Keeping It Real

With Uno out of the picture for real riding for a while (his ultrasound results show a suspensory ligament injury which is going to require about six months of rehab to fix - so I have lots of hand-walking in my future), I turned my attentions to Roo.

Roo, realising the imminent possibility of having to actually work for a living, promptly stuck his leg in something in the paddock in order to produce a fat, scraped leg. No riding for him for a couple of weeks. Hum.

So I turned my attentions to Jackit, my Section B welsh pony. You may remember that Jackit was started last summer (see October 2010 blog entry), had the winter completely off (I wasn't keen on slipping around in the mud on a greenie) and hadn't been saddled since November. This week he got put back into work. I was a little leery to start with, not being sure what he'd do or how he'd react, but he performed flawlessly all week, acting like a grown-up and winning praise all around for his level-headed approach to life.

In fact, he did so well that by the end of the week he and I went on our first solo outing on the trail, ambling two and half miles along rolling oak-studded grassland, exposing ourselves to barking dogs, other horses, leaping turkeys, horse flies, mucky creek crossings and tree stumps. All of which he took in stride with interest but lack of alarm. To say I'm proud of my Small Thing would be a gross understatement.

Most of the work we did earlier in the week was on my gravel pad out back. The gravel is large, sharp and pokey - and Jackit was telling me he wasn't particularly comfortable. On the second day, I gave him a light trim, and interestingly, he was slightly less ouchy than before the trim - but still flinching if he stepped in the wrong place.

I got out a transparent plastic ruler and spent a happy 30 minutes in the paddock with him loose - trying to measure a foot, write down the number, and then chase him down for the next measurement. He thought it was most amusing, even when I felt the need to thwack his departing bottom with my ruler. Eventually I got him measured and was interested to note how similar the measurements were to the ones taken eight months ago. Evidently his feet are fairly static.

A fit kit will be ordered soon to find out which size boot best suits him - his feet still don't fall into any sensible range - but in the meantime I'm vascillating between what to do. At present we are only walking and are unlikely to be going further than a few miles at a time. Under that workload, wear on his feet isn't going to overtake hoof growth, so I've no worries on that count. In theory, the more I ride him on rough footing, the stronger his feet will become and the more comfortable he'll be - but I don't want him to get sour from sore feet. It's a chicken and egg situation. What I'll probably resort to is something I did with Uno in the early days of barefoot transitioning - alternate between putting him in a pair of front or back boots to give him some relief. But first he'll need boots, right? Get ordering, Lucy.

One of the reasons I was so proud that Uno completed the NASTR Triple Crown (a 50 miler in the spring, 75 in the summer, 100 in the fall) in 2010 is that it is definitely an exercise in keeping your horse sound throughout the year - a competition of attrition.

This year we didn't fare so well.

Uno and I were pulled from Phase 2 - NASTR 75 - on Saturday at 25 miles when he came up lame. In retrospect, I think it's likely that he compromised himself chasing Fergus and then Fancy during the two days (50/50) at the Washoe Valley ride last month. He had to stretch to keep up with their long-legged strides and I was thrilled with how well he did - but at what cost?

He got a month off, but then seemed a little sluggish during a long, slow training ride two weekends ago, and never really seemed to pick it up properly at NASTR 75 - hardly surprising since evidently he was nursing a sore tendon.




He didn't show up lame until literally half a mile from the vet check as we were slowing to walk in and he suddenly took a few funky steps. I'm hoping this means that we caught the problem early and the damage is minimal, but we'll be visiting the vet soon for an ultra-sound to find out the extent - and pray to the endurance gods that it's minor and he'll be back on the trail soon.

On the flip side, it poured with rain and my stirrup attachment broke off the saddle at 7 miles, leaving me with a jury-rigged stirrup leather that may or may not have held for the next 68 miles - so from that point of view, perhaps the pull was a blessing in disguise.

