday. Lake Washington Saddle Club has a Wine Prize ride and we are going!

Gwyn says it wasn't fair. I say if we want to move up to 50s, or even just do LDs out here in the PNW, she needs to get over it.