Better late than never...

Well, I am finally getting started on my conditioning for the 2009 ride season. I know, very late! But I got delayed with health reasons, and doctor said I couldn't ride! Hubby insisted I listen to doctor. Pshhht! What do they know?!

We have been staying in the saddle all winter with awesome lessons with Ashley Fudge, a coach in Centered Riding principals. It's amazing how that arena work has improved our trail riding! We even dabbled a bit in Dressage, and were talking about an all-Gotland drill team. I feel so much better out there!

It's finally spring here in Manitoba (if you don't count today in Selkirk - it's snowing!). Bird's Hill Park is drying out nicely, and there are several trails that are dry enough for riding already. Some have small pools of water over the grass, but the ponies hooves don't sink deep.

Here is the Blue Kiln trail on our first ride on April 27th. It was a beautiful day! The sun was warm and bright and there was a light breeze, just enough to keep our still shaggy ponies cool.


I set out with friends Michele and Ilonka, who were riding Willow's two offspring, Huckleberry and Mayberry. They are 4 and 5 years old, respectively. And it was Huck's first trail ride! Michele and Ilonka have been taking lessons with the same coach as me all winter, and have taken huge strides forward with their young horses. I am a little (OK, a lot!) in love with Huck. He is as handsome as his sire and very athletic! So they actually were all in decent shape to begin with. We did lots of trotting in the sand in lessons and so they were pretty well built up legs.







Just look at how relaxed Michele and Huck are for their first trail ride... though he was convinced the huge rocks at the side of the trail were out to eat him... He spent much of the ride out in front, leading. She has a very brave horse and they should have a great time as they settle in.




I wore my Garmin 401, the heart rate monitor and GPS unit, all on a small wrist monitor. My newest toy!!! Hubby got it for me for Xmas. Love that man; he always knows what to get me! So I hooked it up to Willow for the ride, here are our results...


We rode about 4.5 miles in about 1 hour 15 minutes. This gives us an average pace of 3.7 mph, not enough to complete a Limited Distance ride, but a good start for our training. As you can see Willow was pretty anxious, with a high heart rate much of the time. I kept looking down and being surprised to see she was at 200+ bpm, and yet felt and looked completely relaxed.

Here is a better caption of the speed graph. I love this program it is so fun to check out your workout! I was surprised to see some of the speeds we reached, as we were just trotting; and Willow is under 13hh. There were times where her kids couldn't keep up with her power trot, and had to canter to keep up. I can never tell when we go too fast; Willow has such a big stride and feels effortless that I don't notice our speed.

We didn't go far and we didn't go fast but at least we finally got out there! There have been two more such rides in the last week, and I will try to post more pictures as we go!

What a Ride!!!

Well, this morning started out amazing! It was only -6*C, and nice and sunny. There was a very light breeze. I've been having an absolutely abysmal week, so I had to get out riding before I yanked someone's head off! I called all my Gotland friends to see if someone would come out with me. It was too nice a day to waste. One friend couldn't come; she had to go get her hair done???!!! My hair could bloody well fall out! I mean, look at these trails...

I talked one friend into coming out, even though there was going to be a party at her place tonight (hardcore rider!). She is having a party for the opening of a movie that was filmed in her house. Another friend decided to walk with us (too much back problems to ride anymore). She was going to lead her mare along (the dam of my little filly).

So I got Willow dressed up in her treeless saddle (biggest winter advantage of these is the horse's warmth transfers well!) and the new Lindell-like sidepull I made her. She was eager to go, shoving her head into the bridle. We trooped around the ring for a few minutes as the others got organized. And then we were off!

The sun was out; in fact, by the time we got going I was actually sweating lightly! Course, that may have had to do with the excitement we had at the start of the ride... as we rode down the back trail into the woods, my little nutcase, affectionately called Dayanarra the Husband Slayer, decided that enough was enough! First we had separated her from her mom (she still hasn't gotten over being weaned form her mom - three months later!), and now mom was even leaving the yard (which she never does), but I was leaving, and on her only other friend! And she was left in the field with only the two cranky mares that don't like her! What was she to do???

