Mare Maintenance and Cautious Scrappy

Though retired, Desire still requires quite the maintenance for her royal self. She grows hoof at an alarming rate, dreadlocks mane simply by turning her head, and doesn't roll enough to properly shed herself out. I don't begrudge her any of this, because it keeps us interacting often when, with busy life and riding horses and growing foals, she might otherwise slip below the radar a bit as the pasture horse. If you're shocked by that, you just don't have enough animals yet ;-)

Anyway Desire came out for a spa day and Sheza is generally that kid jumping up and down with her hand raised "PICK ME PICK ME!" when she sees me with a halter, so she joined us as well. If nothing else, standing bored in the cross ties is a fine exercise for an impatient red thing. And when she got too bored, I started leaning on her back and jumping around, to keep it more interesting.  You can see by her ears that she was questioning my sanity a bit, but fortunately she is still paralyzed by itches against all odds. Any concern over my actions, when treated with butt scratches, was instantly cured. 

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I had plans to try Renegade Vipers on Blaze on the 6 mile horse camp loop this a.m., while simultaneously babysitting fellow blogger Mel on her 4 yr old project. This morning I got Blaze all tidied up to go but when picking out his hooves I noticed that he had an abrasion and bit of a soft spot on his left hind heel bulb. Since he goes bare in the hinds and there is no way to protect that spot I decided to have him sit this one out, since there is no point turning a nothing into a something. We rode on very rocky trails at Whiskeytown this past Saturday and that spot no doubt came about from that. This is my ultimate legitimization for having multiple solid riding horses put into action, as I was able to let Blaze have his day and pull Scrappy out to babysit instead.

Scrappy has a new Hi-Tie, and thought M maybe had Scrappy food in her boot bucket, too

Spring trails <3

 silly wabbit

A nice quiet moment thinking about creek crossings..

Tig did a couple nice ones under saddle today

 Scrappy was comically determined to keep himself out of Tig's bubble today, after being cannon-balled into by a mare on our long ride Sunday. He has shown himself to be a horse that absolutely remembers things from one ride to another. Never let the sleepy geldings fool ya, they are clever self preservationists under it all! I certainly don't mind being along for "old lady" ride, as M likes to say!

Sharing the Trails: Lake Oroville Ride

After a great day exploring the Whiskeytown trails with T and A on Saturday, they made the haul down on Sunday to ride the Lake Oroville trails with me for their first time. Fellow endurance blogger Mel joined us, too! Riding buddies N and Willow were at the trail head too, but did their own ride.

M and Farley, ready for action

my sweet rides ;)

 Tera on Jazz (Morgan) and junior Alex on Nikki (Arabian)

 Booty power

 M and T stepping out

 M is very flexible--she forgot her saddle and just used whatever spare T had along! 

 "and the fish was thiiiiissssss big!"

 great footing on the trails

 Farley is so experienced that she self sponges

 T and M, finishing the horse camp loop

 Scrappy is loving his minimalist mechanical hack and head collar. He hates extra gear on his face so this is the answer of the hour! He will also be on this head collar on his hie-tie which I hope to get installed before our first ride in a few weeks! 

 We had a few minor rider snafus but the horses overall did great and we got 18 warm miles in. Scrappy shifted steadily between a fearless leader working hard at a 9 mph trot/canter to stay in front of the 3 speedies, and a self possessed caboose, watching the faster horses trot out of sight. He did one fabulous jump sideways when a creepy guy with a bike and trailer appeared and then wordlessly disappeared into the bushes, but who can blame him! That's shady behavior, and Scrappy never approves of that.

"No really, are we there yet guys?"

 "Ahh, we're there!"

What a great weekend of riding with friends. I am more fired up than ever for the start of my 2014 AERC season and wish happy, sound trails to you all!

Whiskeytown Day Ride Adventure

Blaze and I skeedaddled the 2 1/2 hrs north to Whiskeytown Lake area and joined a local friend and her riding student for some hilly, rocky, lovely miles. Her student is going to be riding her first LD at the Whiskeytown Chaser endurance ride coming up in just a few weeks! She is a great little rider and I have a sneaky feeling she'll be hooked after one ride.

heading out

 lots of great water crossings

 Ermahgawd!! It was the Whiskeytown Chaser ride manager coming down the trail measuring that got all three Arabs looking here

 trotting out on some great footing

 Tera convinces her new greenie that water crossings are FUN

 Weeee!

 Blaze leading out

 back along roads we recognize from doing the Chaser in '11 and '12

 Adventure buds!

 We got a solid 10 miles done in the heat of the day, with some decent hills and technical footing thrown in, and10 mph trot sets on the friendlier stuff. Blaze's feet were looking fabulous and I knew he'd be motivated on new trail with new horses, so I put him back in front Renegades this time to see if he really did trip and go that badly in them. Yep, that's how much I hate using Easyboots ;-)  He didn't, in fact, get clumsier, which may be leftover from riding him barefoot so much lately which clearly got him more attentive and better with his feet? He giraffed a bit when we trotted out but even then was pretty clean with his size 2 clodhoppers. I guess from here on I will just swap bare and Renny booted, on the theory that riding him bare intermittently, where he has to pay attention to rocks and not blindly blunder on, will keep him slicker footed wearing the bulkier boots.

back to the rigs

 He peed! he ate! he drank! He could have used some electrolytes, too, but overall my little ole fella did great :) 

We got home in the dark even with the deliciously drawn out evenings, and it was totally worth it. What a great day!