Lunging As A Stand In For Riding...

So I'm rolling in to week 2 of lunging for conditioning. 

I did commit and did 3 days last week.  And, for fun, I decided to see how Socks handled it on Thursday and Friday.

Surprisingly well it turns out.  So much so that I dropped the $15 with AERC and registered him.  So he's now my offical back-up horse.  Funny thing is that I really REALLY want to try him out on a 25, but I'm committed to Strider and getting his miles going.

It might be that I'll start taking both and riding one on one day and the other the other day.  We'll see.  That's a sizeable financial investment, so we'll see.

For the moment, I'm carving out the time to go to the barn 3 nights a week.  No lies, this is hard sometimes.  Fighting rush hour traffic is NOT fun for me.  Depending on what time I leave work (3 nights a week we're allowed to leave 30 minutes early to do exercise time), it takes an hour to an hour and a half to get to the barn.  Battling traffic that's mostly at a stand still.  I cannot express my loathing for Austin rush-hour traffic.  But I do it because it's exercise for me and exercise for the horses.  But it's hard.

I will say this to any potential Limited Distance/Endurance riders with children at home; this would NOT be possible if it weren't for my husband at home with the baby and the kids.  I have NO idea how single parents do this.  I couldn't and wouldn't attempt this (and certainly not with a 7 month old child at home) without help. 

The reality is my day begins at about 6am and most nights I'm getting home around 8:30pm.  Joe makes dinner and takes care of Kaylee until I get home. 

Anyway, I've started to lunge in the arena as our round pen is on a hill, and while I like the idea of them having to work on a hill, it's too much to ask all the time in an 60ft round pen. 

So I clipped Socks to the lunge line yesterday and lunged in our arena. 

He really has a very nice extended trot and really just takes it nice and easy on himself.  He's figured out that he really has no idea how long the session will be, so it's best to just take things at a nice and easy trot.  I usually lunge 5 minutes each direction with a break in between to check on them.  We work mostly at a trot with brief moments of canter interspersed. 

There are some poles in the arena, and I could see him looking down and carefully placing his feet over them.  It was kind of adorable. 

As I'm trying to get both horses to associate this work with something fun at the beginning and end, I do bribe with horse treats.  I offer them treats when I catch them in the pasture (I hate chasing my horses down in 100 acres when they REALLY don't want to be caught).  And, when I finish up, they get about 6 more treats.  2 are just "gimmie" treats that they get without working for them.  The final 4, we're working on "bow" (I bring the treat down towards the ground between their front legs).  One, I figure it's a fun little trick (I would eventually like to teach them to put a knee down on the ground; imagine how much easier mounting would be if I could get my horses to kneel or lay down!), and two, it just gets them to stretch their neck down.

So, I wrapped up working with Socks.  Opened the arena gate and told him he was free.  And he just stood there for a bit hoping for more treats.  Then slowly walked out.  He's a real spitfire that one.

I will admit while I'm trying to leg him up, I do worry about making him hot for guests and friends to ride.  And then he does things like that and I realize that he's just a laid back guy who takes life in stride.  "Want me to go 25 miles mom?  Sure, I'll do that, and I might even have a few stupid moments, but I'm not going to kill myself to win the darn thing!"  And I'm good with that!  I still want him to be my safe, family friendly horse.  If he ever shows signs that he's getting hyped up and hot, I'll stop conditioning him for LD/Endurance.

After Socks, it was time to work Strider.

Now, he was in time-out.  The BO got a new horse in, and she said Strider spent the previous day chasing her all over the place like he wanted to kill her.  Which is odd.  Strider usually LOVES the ladies, but apparently not THIS lady.  So, Jerkhorse got put in time-out up by the barn with his "I love to hate you" buddy Fuego.  And he kept pacing and zooming around the time-out pen.  So, he had been working himself, and I -almost- copped out and said he'd been working himself, why should I add to his workload.  Except, something someone said on Facebook echoed to me "Don't waste your time with 'junk' miles.  Make each mile count." 

And all he was doing while zooming around were junk miles.  NOTHING useful, nothing with a purpose except to display his frustration at being put up and away from "his" herd.

So, I grabbed him and down the hill to the arena we went. 

Now, when we first entered, he was acting like he wanted to roll.  I'm good with a rolling session, so I unclipped my lead rope (needed to put the lunge line on him) and gave him a few moments.  Then realized he just wanted to graze.  So, as I went to go get him, he scampered off.

Oh no.  Oh NO you did NOT just run off from me.

So I made him think he was gonna die.  I got after him and swung the lunge line around my head to get him to move out.

And learned a kind of cool thing about him.  Even in the arena, he lunges in a circle.  Okay, cool.  I can work with that.  I prefer to not use a line anyway, so we worked our circle.  And we put in our time. 

Strider does better when the sun's not on him.  The sun was starting to set while we worked, so he was in the shade for the whole 20 minutes and he wasn't breathing hard.  Some of that is (I hope!) he's starting to get in to condition, and some of it is lack of sun on his body.

I'm still considering shaving his neck for the ride next weekend.  I am certainly going to braid up the little amount of mane he has.  I'm just trying to brainstorm ideas to help keep him cool to help him pulse down.

Some things I'm considering doing and/or WILL be doing:
Having a water bucket and a flake of hay waiting at P&R (WILL be doing!)
Taking 2 of my frozen 1 gallon water jugs to use at P&R to dump over his neck (fairly certain I'll be doing this) - my rational is that the water will melt while we're riding, so still be cool.  I'll take 1 up to P&R while we ride first loop, then, after he vets in, go and get jug 2 to leave for loop 2. 
A blanket/rug/tarp to drop my saddle on before we go to P&R (WILL be doing!)
Shaving his neck/rump.  I'm still torn on this.  I might shave them down on Sunday

I feel like I learned a lot on my first ride, and I'll forever be grateful to Lynne for sharing knowledge with me.  I honestly believe if it wasn't for her help, I would NOT have gotten a completion for our first ride.  Now, I've got to build on that knowledge and make our second ride even better than the first was. 

And, after our second ride, we'll have 2 weeks until our 3rd (and final) spring ride for the season.  Where I'll keep working to improve our time.  And our conditioning. 

Then I've got to figure out how to continue conditioning over the summer.  In the Texas heat.  I think I'll be doing some hauling over to McKinney Roughs or other areas where there is lots of shade to ride on the weekend, or else get up early and try to squeeze in a ride on the weekends both Saturday and Sunday.  I'm not sure how to handle Monday through Friday yet though.