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Sep. 1st, 2007 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI got almost all of my busy-day things done yesterday. The horse part went well. Wanna hear about that? Make with the clickiting.
I didn't get to the tack store, as there really wasn't time. I wound up being late out of work due to that damned clusterfuck wherein I was informed that I wasn't allowed to turn anything off until maybe Wednesday, please call back then and check first. Color me unamused.
Because I got a late start with the horse (who freaking stood to be caught like her IQ was normal, and I'm mentioning this because it does not normally happen like that), I skimped on our warm-up and did like six minutes instead of the fifteen we normally do. I paid for my stupid -- she didn't settle in and didn't work well and minorly dinged one fetlock in the back early in the ride. (Her trot is a lot nicer, swingier and more rhythmic, when we do a full warm-up of walking. Apparently it's also more careful with a full warm-up.) She DID trot out well over distance and covered our measured two miles in seventeen minutes, which works out to slightly more than 7 mph. (I forgot the timing on the direction-home stretch. This is because I am an idiot.) She was not particularly sweaty or breathing hard at the end of that, either. Yay!
Most of our trotting is now in double-digit minutes (10, 11, 15, etc.) and our walking breaks were largely 3 minutes. We do walk down the steep section of hill coming home (used to trot it) because my knees do not like trotting downhill all that much... that eats into our time considerably. We did the 7.6 miles in an hour and a half, which works out to 5 mph. When you consider that this used to take us 1 hr 55 min (see here, speed of 3.96 mph), we are improving. Back then (mid-July) we were walking 2-3 minutes and trotting 4-5 minutes. Now, we walk 2-3 minutes and trot 10 minutes and canter 1-2 minutes. I'm thinking we can shrink the walks to 2 minutes, firm, because they don't seem to need the three except on the hill on the way up. (It's a big hill.)
We did a short day (out to Pittman and back, but not down the hill) and I managed to get the easyboots to stay on Casper the whole ride. As this is a first, it's worthy of mention. If we can solve the easyboot-staying-on thing, we're good to go. If not, we have to beat up Theron to get shoes on Casper's back feet. Theron keeps saying he's going to put shoes on Casper, but the shoes keep not being put on. *sigh*
I'd like to log some time this weekend on the horse. Today (Saturday) is not ideal for that because I have family stuff and because the horse people are over at the Hall ride which is not particularly long or challenging and which involves a lot of hassle for that fairly minimal amount of riding. Cass is taking Bacardi and leaving Casper in the field, which is a good. Casper doesn't really have enough feet for the hard road involved in the Hall ride. Anyway, since today is out, I'm hoping that we can get out tomorrow morning and maybe also Monday morning -- I like the mornings better because they're cooler with fewer flies. The horses work better in that weather and then I can go do other things with the rest of my day.
I didn't get to the tack store, as there really wasn't time. I wound up being late out of work due to that damned clusterfuck wherein I was informed that I wasn't allowed to turn anything off until maybe Wednesday, please call back then and check first. Color me unamused.
Because I got a late start with the horse (who freaking stood to be caught like her IQ was normal, and I'm mentioning this because it does not normally happen like that), I skimped on our warm-up and did like six minutes instead of the fifteen we normally do. I paid for my stupid -- she didn't settle in and didn't work well and minorly dinged one fetlock in the back early in the ride. (Her trot is a lot nicer, swingier and more rhythmic, when we do a full warm-up of walking. Apparently it's also more careful with a full warm-up.) She DID trot out well over distance and covered our measured two miles in seventeen minutes, which works out to slightly more than 7 mph. (I forgot the timing on the direction-home stretch. This is because I am an idiot.) She was not particularly sweaty or breathing hard at the end of that, either. Yay!
Most of our trotting is now in double-digit minutes (10, 11, 15, etc.) and our walking breaks were largely 3 minutes. We do walk down the steep section of hill coming home (used to trot it) because my knees do not like trotting downhill all that much... that eats into our time considerably. We did the 7.6 miles in an hour and a half, which works out to 5 mph. When you consider that this used to take us 1 hr 55 min (see here, speed of 3.96 mph), we are improving. Back then (mid-July) we were walking 2-3 minutes and trotting 4-5 minutes. Now, we walk 2-3 minutes and trot 10 minutes and canter 1-2 minutes. I'm thinking we can shrink the walks to 2 minutes, firm, because they don't seem to need the three except on the hill on the way up. (It's a big hill.)
We did a short day (out to Pittman and back, but not down the hill) and I managed to get the easyboots to stay on Casper the whole ride. As this is a first, it's worthy of mention. If we can solve the easyboot-staying-on thing, we're good to go. If not, we have to beat up Theron to get shoes on Casper's back feet. Theron keeps saying he's going to put shoes on Casper, but the shoes keep not being put on. *sigh*
I'd like to log some time this weekend on the horse. Today (Saturday) is not ideal for that because I have family stuff and because the horse people are over at the Hall ride which is not particularly long or challenging and which involves a lot of hassle for that fairly minimal amount of riding. Cass is taking Bacardi and leaving Casper in the field, which is a good. Casper doesn't really have enough feet for the hard road involved in the Hall ride. Anyway, since today is out, I'm hoping that we can get out tomorrow morning and maybe also Monday morning -- I like the mornings better because they're cooler with fewer flies. The horses work better in that weather and then I can go do other things with the rest of my day.
