Performance Horse

So, yesterday I finally found and acquired a saddle that fits Strider.

From the brief ride I took in it, it tips me forward slightly, but I know I'll get a good seat in it.  Strider acted up, did his little "bunny bucks", which might have been because of my seat being tipped, the light saddle, just a combination of things making it odd for him.

But, while we were fitting him, once again the saddle fitter had me come and actually physically FEEL how much better this saddle fits him compared to the ones on Sunday.  And, while doing so, she had her friend hold Strider for me.

Now, Strider is an asshole.  No, seriously.  I love him, but as his "mom" I let him get away with things I KNOW I shouldn't.  He won't stand still (tied, on a lead line [unless he's grazing or being groomed]), he's an animal constantly in motion and constantly needs to be distracted if you want him to be still.  It's draining.

Anyway, so she tells her friend that he's a performance horse.

I kind of mentally blinked, told her that it still really isn't an excuse and I really was sorry he was so rude.  But she just shrugged and said "Performance horses get a little bit of a pass because they're athletes."

Performance horse?  What?!  My mind revolted from this concept. 

He's not a performance horse!  He's just a trail horse!  My prospective endurance mount, but he's NOT a performance horse.

All the way home I talked this out to myself (am I the only one who talks to themself when alone?  Helps me think for some weird reason). 

In my mind, until he breaks through that magical "50 miles" number, he's NOT a performance horse.

But that's not being fair to him.  It's really REALLY not fair. 

He's technically logged 75 AERC miles (even if 25 of those aren't on the books, he OT'd but still COMPLETED them).  We're logging miles on the weekends to condition (now).  I'm starting to think in terms of getting him prepared to become that 50 mile horse.  I'm preparing him to BE that 50 mile horse.  And we're working towards that goal.  Not just in outfitting him (and myself), but in the miles I'm putting under his feet.  Even the "casual" trail rides are mentally gearing him for race days. 

By the time I step out of the saddle tomorrow, we'll be 3 weeks in to our 12 week conditioning schedule.  23+- miles under his feet.  And more to come. 

He's never going to be a top-competitor.  Do I dream of winning a monogrammed hay bag or camp chair? Of course I do!!  I would LOVE to do it on my Paso. 

But I don't think he'll ever Top 10 or ever be asked to stand for BC.  And honestly, I AM good with that.  I'm doing this for the miles.

Oh, and the shirts.  Don't forget the shirts!!  :)

But honestly, we're working towards him being a performance horse.  I'm starting to treat him more and more like a performance horse.  Granted, we're not working HARD at our job, but we are working at it.  He'll never be a "professional" athlete, and I'm no professional coach, but even if he's an "amature" performance horse, I think I'll always be proud of that. 

He's nothing super-duper fancy.  I've been told I could take him to a Paso Fino show and certainly not hang my head with embarassment with the horse beneath me.  I've been told that he does trust me.  That I could have broken him to ride completely by myself (I did do all the ground work, and had actually ridden him around at a walk before he ever went to a professional trainer).  And that he's a good trail horse.  I know he's all of those things. 

And, then there's that super small part of me that just smiles when Strider gets out there and rocks it.  Because the ex said he wasn't worth anything and wouldn't ever do anything useful.

Oh yeah?  Well eat it sucker.  We're out there DOING things.  What're YOU doing?  That's right, a whole lotta nothing.


I loved it at the Off Road Warrior ride, when I went to vet in, the ride photographer recognized him as "The little black Paso Fino."  I was so proud of that moment.  Only our 3rd ride, and the ride photographer knows who he is. 

Of course, he won't recognize him at the October ride.  He's very sun faded right now.  And when he was younger, I was vain enough to toss paprika as a top dress on his feed to keep him black.  But I just don't care anymore.  It's too much work to try and keep his coat a dark color.

Solid feet.  Solid legs.  Solid muscles.  Solid heart.  Solid back.  And solid try.  If he gives me all of those things, I can ask for nothing more of him.

Facebook Endurance Groups=Temptation

I really should STOP joining the Facebook groups for the rides that are happening that I can NOT attend.

It makes me second and third guess myself.