... the little nutbar "was to" jump the bloody fence! Right over the electric fence, and through the next one (thank god it was off) to come join us. Oh, boy. Not something I wanted her to learn. Got the riding horses all hepped up. Pat, on the ground with the dam (who still allows her to nurse, grr!), got real nervous and started back to the barn to put baby away. Narra went to see mom, but at that moment Willow got very excited that her little buddy was there and ploughed through everyone to get to her, and off to the barn we jigged. Narra followed us, abandoning her mom (which makes me happy - she will be easy to pony off Willow next time).

We plunked Narra in the small pen – with the taller wooden fence! – with Sage. Sage was not happy to be a baby sitter! And we started out. And I prayed Narra would stay put!

Now where was I? …oh yeah …the breeze was warm and gentle through the trees, the sun dappled upon the ground. We had quite the ride. We went for almost 3 miles before returning to the barn. It was a perfect morning.

Now it’s miserable! The sun is still shinning, but the wind has now kicked up to 80, gusting to 100km/h. So if I suddenly go offline… look outside, that may be my house tumbling by!

Wanted to share pics, as much of the trails are now lost to a fire!

Last May we went on a Competitive Trail ride, I didn't blog about it as I got so busy. But now I feel compelled to share, as there has been a big forest fire that has destroyed a big chunk of the provincial forest. It was started by a quader, during a quad poker derby two weekends later. Here are some pictures of the fire that was in the news...

But I prefer to remember our ride. It was amazing! We weren't sure about going on this ride, as it was a 2 hour drive south east of us. I decided to just do a 10 mile ride, as I didn't want to get up and out of the farm by 6:30am to make it to a longer ride! Ick, early riser I am NOT! So we all packed up, except for Michele's horse Cici (Michele injured herself) and made the trip out to Sandilands Provincial Forest.

It was a very brisk day, staying below 10 degrees C, and having a cool wind. But it was sunny and had great scenery! The four of us set out; me on Willow, Jill on Sage, Debbie on Meg and Ilonka on Mayberry. The trails were very interesting, with lots of hills (many with danger signs - eek!)

There were lots of hill and thick, gnarly roots sticking up in the trails, with tall pines waving softly overhead. We spent much of the 10 miles in the Gotland’s comfortable, ground-covering trot. I can still close my eyes now, almost a year later and remember the feel of the ride. It just seemed to flow.

We had so much fun on this ride, and it was I think my favourite trail of the year. There is a ride tentatively scheduled for October 2009 (if the trails get marked after the fire). It is definitely worth the 1 ½ drive to go again!

The worst Farrier… ever!

Just as Willow was beginning to recover from the Leg Sucking Mud Incident, we had a run in with a newbie farrier. The regular farrier (who is great!) was training an apprentice farrier. They can get the 7 horses done in record time! So I trotted out Willow for the new guy. I should have known things were not going to work when Willow tried to stomp him and chew his hide off. I was so busy trying to save him, I couldn’t watch what he was doing. I know, it’s no excuse… I know better now!

He put no roll on the front of the hooves (or breakover, whatever you call it), he pared out a bunch of sole and then completely took out her bars. There was nothing left to hold her feet together, and she was very tender until her sole grew back! She had massive flare very quickly. I was bad in so many ways.

Not even two weeks later, Will had horrible chips in all her hooves, and then long quarter cracks! Of course these showed up just as the Gotland people (Pat’s Gotland breeding friends from Denmark) were visiting. They just shook their heads at the trim and said should never see that with the Russ. So all the men trouped out to the barn and trimmed her up, and showed Bill the best way to trim a Gotland. I took a few trimmings from Bill, but she has the best feet out there now, and I have decided to learn how to barefoot trim myself! But it took several more weeks before I was confident to ride her.

So a few great things came from the visit, including meeting the Danes and going on some fun rides with them! But now I think: sure, I can trim myself - I couldn't possibly be any worse than that farrier we actually paid to do it!

Ride season is over *sob*

Well, the endurance season is over here in Manitoba, and mine didn’t go so well. Best laid plans… It started out great with a beautiful ride in Mars Hills, followed by the Sandilands Competitive Trail ride. At Sandilands, I rode with the other Gotlands Girls; Jill, Debbie and Ilonka (Michele was out with a bad back), so I just decided to have fun and do the 10 mile ride. It was amazing, beautiful and a total blast! (I’ll post the story with pictures later!).

And then we started to have problems! At the next ride, an endurance ride in Bird’s Hill Park, Willow and I decided we could do another 25 miler. So off we went. We were doing great, improving our time over previous rides by completing the first 15 mile loop in only 2 ¼ hours. Now, this may not seem like a great feat to more experienced riders, but remember Willow is only 13h, with short little legs and chunky monkey me on her back!

