Tevis Congrats

Congratulations to all the riders who finished Tevis this year!

Extra congratulations go out to Mel Faubel and Farley and Karen Chaton and Bo for completing the ride in Renegade Glue-Ons!    This is two years in a row now that Renegade boots have finished Tevis.

Barefoot is a movement that is here to stay, as evidenced by the number of booted horses that I understood were at Tevis this year.  I'm thrilled about how many riders are taking that step and booted -- and not just in endurance.  The park I do most of my riding at hosts a lot of casual trail riders, and it's exciting to see how many of them are in boots as well.  I've had quite a few people stop me out on the trail or in the parking lot to ask me about boots, and it's been a delight to see how many of them end up showing up in boots.

Many hikers we come across on trail are also intrigued when they look at our horses' feet, and I've found the explaination that the boots are "like hiking boots for horses" tends to be both easily understood and entertaining.

Tevis webcast

I'll be following the Tevis via the webcast today:

http://www.teviscup.org/webcast/main.php

Funnily enough, last year when I was at Tevis,  iwas texting back and forth with my dad, who was at home following the webcast.  He often knew more than I did about how was where and who was pulled, ironically, and we keeping me in the loop.

I've got quite a few people I know riding this year that I'll be cheering for.  Keep your fingers crossed and send your best wishes to:

#49 Karen Chaton & Bo
#64 Melinda Faubel & Farley
#98 Jonni Jewell & Hank
#114 Julia Lynn-Elias & Trinity
#138 Stephanie Palmer-DuRoss & Hadji
#177 Rusty Toth & Stoner
#179 Lory Walls & Alex

Good luck to everyone riding Tevis this year, and have a fun and safe ride!

Everything I Need to Know About Life, I Learned From Endurance

Ask anyone that has done yoga: Flexibility is a learned skill.  Some people are naturally more flexible than others (this would be everyone else other than me), but everyone has to do some degree of work to keep improving their flexibility.

And it's not just physical.  Mental flexibility is also an acquired skill.  And I've found that nothing in my life has taught me that more than endurance.

I'm sitting here this morning under a low-lying level of thick, gray clouds -- literally and figuratively.  Monsoon season is upon us in Arizona, and we're being taunted by those clouds and their accompanying thick, oppressive humidity into thinking rain might be on the horizon if we're lucky.  However, even if it were the brightest, sunniest day ever, I have to admit, I'd still be sitting under a pile of gray storm clouds hovering over my head.

Why?

Because according to my Life Plan, this weekend was supposed to be very different than what is actually happening.  Life Plan dictated that, at this moment, I should have been standing around with my cup of coffee, inhaling silty red dust, braiding manes, packing crew boxes, and trying to remember how to breathe at 7200' elevation.

Tevis.

This was going to be it.  My year.  My one and only shot at that silver buckle with Mimi.  Our chance to defy those odds stacked against us; to pit ourselves against the wilderness and the clock; to experience all the tension, nerves, excitement, and worry as participants, not just as crew members on the sidelines.

That obviously didn't happen.

Circumstances (school, work) even conspired against me this year to keep me from going up and crewing and enjoying the chaos in that fashion.  I'll be following things vicariously this year, via the webcast.  The good: I'll be making money instead of spending it.  There's my silver lining.

But I will admit: I'm sulking.  This has been something I've wanted so bad, for so long...it's been very tough to let go of this particular dream.  I know that I'll find my Tevis horse...someday.  And get to the Ride...eventually.  But my heart knows it'll never be the same.  Even when my mind knows that putting it on the shelf is the right decision, my heart has yet to be fully convinced.  Such is the way of optimists and dreamers, I suppose.

I haven't even ridden in six weeks: A bad combination of icky weather and pony antics.  Both ponies are currently mooching their position on the Equine Disability List for all its worth.  It started about a month and half ago, when Beamer got kicked in the shoulder, and flies invaded the tiny little gash on his shoulder.  Within a few short days, it had grown to an irritation the size of my palm.  Naturally ,this spot is right on the point of his shoulder -- an area of constant motion, and an area that's impossible to keep bandaged and covered.

After several unsuccessful weeks, I started brainstorming.  I raided the garage, and the dresser that holds all of my extra tack, for my old show supplies, and one sacrificed Lycra mane tamer later...

His bandage is now staying put for 24 hours, and things are finally starting heal.  Just in time for him to whack his face on something and get some kind of nice puncture wound.  Naturally, this would be right at the spot where his s-hack and halter sits.  More mane tamer bits to the rescue, and my task this afternoon is to see if my latest in Beverly Hillbillies horsewear will work to counter this newest challenge.

Meanwhile, the pony was jealous of all the attention Beamer was getting, and decided that she wanted in on the action...

