Then and Now

From this: 

March 2001
Estrella Mtn NATRC
photo by Cristy Cumberworth

To this:

January 2014
Bumble Bee 25
photo by Susan Kordish

Coming up on 14 years of a lot of blood, sweat, tears, miles, and above all, learning. May my capacity to learn never cease, and the wisdom provided by horses keep coming.

TOA Blog Hop: Worth 1k Words

Worth 1k Words.

Let's share our favorite photos of our stud muffins.  No limit.

Oooohhh, boy...you asked for it...an excuse to plaster all of my fave photos in one place. Some will have been seen before, others may be new. Obviously, the pony garners the most of these...but with 18+ years of photo-taking together, we've gotten some keepers. (This doesn't even count all of our show-ring days, all of which are hard copies that haven't been scanned yet.)

first LD, Man Against Horse 25 2006

second LD, in which she is still pulling on me into the first check

bittersweet...our last competition (and the
one that decided her retirement)
photo by Laura Bovee

my favorite ride photo ever, Valley of the Sun 2009

ignore my position...she has much better jumping form than I do

such a stinker...this is why we didn't use
snaffle bits at ridesphoto by Jane Grey Photography

first distance ride, First of Spring NATRC 2002
photo by Jane Grey Photography

playing in the Salt River

playing in the wash at Catalina

one of my favorite ear-cam shots...playing in the pines in Flagstaff

Man Against Horse 50 2009 -- best ride accomplishment ever

war mare face

Las Cienegas LD -- I love the going away shot

she's not big on cuddles usually, so I love that her ears are up
and she's actually happy about it

first back-to-back LD, day two...thrilled with how perky she was!

love all ear-cam shots...so attentive and alert

first 50! I'm a dork and she's like 'whatever'
photo by Laura Bovee

And I've done enough rides and gotten enough good pics of her that I feel Liberty qualifies to be included here as well...

love this...another one of my favorite ride
photos
Bumble Bee 25 2014
photo by Susan Kordish

the precursor to the above awesome photo,
I'm gabbing and she's hydrating
photo by Susan Kordish

majestic view, dorky green horse, silly rider
and granted, I had my stirrups a hole too short (green horse
security thing) but dang, she's tall and I'm short
photo by Susan Kordish

another favorite going-away shot
photo by Susan Kordish

our first ride together and we kinda look
like we know what we're doing
(after she spent the prior several minutes
balking at the photographer)
Prescott Chaparral 30 2013
photo by Susan Kordish

an interesting side profile shot...this mare has the most
interesting face...and yes, while the photographer is below us,
my feet are that high up on her sides
photo by Susan Kordish

Libby's first ride, Gina riding...doing her
trademark "thing" of air-pawing whenever
she's impatient

more ear-cam!

forcing cuddles and how-to-take-a-selfie on her

dork mare (mid-shake)

love it...can actually drop my reins on the crew bag and she
stays put!

being a twerp...post-ride, 30 miles wasn't enough...digging to
China and sticking her tongue out about being yelled at

2014: That's A Wrap

I so very badly want to say "and good riddance," but any year that sees me turned into an actual trail runner can't be all bad.

Many things certainly did not go as planned, and I'm pretty sure I spent the least amount of time in the saddle that I have since I started riding. I think if I hadn't had the trail running, I probably would have gone absolutely out of my mind climbing the walls, but hitting the trail with my own two feet kept me (reasonably) sane.

As far as 2014 goes, it may not have gone as planned, and I may have spent far too much time dwelling on that the past few months, but looking back, it was actually pretty decent.

Got to ride Libby again. We may not have
technically completed, since we came in
overtime, but we had a good time and got in
a good training ride.
photo by Susan Kordish

Still got some pony time in. Sensing retirement is imminent, but
will still keep taking advantage of the good days when I can and
when she says she's feeling good.

my girls

Fun times meeting with fellow bloggers at the AERC
Convention in Atlanta. 

"Answer"
And did I ever! Some riding, and lots of
running!

Lots of time with my favorite running buddy!

Another epic Tevis crewing adventure!
(That's Artemis's full younger brother Spike I'm holding.)

One of my best friends got married, and I was
one of her bridesmaids. This is probably the
first and last dress pic that will grace this blog.

Seeing more of the Tevis trail!

Ran a road race (15k) -- as in ran the whole
thing -- and didn't die!

But these were way more fun! Ended the year with 48 race miles
total...racked up way more run miles than ride miles. *shrug*

Semi-swimming in the Salt River.
May not have ridden much, but the
times I did, it was usually pretty fun!

I'm not one to make resolutions ("inebriated declarations of good intent"), and quite honestly, I've thoroughly embraced the "no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy" mentality when it comes to trying to plan things out too far in advance, since it all falls apart anyway.

I've got my spring roughly mapped out in terms of trail runs (which you'll find out about as they happen, lest I alert the universe to my plans and jinx myself), and it looks like I'll probably be doing the Bumble Bee ride again...just the fun ride this time, since my saddle muscles aren't in shape.

Beyond that, my only immediate plans are to snore in the New Year...I generally have a rule about going out on New Year's Eve -- I don't -- and have no plans to break it this year. (Currently chuckling a bit at the all-day rain forecast, and the 29* overnight temps...that'll put a crimp in the Fiesta Bowl and block party celebrations. And it may even put out the dog-and-pony-startling fireworks. Love fireworks, but prefer to see them in a place and environment that isn't disturbing my animals...like Disneyland.)

Hope everyone has a fun and safe New Years Eve, whatever your plans may be, and we'll see you in 2015!

Lead Dogs

So many little white pony ear shots...the only thing that
changes is the scenery. Always bold and always perky.