We enjoyed our 1 hour break, where they offered me a delicious stew. As I was leaving the camp site, Debbie and Jill rode in on their horses. I waved as I set out to enjoy the second loop, and hopefully my first completion of a 25 miler!

But 5 miles into the second loop, we came across mud. Great, big pools of leg sucking mud. The trees were tight and there was no way to avoid it. But I had been warned about this mud at the ride meeting this morning, told it wasn’t too bad, and that others had made it through fine yesterday. Unfortunately it had rained overnight, and I was the last horse through in a pack of 30+. We got through the first few patches OK, but then we kept running into more, and they just kept getting worse and worse. It was too late to turn back, and I just hoped they would end soon. I had to push Willow through them, but she was a trouper, always willing when I asked her to go on.

But at the last bog, she got tired halfway through and paused. She started to sink! We desperately thrashed our way out, and came to a shaking stop at the other end. I got off to check her out. No cuts or soreness yet, but even her belly was cake din mud. It may have only been up to the knees of the other horses, but we sank to her belly. Hmm, guess it was a good thing it was so big, it spread out our weight and stopped us from sinking further!

I hopped back on and we continued our ride. She was fine for a mile or two, but then I started to notice irregularities in her trot. Obviously she was sore from the mud. So I got off and walked her. Unfortunately, we didn’t know the trail in BHP yet and we didn’t know any shortcuts back to camp. We were forced to complete the ride.
We got back to camp around 6. The vet checked her out and we were obviously disqualified for lameness issues. He recommended a mud pack, and Maura was great at tracking down someone who gave me one, and she lent me her leg wraps to apply it. But she was off work for the next few weeks to recover. *sigh*

Our first ride

Well, Willow is now officially an Endurance horse! We completed our first ride in the Mars Sandhills Wildlife Management area here in Manitoba, this Saturday. We signed up for (and made it through) the limited distance, 25 mile ride. The first of the season here in Manitoba, and one of many we now plan on going to! I am hooked!

We had some great moments (and some not-so-great-kinda-embarrassing moments). Warning; this could take a while. I am normally long winded, and I'm still excited about it.

The morning started kind of slow. I didn't get to sleep until late (getting my trucker husband out of the house for his midnight load), and woke up a little late. I managed to get the animals fed and over to the barn next door only 15 minutes late. I picked up Debbie to run over to pick up her mare at the driving trainer, only 2 miles away. Loading didn't go so well. We got back to the barn for the other horses, now 1/2 hour behind schedule, where they had more loading issues.

Meanwhile I was in the barn, doing a quick first aid on Willow. She had managed to bang herself on the rear left coronet band sometime during the night. My first response was "Noooo! I wanna go on the ride!" (Luckily it was nothing serious and the vet said it would be fine to go on with). We left the barn 1 hour behind schedule. Luckily the roads were great, and directions to the ride was clear (on tiny pie plates). Finally we arrived, and I pulled into the campsite. Then I looked up and noticed I had parked in the middle of the trail. Oops! Hope no one noticed!

Luckily due to a few late arrivals (not just us!) the ride was delayed a bit. The ride meeting was very clear: great job Maura and Tanya! As a first time rider, this helped me a lot. The two horses is this picture are my friends' Ilonka (not seen) with Mayberry, a 4 year-old bay Gotland and Michele with Cici, the sorrel Gotland broodmare (her substitute mount as her gelding is too young). The two young women in the front are two very nice young women I ended up riding with in the first loop.

Unfortunately, I got a late start (I know, big surprise!); I left 10-15 minutes behind everyone else in the 25 mile pack. Willow proceeded to continually ask me, "are you sure we are supposed to be leaving without the others???" She dragged her heels and tried to turn back every few feet. I didn't warm her up so we did an easy walk for the irst mile or so. This resulted in the 15 miler pack catching up to me. That was fine, as I enjoyed riding with them!

The trails were gorgeous, and it was a beautiful day. The sun was out, only a few clouds, and the temperature was in the high teens. The footing was great, a nice sandy soil without too many rocks. Most of the snow was gone, only patches of snow and a bit of ice was left. Tanya did a GREAT job marking the trails (I didn't get lost this time, like I did at last year's Competitive Trail ride!) The only problem was the low hanging branches. Course, having such a short horse, I didn't have near the problems with this issue that others did (hehe!). Well, other than that one pine cone in the mouth that I swear Willow deliberately steered towards for giggles!