On the plus side, his glue-on boots held beautifully. Predictably, we ended up gluing by flashlight on Thursday night. Although my caulking gun had gotten damaged, we still managed to squirt a triangle of Goober Glue hoof-pack into the bottom of the boots in the frog area, while using Adhere for the side walls.

The first three boots went on smooth as silk and I smugly foolishly mentioned to Patrick how well it was going. Of course, at that point, it all went horribly wrong. I forgot to check the tube of Adhere I was using and was half-way through smearing glue in the final boot when the tube ran out. ACK!!! Luckily I was able to flatten the glue that was already in there while Patrick ripped open a new tube, and could therefore reapply more glue to that surface.

Uno's back boots are still on (scheduled for removal Tuesday evening, in between icing and medicine dispensing), but his front boots were quite a struggle to get off, so I'm confident they would have held for the entire 75 miles of lovely NASTR rock.









In applying the Adhere glue to the glue-ons on Thursday evening, I did learn a valuable lesson (other than the obvious one of not mentioning "how smoothly everything was going"). I have fairly small hands and always have difficulty steering the glue gun one-handed while I rotate the shell in my other hand.

Well, I figured out a technique to make it easier.

Kneeling on one knee, I prop the gun across my other knee so that I can work the trigger without having to support the weight of the gun - and can better direct the schnozzle where I want it. This results in a more even coating of glue - and glue where I want it, as opposed to where I don't (in the bottom of the shell, all over my hand, on the floor, etc).





Using this technique also means that you can put the shell down on the ground to reorient it when you realise you've twisted it in such a way that you can't get at the part you missed in the first pass.

Fingers crossed for Uno's recovery - and I guess it's time to get my best-beloved Roop out of mothballs, dust him off, and get him up and running again.

With the recent EHV-1 outbreak, we're more or less on lock-down here waiting for the all-clear. Two of the confirmed cases are within 30 miles of us and with half the equestrian world saying "well, I don't have cutting horses so I'll be OK" it doesn't fill me with confidence that people are taking the situation seriously. So for now, we stay home.

Normally I wouldn't mind so much. Giving Uno time off between rides is part of our usual protocol. But we're due to do NASTR 75 on June 4th and I was hoping to do that ride a little faster than our standard putzing-along-at-the-back speed - which would mean conditioning a bit harder than usual to ramp him up for that. My reason for wanting to go faster is that the NASTR ride was to be our last test before deciding if we were going to sign up for Tevis this year - which is six weeks after NASTR. ...Well, best laid plans and all that. I'll just sit tight and see how things develop and keep repeating the mantra that "a well-rested horse is better than an over-conditioned one".

So this weekend saw me with some unaccustomed time on my hands and I turned my attentions to "Project Horse" Hopi.

Hopi slightly less fat than he is now (but only slightly)
grazing on the lawn last year.

Hopi came to us when we were horse-shopping for Patrick back in the fall of 2007. He wasn't suitable for Patrick, being too green, but I loved the horse, saw so much potential in him, and he has a walk to die for (something I always wanted in a horse). I reasoned that since Roo was going so well and Jackit was too young to ride, I could buy Hopi as something to play with in the interim. A week later, we acquired Uno and after he dumped Patrick four times in a row, he became my project horse instead. So Hopi has stood in the wings, #4 horse in line for the last three and half years.

Hopi is the most peculiar mix of horse. Once you're on top of him, he's actually very solid and doesn't feel like a green horse at all. But on the ground he's a mess. Despite living with us all this time, he's still convinced we're "out to get him". He's difficult to catch because he doesn't want you near him. He is very thin skinned so doesn't like to be touched or brushed. He's explosive and doesn't like to be contained in small spaces or constrained - say by being tied-up or cornered. He will run right through or over you if necessary. He is uncomfortable having his foot gripped between my knees to trim him. He's scared of anything you bring up to him - never mind if it's a small brush or a large blanket. If you duck under his neck while he's tied to the trailer to pass in front of him, he'll pull back in alarm. The first time I fitted an Easyboot on his foot, he took one look at it and reared to get away from it. He's frightened of people walking towards him on the trail or in the arena. As a result of all of the above I've been run over, kicked, and stood on. Needless to say, he needs work - and lots of it. But through it all, you can see he tries. He wants to be secure. He wants to have the attention. And he has a nice soft eye. So he's still here and still holds the "Project Horse" title.