I have yet to figure out what she stuck her leg into to manage that kind of scrape.  She's somewhat sensitive on it...that's a bony area, and she probably bruised herself in the process of flailing and whatever manuevers it took to manage such end results.  I last trotted her out in hand on Tuesday, and she was slightly off on circles and uphill.

I don't even have to be signed up for Tevis for the gremlins to attack.

And hence, my continued absence from regular blogging.  It's difficult to muster up the kind of cheer and enthusiasm needed to write an entertaining blog when the most exciting thing that happens is finally obtaining a good pair of nippers.  (Hoof trimming just got so much easier.)  And, I'll also admit to having quite a few feelings of teeth-gnashing and envy for those whose circumstances are much more fortunate than mine...that is, anyone that still has the good luck to be attending rides with sound and capable horses.

Yes, I'm whining.  Yes, I'm frustrated.  The fatalistic part of me knows it could be so much worse.  It was so much easier when I was a child, and could stomp my foot and pout about the unfairness of life.  Now, being an adult means learning to take such situations with grace and dignity. 

That said...I want to ride my pony.

I'm playing with some new design elements for the blog.  I used to be pretty good at page design and HTML, but it's been a long time and I've gotten pretty rusty.  Bear with me as fiddle around until I find the colors and styles I like.  It may take a while.  I think I might have settled on one that honors Mimi's and my purple color scheme.  But I do need to do something about that top picture.  Eventually.  :)

Peaks and Valleys

First off, I would like to offer an apology for my long absence from blogging, and correspondence in general.

Like the toughest endurance ride, 2010 has been a year of ups and downs for me -- and it's only May.  My absence from blogging is both a long and short explanation.  The short version is that I lost a lot of my enthusiasm and momentum after a disheartening start to the ride season, and before I could regain my footing, my personal life came along and knocked me for another loop.

In trying to deal with life and the turmoil, I'm afraid I've very much retreated from one of the things in life that was always my refuge -- the horses.  When your refuge is one of those things causing so much discontent and unrest, it becomes difficult to find your balance again.

After many weeks of soul-searching, I feel like I'm finally starting to gain some peace in my life again, and I'm ready to offer an explaination for what has been going on for the past four months.

The best place to start is probably chronologically, which would be at the start of the ride season -- the Land of the Sun ride in Wickenburg.  After being postponed and rescheduled due to foul weather and flooding in January, the ride was held in the beginning of February.

The ride started out very nice, but ended for me at 35 miles when I pulled Mimi after she started to tie up.  Rather than typing out the whole explaination again, this is the email I sent to one of the endurance e-mail lists I'm on.

So, I'm sure as most of you saw on Facebook, I pulled from Wickenburg yesterday when Mimi went weird on me at about 35 miles. She had been doing fabulous all day, pulling my arms out in her cheer and enthusiasm during the whole first loop. About 10 miles into the second loop, she really slowed down, to the point where I was having to peddle and cajole her -- definitely not normal for her, as she normally is very free-moving, and all it takes is a loosening of the reins to get her to move out at a ride.
Then she stopped to pee, and she peed very dark urine. :((( Never a good sign. We were very close to a water stop at the point, so we proceeded very slowly up to the water. I tried to get her to drink, but she wasn't interested, so we sat at the water trough with me syringing water into her mouth, making her drink one sip at a time. She also had no interest in food -- VERY unusual. Her respiration was super-high, and she her flanks were really tucked-up and doing this weird fluttering thing with her rapid breathing.
Her pulse dropped down to 36 within about five minutes, but then spiked to 44 a couple minutes later. And she just looked very unhappy. She's not a subtle horse by any stretch of the imagination, and can be a drama queen, so it's very easy to read her expressions and emotions. And she looked very sad and worried. Her mouth was tight, and her eyes very worried.


With all of those factors combined, I wasn't going to continue, so I pulled her there. Fortunately, we were at a place where it was very easy to get a trailer in and out, so we loaded up and got the quick shuttle back to camp. When we got back, I had one of the ride vets look at her, and all of her metabolics checked out with all As -- good gut sounds, normal hydration, loose muscles.


She never got really tight in the back end, but she did look stiff when we stopped. Both Dad and I walked her out and trotted her in hand after we had been at the water stop for about 15 minutes just to see if she would "snap out of it." She wasn't moving as well as she could, especially since her earlier trot-outs at the VCs had been beautiful, so I didn't think 15 more miles -- and the toughest part was still to come for that loop -- would do her any favors.


It's a maddening situation, as I don't really know what to call it or what she did. I don't think it was a true tie-up. I think it could have gotten to that if I pushed her. So what do I call that? Pre-tie-up? I've been researching my brains out this morning, and I'm no closer to pinning down any one cause.