A few miles down the road, two women caught up with me. I decided to ride with them, as Willow was desperate for company, and was much more comfortable with others along. I really enjoyed riding with them, and they were very useful to help me establish a great pace (for it being my first time out). I never did get their names, but I know the chestnut was a QH/ Arab named Flicka and the palomino was a Mustang cross named Dove. They were also Fugly fans like me. Flicka had a great ground covering trot and set the pace. Dove was kind of absentminded and tended to trip over everything!

**Note to Dove's Rider: if you are interested in checking out that synthetic english saddle my friend has for sale please contact me. I forgot to give you my number! It's a really reasonable price.**

I got lots of questions and comments about Gotlands on the ride. Everyone seemed kind of surprised we were trying to compete on these short little horses. But once they saw more, they got to understanding. Flicka's rider kept looking over while we were trotting, and saying "It's just so effortless!" Meanwhile I'm thinking, "It's even more effortless to ride it!". Willow has great movement, it's very smooth at all gaits. But her jog is something else. She has this long, easy, fluid stride, that she seems to keeps the rhythm of by swinging her chin side to side. It's very workman-like; she keeps her head low, ears alert, and motors along.

We did lots of trotting, with Willow breaking into a canter every once in a while to catch up to the other two. She refused to be left behind by the bigger horses. Man, she can be opinionated! I had a "run away" a few times when she decided to catch up... well more like a trot- or lope-away. She just refused to listen when I said we would catch up eventually. That's something I think we need to work on!

We were getting pretty sweated up, but I though it was more due to anxiety for Willow. We met up with a few quaders, but they were mostly well behaved. Except for one bunch I met on a curve in the trail; I didn't think they were going to stop! Willow just kept on jogging along, not batting an eyelash. Then I looked back to see the others jumping around. Hmm.. another advantage of the Gotland! I'm sure Willow thought: "That would be like work, and it's not like I could get rid her, so why bother being silly??!!"

Course, right after that she ruined her "good-horse" image. We had ridden through a few puddles, but then we went by a nice one, that no one had stirred up yet! So we turned off the trail and waded in. Dove's rider laughed because Willow put her head down right away, right up to her eyes. As I was beginning to tell a story about how the Gotlands just luuv the water, you guessed it, the little snot layed down in the water!!! It was so subtle. On minute we were standing there up to her knees in the water; next thing I knew it, I was wet up to the knee. Dove's rider was yelling "Kick her!!", and I'm thinking "I can't, she laying on my leg!". I looked down, Willow is submerged on her side completely up to her mane. I was wet to my waist on the right side. Finally I pulled my leg free and kicked her. She popped up and looked back at me as if to say "Oh, sorry, were you still there?!" with a very surprised look on her face. Ha! She can't fool me... twice. Meanwhile, Dove and Flicka's riders were laughing like loons. I didn't finish the story of Camelia's foal who used to lay underwater and look up at her mom. I felt we had already demonstrated just fine that Gotlands like water.

I squished the last 1 1/2 miles into camp.

As we got closer to camp, Willow seemed to sense we were almost there and sped up. Camp kinda snuck up on us, and I cantered the last 1/2 mile. Oops! Nevertheless, she pulsed down quickly. Faster than anyone expected, since she was so soaking wet! *said in a sarcastic voice* Gave Pat (Willow's owner) a bit of concern; thinking I had pushed her too hard. Pfft! We soaked her down, (as I stood there shaking my head - "WHY?!!!") and she pulsed down at 1:16, just less than 3 hours after we went out. I trotted her through the vet check (or should I say; she dragged me through the trot). Still lots of pep in her stride! We scored strait A's and went to take a lunch break.

She earned her lunch... I guess... In the lower right corner you can see my saddle, sitting in the sun to dry. All I could think was "thank god I decided to buy the synthetic Torsion, not the leather!" It was dry almost before I got back to camp. I was doing quite well too. I had gone out to purchase a pair of seamless running pants (read: tights. Eek!) to wear under my chaps. I know, sorry; lovely mental image, eh!! I'm just glad no photos have showed up yet of me in my outfit (and I hope they never do!!!) Tanya was a peach, and offered me her dry Ariats to wear for the rest of the ride, as she was not riding.