In reading Funder's blog post about her Nevada Derby 50 ride, she had a section where she talked about sled dog racing, lead dogs, and the similarities to that and endurance. She put into words pretty much exacty what I was thinking, so with her permission, I copy it here:

I spent a lot of time thinking about lead dogs. 

This year I fell off into watching the Iditarod pretty closely, and I read two books about long-distance sled racing. It’s fascinating, really, the similarities and differences between endurance riding one horse and endurance racing 8-16 dogs. One of the main things sled racers worry about is their lead dogs. Not every dog has it in her to lead the pack, and only the best of the best can lead for a thousand miles straight. Most teams — even winning teams — rotate between several lead dogs. If your lead dog quits on you, he’s probably nottired, he’s just mentally tired from being in front, and he needs to just run with the pack in the middle for a couple (hundred) miles.

So that was perking along in the back of my mind all day. It’s hard to be the lead dog.When Dixie and I were leading, I noticed that I had to concentrate much harder to make damn sure I was on the right trail. Can I see a ribbon ahead? When’s the last time I saw one? How’s the footing ahead, should I slow us down, don’t forget to signal when you slow down! What do I remember about this section? Can we walk for a quarter mile and get to better trail, or is this a section where you trot ten feet and walk ten feet and trot again?

The horses are the same way. And they’re herbivores, not brave predators. The lead horse has to watch for rocks and pick her footing; the horses behind the lead horse just step exactly where the lead horse stepped. (You’ve seen this — you know that if the horse in front of you stumbles over a rock, there’s a 90% chance your horse is going to stumble over the same damn rock.) It’s hard to be the lead dog for a horse too! 

And I kept that in mind all afternoon as we swapped out our lead dogs. They’d all recovered fine, they weren’t lame, and Dixie and Kody are both hundred-mile horses. They weren’t tired; they were tired of leading. I didn’t get mad at Dixie, and I didn’t fall into my usual “she’s just not cut out for this sport we should give up” pit of despair. She did really well and she was really honest!

I've also dabbled here and there with an interest in sled dog racing -- enough to have several books on the subject, at least. And there's nothing like reading about sled dog racing to make you feel good about your sanity level as an endurance rider.

To be honest, I've never had to put a lot of thought into the mental pressures of leading. Mimi is naturally a lead horse. She prefers to lead, getting sulky, spooky, pouty, and sometimes downright naughty when kept in the back for too long. (When riding with friends, about the time they hear me cussing behind them is when they know it's time to let the pony lead.) She can also keep up with or out-pace all the horses we've ridden with, and is still overall one of the boldest, bravest horses I've ridden. (To be fair, she also has who-knows-how-many hours and miles of experience.)

She's also a pretty "easy" ride in the sense that the toughest thing to do is try to keep her to a dull roar and persuade her to not dislocate your shoulders. Especially at a ride, when she's "on" she doesn't even think about spooking or being naughty -- she just wants to get down the trail, preferably faster than what I'd like her to do. But when the pony knows her job and does it, it's pretty easy for me as a rider to do things like pay attention to the trail and ribbons. (Trail judgment...that's a topic worthy of its own post...)

My pony has me so spoiled.

This past year, riding so many different horses showed me that this is kind of bold leadership is not par for the course. While it happened to varying degrees with a number of the horses I rode, I'm thinking specifically about Liberty. 

Happy ears, just a couple miles into the ride and still
feeling confident.
Prescott Chaparral 2013

I touched on it a bit in my Prescott Chaparral story, and again in the Bumble Bee write-up, but Liberty is a classic case of needing the mental break from leading. She's still a young, green horse with not a whole ton of experience, and while she is naturally dominant in a herd, and has a curiosity, willingness, and boldness that will serve her well going down the trail, right now she still very much needs those mental breaks.

Less bold at this ride and much more
"wibbley-wobbley" young horse.

And riding horses who don't have it quite "all together" yet has been more mentally taxing on me as a rider, including a couple of times at rides last year of missing ribbons/getting off course. Apparently I don't multi-task as well as I thought...

It's been an eye-opener for me to experience this, especially once I made the connection of what was actually going on versus the automatic assumption of "I broke my horse." In all the rides we did, I only recall Mimi hitting a wall twice -- once on a ride we'd done multiple times on trails we'd trained on, on a hot day, going away from camp yet again and she really just wanted to be done; and once when she tied up. I tend to hit mental walls more than she does, and it's often the perky pony attitude that gets me out of my funk.

I also touched on this a bit when musing about heart rate monitors -- that "mental wall" is part of why I do like to ride with one, especially on horses I don't know as well. It helps tell me whether they truly are tired and it's reflecting in their pulse, or if they're just mentally tired.

In front, and braver...but it took a lot of support on my part
to keep her there.

I'm sure some of this is my "growing pains" of adapting to riding other horses. Like I said, the pony has me spoiled, and the faster I get used to the fact that not every horse is going to be another Mimi, the easier it'll be on me. And fortunately, I've still got her to fall back on, when I need a confidence booster or don't want the pressure of having to be so "on" as a rider the entire time. (Not to say I let my guard down with her...the times I have, it's usually ended up in a parting of the ways...that pony moves fast.)

It's certainly true horses are a lifetime of learning, and the more of them you're around, the more they teach you. I know I've learned that my preference in horses is a bold, forward leader...I would rather have one I hold back a bit than one I have to constantly coax, cajole, and pedal. Obviously, there is going to be some degree of coaxing, cajoling, and pedaling on young horses while they're figuring life out...and that's okay. As long as they eventually turn into a bold, confident, reliable, trail-safe horse...I'm happy.