The first ride of the fall season is the Wacky Waco Wide, which I think I've mentioned before.  This is a very technical ride and very rocky and hilly.  I've never been, but not only have I heard this from more experienced riders, I can tell it from the photos.

In my mind, I want so SO badly to rack up my first 100 LD miles before the end of the 2015 ride calendar season.  And I'm worried it won't happen.

I'm limiting myself to 1 ride a month.  I currently have 50 LD miles on the record books. 

Armadillo is a 30 mile LD.  Everything I've seen and read and heard and understand says that one is a very easy ride, nice and sandy.  I've completed 2 other very easy and non-challenging LDs, so I've got no reason to think Strider won't complete there either.  Especially as we're now actually conditioning, and I'm going to be switching out his tack and lightening it up for him.  And I'm better prepared now. 

So, as long as fate doesn't laugh in my face and I can complete, I'm at 80 LD miles. 

In November, two challenges.

Make my 100.

Defeat the trails in Athens.

The trails that took Strider and I in to OT.  I want to do them again.  And I want us to defeat them. 

I am better prepared.  I am more experienced.  Strider is more experienced.  I now KNOW what I'm facing.

I want to conquer them.  Decimate those trails.

Assuming that we don't get deluged with rain again making the trails total slop.  I won't do that again to him.  Those trails were a rutted, foul mess with enough mud to suck your soul from you. 

It'll be November, so certainly not as warm and humid as it was in May.  That will help us.  He'll be getting fuzzy again, which means I need to consider a trace clip for him.  We'll see about that too.  Our conditioning rides will let me know where he's at physically before I go knocking off his coat.

And, since the power of positive thinking means I'll kick those trails this time, I'll break my 100 mile goal.

But, this brings me back full circle.

What if we don't?  I've missed my goal.  I'll have another chance on Thanksgiving weekend in Killeen, but that's violating what I said I was going to do; one ride a month. 

But, I'm in the Wacky Waco Wide FB group, and already getting the itch to give it a try.  And honestly, if I could get Strider up and vetted in without having to spend the night, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  But...finances, promises and the challenge of it are keeping me from doing it.  Or seriously considering it.

And besides, if I miss it at Shuffle in Athens...there's always Old Glory.  ;)

Plans and Clinics

It's only Tuesday and already I'm working for the weekend!

Saturday morning I've got another conditioning ride ready to roll out.  Going to let a friend come try it with me.  She's not sure her boy can keep up with mine.  As I told her, I'm not riding hard, I'm just going for mileage under his feet.  And, I told her she'll be surprised at how her boy acts with another horse who's moving out.  I certainly was! 

She did say she didn't want to slow us down, and if she felt she was, it wasn't like she was lost and couldn't get back to the barn, so we'll see how she and he do for our ride on Saturday.  I told her I like to have my foot IN the stirrup by 8 am so I'm done before 10 and it gets hot.  I know I'm supposed to be shaving time off on my 8 mile loops right now, but I feel like we did last week, and if I can bump an extra mile or so out of him in an hour and a half (like I did last week), then I feel I've accomplished that goal.

Then on Sunday is a casual and fun trail ride.  A good sized group of us is going over to McKinney Roughs to ride the Pope Bend Loop.  Not sure how long we're going to take, but it'll be nice.  And since it's close enough, we're going to go ahead and haul both boys in my trailer with my truck.  Going to leave it hooked up and haul it home so that SOMETIME during the week I can run it down and get it weighed. 

I'm also going to run to Dover Saddlery this week and have my noggin measured for a helmet.  I know that I need one (at least for endurance rides), and the one I've currently got doesn't fit me very well.  Time to fix that.  Or at least get a price estimate on fitting my brainbox so I can save up and get one. 

Also my trail riding group is kicking around doing a clinic at some point.  That'd be nice.  I REALLY want to get Strider to where he'll side pass.  It is the height of annoyance to climb out of the saddle to open and close a gate.  I hate it. 

I also hate that he doesn't stand still for mounting.  My fault.  I mount up and ride off.  Got to stop doing that. 