As we sat there, Willow frantically calling for the others every few minutes (in between huge mouthfuls of hay - nothing interferes with a Gotland's appetite!), the rest of the Gotland riders came in from their 15 mile fun ride. They had lost their way, and came in the wrong direction. So they snuck up on me a bit. They did a little less than the 15 miles, but did a good pace. Mayberry, Willow's 4-year-old daughter barely broke a sweat. Here they are, Cici in the lead, with Sage, Meg and Mayberry bringing up the rear (Ilonka walking). The next picture is Mayberry as she came in, and Meg; all cooled out and dried off.

I chatted with some of the long time riders in the club, trying to get a feel for how to ride the last 10 miles of the ride, as I would be alone. Unfortunately, many of them had heard the story of the submariner Gotland and had trouble hiding their giggles. Well, at least they'll remember us!!

The rest of the 25 milers started out for the second loop of the ride halfway through my lunch. I was way behind! So I set out (again 5 minutes late), at about 2:25pm on my own. Again, Willow wasn't too sure of this, but we straitened this out eventually. She gave up on going back to camp, and seemed to realize, the best way to get to the other horses is to go forward!

It was a gorgeous ride! Quiet, sun dappled trails and not too hot. The trail was so easy to follow.

I decided to let Willow chose her pace. She's got the pony's self-preservation instincts, and wouldn't push further than she can manage. I'm just glad she doesn't have the pony build, because she was moving!!! She would pick up a jog, utterly relaxed, and covering lots of ground. I also noticed, while she was moving at the same speed trot as in the first loop, her HR was lower doing it. She was a lot calmer, and less stressed. She would jog for a mile or so then slow to a walk for a few minutes, then pick up the jog again. We had no incidents, except for when a little garter snake slithered out form underfoot. She jumped strait up, and forward about 6 feet. Then stopped, and pretended nothing had happened. Embarrased she had been scared by that itty bitty little snake I guess.

We were doing pretty good, she was pacing herself well. But about 3 miles before the finish I had to get off. I had fallen going up the stairs (WTF??) the day before and landed with my kneecap on the riser. My knee was killing me. I got off, and almost collapsed. We limped along for about a mile before my knee started to work again. So I heaved myself back up into the saddle. By this point I was pretty sure we wouldn' t make it in in time. By my clock, we had 8 minutes to complete the 1 1/2 or so miles. So I made her walk quite a bit. BIG MISTAKE!!! As we got closer, she started calling (Well, not really "started", as she had called occasionally throughout the entire 10 miles). Suddenly the two Gotlands left in camp answered, and I had another trot-away! I was laughing as I came over the hill. Jill and Debbie, said before they could tell it was me, they knew by the distinctive Gotland Trot! She was motoring as fast as her legs would carry her.

As I stopped beside the trailer to drop my saddle and pick up the sweat scraper, I heard someone yell "Bring her over here, you can still complete!" WHAT?! We took off to the water troughs, and several people came over to dump buckets over Willow and scrape the warm water off. Maura was there with her HRM, and Willow pulsed down VERY fast. Unfortunately, not fast enough. We missed by minutes. We got a complete, and the mileage, but no points.

That's OK. To me Willow did amazingly well, competing FAR above what I trained her for, and beautifully as well! We must have trotted 70-80% of that last 10 miles (except for the mile where I was on foot). Several people mentioned they were impressed by how well Willow did for her first long distance ride, and how quickly she pulses down.

Her vet out was great too. All A's except for the gut sounds, which were down to a B (goes A to D). She dragged me through the soundness check, and still was full of piss and vinegar! She got an hour rest, and more munchies while we waited for the final vet check.

Everyone was so great, saying how too bad I had missed it by minutes. Well next time I won't, because I won't give up!

Everyone was great, and so generous. A few gave me important pointers. One nice lady lent me her extra syringe and another gave me some electrolytes for Willow and showed me how to administer them. I liked the atmosphere, and the camaraderie the people displayed.

The ride vet seemed very curious about the breed. Asking me many questions. Like how smooth thay were to ride. I said probably the smoothest horse I've ever riden (and I've riden many horses while working at riding stables, and over 12 different breeds). He replied with "Even though they have to move their legs twice as fast?" Ha ha, such a comedian. *rolls eyes*

Can't wait for the next ride!