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Jul. 19th, 2007 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI am very tired. We had a successful horse outing today even though it was filled sort of overfull with stuff.
Nick may never let me catch her again. She wasn't having any parts of the handful of grain today. I will have to stop by tomorrow and catch her for not-riding purposes. *sigh* Horse is not stupid. Horse says "You want me to go trot the fuck up Sideling Hill and it's like over eighty with similar humidity. Not interested." Cass caught her for me today, so that we could go riding.
We rode 1.8 up, 2 out to Pittman, 2 back from Pittman, 1.8 down, so 7.6 miles total. Riding time 1h55m, including water break and kid getting dumped off and inspection of Casper's clipping. (Clipping is not a good thing.)
Measured trot. 7/10 of a mile in 6:23, which makes our MPH 6.5 for that distance. We were going along at the working trot, not hauling ass, and the ground was pretty level. I'd like to try again on a 2-mile stretch so that I can get a better baseline. Also, we were going on the "away from home" direction which is generally slower.
We did intervals of trotting and intervals of walking. The walking stuff was 2:30 or 3 minutes. The trotting stuff was 4 or 5 minutes. In one stretch, we did nine minutes of trotting on the top of the ridge, straight through, and the horses were not sweating enough to be wet. They didn't breath hard. They were sucking air, but not in huge audible breaths like they do when we ride up the hill. Turns out that if you run (trot/walk, really) the horse up a big bark of a mountain, they all of a sudden get competent on the flat. Who'da thunk it?
Casper got shoes on her front feet. She clipped badly at the competitive ride years and years ago, with shoes on all four, so we kind of figured this would be a problem. That's why she has shoes on *now* instead of the night before the ride starts. So we trotted. The first three miles or so, she did fine. Coming back from Pittman, we asked her to extend the trot a bit -- that's when she clipped. Clipping is stepping on the heels of the front foot with the toe of the back foot. If a horse does this hard enough, it's like stubbing a toe -- about as painful and bloody. Casper clipped one foot and we saw it and stopped. No extend-o-trot for us. I've made a note and I'll buy some bell boots for her as well as keeping pine tar on it until it heals. I told Cass to keep her at only medium-trot for a while. Maybe that'll help, too.
After our water stop, on the way home, Casper put Cass off with a huge, unwarranted, totally unexpected leap. Cass fell flat on her back and was thankfully uninjured, if somewhat startled. We were sitting on the horses, at the halt, and Cass was opening a bottled water (that had been opened before and wasn't carbonated or anything). She's done this from Casper's back for ages. It's not the sort of thing Casper should spook over. When she had both hands off the reins, Casper leaped forward hugely for no reason. Cass fell off, I caught Casper (who was standing there), Cass got back on, and we all headed off down the road.
We got the rest of the way back without incident and loaded the horses on the trailer. I sucked at backing the trailer but did eventually get 'er done. It started to rain. The wipers on Trys's truck totally suck. They do not make it easier to see out. They make it harder to see out. Not using them was better, so that's what I did. Fortunately, it wasn't raining all that hard and I drove home through an impressionist painting. There are worse things in the world.
I am still waiting on horse pieces but do expect the saddle parts tomorrow. Hope springs eternal.
And now I'm totally freaking tired. Night.
Nick may never let me catch her again. She wasn't having any parts of the handful of grain today. I will have to stop by tomorrow and catch her for not-riding purposes. *sigh* Horse is not stupid. Horse says "You want me to go trot the fuck up Sideling Hill and it's like over eighty with similar humidity. Not interested." Cass caught her for me today, so that we could go riding.
We rode 1.8 up, 2 out to Pittman, 2 back from Pittman, 1.8 down, so 7.6 miles total. Riding time 1h55m, including water break and kid getting dumped off and inspection of Casper's clipping. (Clipping is not a good thing.)
Measured trot. 7/10 of a mile in 6:23, which makes our MPH 6.5 for that distance. We were going along at the working trot, not hauling ass, and the ground was pretty level. I'd like to try again on a 2-mile stretch so that I can get a better baseline. Also, we were going on the "away from home" direction which is generally slower.
We did intervals of trotting and intervals of walking. The walking stuff was 2:30 or 3 minutes. The trotting stuff was 4 or 5 minutes. In one stretch, we did nine minutes of trotting on the top of the ridge, straight through, and the horses were not sweating enough to be wet. They didn't breath hard. They were sucking air, but not in huge audible breaths like they do when we ride up the hill. Turns out that if you run (trot/walk, really) the horse up a big bark of a mountain, they all of a sudden get competent on the flat. Who'da thunk it?
Casper got shoes on her front feet. She clipped badly at the competitive ride years and years ago, with shoes on all four, so we kind of figured this would be a problem. That's why she has shoes on *now* instead of the night before the ride starts. So we trotted. The first three miles or so, she did fine. Coming back from Pittman, we asked her to extend the trot a bit -- that's when she clipped. Clipping is stepping on the heels of the front foot with the toe of the back foot. If a horse does this hard enough, it's like stubbing a toe -- about as painful and bloody. Casper clipped one foot and we saw it and stopped. No extend-o-trot for us. I've made a note and I'll buy some bell boots for her as well as keeping pine tar on it until it heals. I told Cass to keep her at only medium-trot for a while. Maybe that'll help, too.
After our water stop, on the way home, Casper put Cass off with a huge, unwarranted, totally unexpected leap. Cass fell flat on her back and was thankfully uninjured, if somewhat startled. We were sitting on the horses, at the halt, and Cass was opening a bottled water (that had been opened before and wasn't carbonated or anything). She's done this from Casper's back for ages. It's not the sort of thing Casper should spook over. When she had both hands off the reins, Casper leaped forward hugely for no reason. Cass fell off, I caught Casper (who was standing there), Cass got back on, and we all headed off down the road.
We got the rest of the way back without incident and loaded the horses on the trailer. I sucked at backing the trailer but did eventually get 'er done. It started to rain. The wipers on Trys's truck totally suck. They do not make it easier to see out. They make it harder to see out. Not using them was better, so that's what I did. Fortunately, it wasn't raining all that hard and I drove home through an impressionist painting. There are worse things in the world.
I am still waiting on horse pieces but do expect the saddle parts tomorrow. Hope springs eternal.
And now I'm totally freaking tired. Night.