But I find it annoying that when I put him in a place, he won't just STAND there.  He wants to move off.  So we dance around and around one another.  Ugh.  I wasted like 15 minutes on Saturday (I paused my ride timer as I wouldn't have dismounted had my damn saddle not dropped a stirrup!) just getting him to stand in one spot.  He'd walk off, I'd back him up quickly, then put him back where I asked him to stand.  He'd move, I'd back him up, then put him back where I had him initially.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  So. Annoying.

Strider's Second Conditioning Ride (1st REAL Conditioning Ride)

Saturday conditioning ride

Goal:  8 miles in 1.5 hours

Actually done:  8.54 miles in 1:27

Fastest mile: 8:28
Slowest mile: 12:34

Average speed: 5.86 mph
Max speed: 11.77 mph

**UPDATE**
Heart Rate
Average: 116
Max: 170

I changed up how I approached the ride this week.

One, I got to the barn at about 7:20ish with the goal of having my foot in the stirrup before 8 am.  This meant that even if it took us close to 2 hours again, we would be done with riding by 10 am.

Two, I figured getting to the barn early enough would allow me to beat the dirt bikes to the side of the property I wanted to ride on.

Both goals, SUCCESS!!!

Now, he does know which direction the barn is, so when his nose is pointed in the direction, he certainly will move faster.

But, he's so obvious when he's engaged in something.  Instead of acting like a sullen child being made to do something, he's head up, ears forward, and all of his energy is forward and in motion.  He just wants to go.  I love riding THAT horse.  The sullen, sulky child isn't a lot of fun.  And the ride is just a grind of mileage under our feet.  And the time just drags along.  It really just isn't fun for either one of us, but we do it because I say we MUST. 

I know on conditioning rides, at about 4 miles in, I'm on the downward slope of "We've only got 4/3/2/1 more mile(s) to go!!  Let's get it done!"  I'm not so much bored as I'm eager to see how we've done.  I do need to get an mp3 player to carry with me so I have some tunes to listen to while we ride. 

This ride I also carried a crop.  Some days he just needs a little flick of it in his vision to move forward.  Sometimes he needs a little tap on the shoulder or butt to move forward.

He seemed to want to go swimming, or at least plunge in to the stock tanks as well.  We went in to the two (I wanted to give him a chance to drink), but he just went in belly deep, appeared to want to keep on going (Uhm, no thanks!  I'm not dressed to swim!), but when I turned him back to keep him from going, he just crawled out.  Okay then.

We did pop in once where I made him take a break in the water to cool off.  He wasn't over sweaty or blowing hard (I have his HR written down, but forgot to bring it with me), but I just wanted to give him a brief break. 

So, while last Saturday was a conditioning ride, this is the one I'll count as our first one.  I need to start trimming time off as best as I can now for the next 3 weeks. 

Breakdown of miles:
1: 10:27
2: 9:24
3: 10:24
4: 10:47
5: 11:56
6: 9:29
7: 12:34
8: 8:24
.54: 4:00

We were on our way to mile 9 being our fastest.  I know why.  There's a dirt track in the large open pasture across the road from the barn.  Strider KNOWS that the barn is "over there" so he picks it up.  And I was having a screamingly good time booking it around the track as he gaited and cantered around and around. 

I should have allowed him to finish off the mile, but...I also don't necessarily want to encourage his bad habits.  He already gets away with too much because...well, he's Strider.

I will say at, I think it was mile 2 or 3, the damn stirrup just gave way.  Oh was I pissed.  I was going down a hill, and all of a sudden, my left stirrup was a LOOOOONG reach for me.  I look down and see it's barely hanging on.

WTH?!!  Someone tell me how a Blevins Buckle flaps up enough to allow the straps to give way and let the stirrup drop free.  So SO furious.  I was technically out on the trail for 1:45 or so, but I paused my timer while fixing that issue and doing a brief training session of "Strider stand STILL so I can freaking get ON!!  No, you damn horse, stand THERE in that depression so I can stand on this slightly HIGHER area and get on you.  IDIOT HORSE!!!  DON'T MOVE!!"

Okay, so there's two things I wish my horse did; side pass so I could open/close gates...and stand freaking still where I put him (including by a mounting block) so I can get on.

I should see what a trainer would charge me just to teach him those two things.  Seriously.  Because it's an annoyance.

He's freaking lucky I love him.

Jerkhorse.