There's potentially several factors at play:


-The weather turning cold, windy and rainy as we were heading out for the second loop. She did the same pre-tie-up thing at a Wickenburg NATRC ride about four years ago, but that was within 5 miles of the start, and due to insufficient warmup. However, she's also done a couple cold, rainy rides since then without a problem.


-Dehydration? She could have drank better overnight (she's drink better if she didn't poop in her bushel bucket...grrr...I'm going to start putting out multiple buckets for her at night). She ignored the two water troughs out on the first loop, and didn't drink until VC1 at 13 miles. Kind of normal, kind of not. She typically drinks within 10 miles. She drank really well at the VC, then again on the way back to camp. At VC2, she drank well as soon as we got in, but didn't drink at all back at the trailer during the hour hold.


-E'lyte imbalance? I e'lyted her with small doses in the morning before starting, at VC1, and at VC2. It was a breezy, cool day, but they were sweating a lot, especially in the beginning.


-Unaccustomed climbing? There were a lot of ups and downs and hills, but we train in terrain that's very similar to Wickenburg.


-Fighting me too much? She was feeling really, really good, and just wanted to GO in the first loop, so we spent a lot of time having "discussions" about not pulling my arms out and not running over the steep, rocky ups and downs. Don't know if she got herself too worked up doing that? She was feeling very competitive and forward. Our last two rides, we've had a space bubble since early in the ride, and she was happy to tootle along on a loose rein. This time, we were riding a bit faster, and there was always another horse within visual range. Both she and Beamer were being very competitive, but the trail was such that we had to make time where we could, because of the slow, rocky sections.


-Food at VC? I actually had a crew this time, but I'm wondering if her intentions were too good...in trying to get our ponies to eat, she was plying them with a lot of alfalfa and the ride-offered bran mashes, plus some oat hay. Mimi, being a protein-and-insulin-sensitive pony, is on a limited alfalfa diet, and a no grain diet. My fault for not communicating to our crewperson. I don't know if something like that could be a contributing factor? Too much protein?


Or maybe it's something I'm totally missing, or a combination of a lot of factors. I'm going to call my vet and see if he can come out tomorrow and if a blood panel will still be good at that point.

And after the visit from our vet the Monday after the ride:

Well, I got Mimi's blood panel back from the vet today. Her AST and CK levels are elevated -- 3016 for the AST and 8030 for the CK. Everything else falls within the normal range. Per my vet, she did have a tie up episode, but probably a minor one, as her muscles never got tight and crampy.


Best I can figure, after all the theories have been banded about, is that she wasn't drinking enough and we need to work more on actually drinking at rides.

The vet had several recommendations, but no real answers.  After cogitating on this for the past several months, I think there were a few other factors at play: the six weeks or so leading up to the ride had been very wet and rainy, and they didn't get out as much as they should have.  Quite frankly, I think it comes down to she was ill-conditioned for the ride and what I was asking of her.

She's 17 this year (in less than a week, actually!), she's not an Arab, despite how much she tries to act like one, and because of that, she's not going to hold her conditioning the way an Arab in their prime (like Beamer) would.  I feel bad, coming to that conclusion, because it puts the blame squarely on my shoulders where it belongs.

It is also leading me to the conclusion that maybe it's time to retire her from 50s, but that's another topic for another post, as this one is getting long-winded enough.

The following is the other side of the story -- my personal life, something I tend to leave out of this blog for various reasons, mostly because I figure that people come here to read about my adventures with my pony, not listen to me whine.  But I'm going to temporarily lift that moratorium, because that is a major part of what is going on right now.  To anyone that might feel uncomfortable with the subjects, death, dying, and personal religion are going to come up.  Several things have been happening, all kind of at once:

- As everyone knows, the economy sucks right now, and like a lot of people, we're feeling it, financially.  As such, going to rides isn't really a feasible thing right now, which is more than a little bit depressing and tends to cut down on one's motivation to go out and train.  I don't like admitting to this -- never an easy position to be in  -- but it's one of the reasons I've not been showing my face around the local rides.  Let's face it -- even though endurance is one of the cheaper equine sports out there, it still costs money.  And ride entry fees aren't going down.  And with very few truly local rides, travel expenses quickly add up, even to show up and volunteer.

- Right about the time Mimi should have been getting out again,  I came down with pneumonia and spent a couple weeks down for the count, and probably about five weeks away from riding.  Naturally, this would happen at the prettiest time of the year.  It's been about two and a half months since that happened, and I'm only now starting to feel like I'm recovering.  (Not helped by the worst seasonal allergies I've ever had.)

- Finally, I've experienced a lot of pain and turmoil in the last couple months that has put me on a path of a lot of questioning and bewilderment, and as a Christian, I'm not proud to admit this, but I've spent a lot of time being very angry at God and wondering why all of this is happening. 

First, I lost a dear friend to cancer in March.  She was only 26.  I still can't understand why someone that young, vibrant, and full of life could be taken so soon.  She fought to the end, and I will forever admire her grace, determination, and positive attitude.  I don't know if I could have done the same.  She's my newest guardian angel watching over me, and I'll always cherish the memory of our friendship and her encouragement.  Miss you, Siobhan, but I know you're using your performance talent and sense of humor to entertain all the other angels in Heaven right now.

On the heels of this, I just returned from a very difficult trip back to Pennsylvania for one last visit with my grandfather.  He has been fighting a very long, difficult battle with prostate cancer that then moved into bone cancer for the past two years, and about a week ago, his hospice nurse told the family she was giving him maybe two weeks to live.

Despite it being a painful, emotional trip, I'm glad I went.  There's so much about the situation I'm still confused and angry about, and not even going to begin to try to delve into here.  I've got questions that could probably even make theological scholars scratch their heads, but I know they'll likely always remain unanswered.  The biggest question, of course, that everyone asks is, "Why?"  I haven't figured that out, and maybe I never will. 

This is also the first grandparent I'm losing, so I feel particularly raw and vulnerable, having been relatively sheltered from the whole notion of death and dying up until now.  I know that the inevitable end is very near now, but I feel a lot more at peace after this trip than I was before I went.

It's been a lot to take in over the past four months, and I feel like I've spent a lot of time wallowing in the valleys, managing to scale a little peak, only to quickly slip down the other side.  Now, I feel like I'm gradually starting to come back again, thay maybe the next slide isn't going to be all the way to the valley floor again.  There's that saying, something about "darkest before dawn" that I think is very applicable at the moment.  Things will get better, it just might take a bit more mountain-climbing to get there.

Despite all of this, I have been maintaining Mimi's bare hooves myself still.  Her feet are looking fabulous, and I'm mroe and more happy with them with each passing month.  I bought a loop hoof knife, which makes trimming her bars a lot easier.  For the first time ever, I was able to take her on several rides entirely barefoot.  Granted, it was only about 6 or 7 miles, with very little trotting, but she was totally sound and comfortable.  Also more on this subject to come, since it's enough to make a whole seperate post.

Thank you, all of my readers, for hanging in there and listening to my very rollercoaster life.  I can't promise an immediate turnaround in my blogging habits, but I will say that I aim to try for slightly more regular postings...in other words, no more abandoning you for four months.  :)

Welcome to the Future

This will mark my 100th blog post.  A huge THANK YOU to all of my readers...you are the reason I keep blogging!  I started blogging due to the fact that I enjoy writing, and this would be a good outlet for that, as well as wanting a place to catalog my accounts of rides and pony antics.

I started blogging in April of 2007, so it's taken my this long to reach that milestone.  I can be an erratic blogger at times, mostly due to the fact that when life gets crazy, writing/blogging is the first thing that gets temporarily shelved.  I've been getting better at being more consistent, and one of my goals for the upcoming year is to blog every several days at least.

That being said...READERS...I'd like your input for some of what you'd like to see appear in the future.  I'm going to be starting a new blog focusing on the use of hoof boots and barefoot trimming, so those that are less interested in those subjects won't be innundated on a regular basis on this blog.

Thoughts for upcoming subjects: I can start doing tack/product reviews.  As it is, most of my blog consists of stories, anecdotes, and antics.  There are ways I can make it more of an educational blog, although I still consider myself to be a "baby" endurance rider, still largely figuring this thing out myself.

I can dig into my past and start relating some of my show experiences with Mimi.  I have tons of pictures (that need to be scanned) and quite a plethora of experiences from which to relate.

Another aspect I can delve further into is breed education.  Both my father and I ride breeds that are fairly unique, both to the endurance world and the equine world in general.  There is a lot of history to be passed along for both breeds, Shagya Arabian and POA.  While this blog is called Go Pony, and is largely supposed to relate to Mimi, Beamer is a part of our riding lives, and he deserves his chance to headline my blog every so often.

I keep a lot of my personal life out of this blog, because I have a personal blog for that, and don't feel the need to impose some of the more stressful aspects of my life on my readers.  However...if there are questions about me you're dying to ask, you can always comment, and I'll more than likely answer.  Quite a bit has changed in my own personal life since I started this blog, so look for a "me update" post showing up in the near future, just to give people a glimpse of the girl outside the tights and riding helmet.

Please pass along your thoughts, opinions, and comments!  If you want to see something here, let me know.  I know I've been slacking on pictures of late...chalk it up to the fact that after my laptop crashed, I lost a lot of my pictures (most can be found on my Facebook profile, if you're Facebook friends with me) and haven't had a chance to restore them to my hard drive.  And Mimi has been a bit of a handful lately, so I haven't been bringing the camera out on rides.  Hopefully that changes after 50 miles at Wickenburg this weekend...that should get some of her pony antics out of her system.