Because of all this and despite my best intentions, trimming Hopi is one of my least favorite tasks (see above re. being run over, kicked, and stood on) so his feet become woefully long. I usually enlist Patrick to hold him and every foot is a struggle involving dodging and manipulating, trying to do the best job possible in the shortest amount of time (i.e. the nanosecond Hopi will hold his foot up and be compliant). The saving grace is that he has really good, round feet so even when they are long, they grow out nice and evenly without any weird distortions.

So there we were on Saturday, no Patrick in sight but Hopi and his way-too-long feet standing in front of me, so I decided to spend some quality time with him.

To begin with we played "Softly, softly, catchee monkee" involving pretending to catch Uno and Fergus, all the while keeping up a running commentary to Hopi about how awkward they were being and how wouldn't it be nice if they'd just stand still? Not being the object of interest, Hopi stood in the way and surprisingly accepted some butt scritches and tail tugging. He would move out of the way, but wasn't his usual explosive self. After about five minutes, I haltered him before he knew what had happened and took him up onto the driveway for some groundwork refresher.

One of my biggest weaknesses is lack of consistency - which is probably one of the things Hopi needs most and probably why we haven't progressed very quickly. But he does respond to groundwork when I manage to do it with him. During this 20 minute session, I insisted that he kept his attention on me, asked for some backing, asked for some gives, worked on asking him to move his butt away from me, worked on giving to the rope from the wrong direction (i.e. walking all the way behind him until I stood on the other side and put gentle pressure on the rope), etc. Satisfied that he was at least somewhat primed, I took him down to the barn.

I trim all the other horses in an empty 12 x 12 stall in the barn - place a hay bag in front of them - accessible from both sides of the panel - and they cheerfully hang out with their buddies - and I often trim them loose. On the other hand, trimming Hopi in an enclosed space is not usually something I'm comfortable with. I'd much prefer to have as many escape routes as possible by which to vacate the area when he has one of his frequent melt downs. But I figured I'd give it a go.

Rather than embark upon trimming right away, I decided to go for extended grooming. He looked a mess with much of his shedded out coat still clinging to his body in fluffy clumps, so out came the furbee - the perfect de-shedding tool. I ran it all over him very, very carefully so as not to poke or pull in an unpleasant manner. A few times I hit one of his sensitive spots and his whole skin rippled with discomfort, so I knew to be more gentle. At the end he looked a lot better and seemed relatively relaxed and comfortable, so I decided it was time to start trimming.

We began with the right front. First I brought over my hoofpick and hoof knives for him to inspect. Predictably he snorted at them, looked alarmed, moved away from me, and acted like something very bad was about to happen. So I stood there waiting for him to conclude that they weren't actually torture implements and once he settled down, I picked up his foot and kneeling on one knee next to him, propped the foot on my other knee. That way I wasn't constraining the foot or alarming him unduly with my hoof-stand. This went very smoothly and I was able to progress to the nipping stage - again, introducing him to the nippers politely by allowing him to sniff them and stand quietly for a short while with them in sight before starting the torture, uh, I mean trimming.

With that part done, I needed to work from the top to remove extra toe and any flare. The [evil] HoofJack was going to be necessary. The normal modus operandi for the hoofstand is I get his foot up on it and start to rasp. He tolerates it for a short while before rearing up and pulling back (thus he is always tied on a Clip). This then spirals into a a "you will behave" battle of wills. But this time around, things went much better. He only removed his foot once from the stand and did so relatively politely. One foot done, three to go.

Half-way through the right rear, things started to degenerate in the usual way. He'd tolerated propping the rear foot in the cradle and I'd trimmed about 80% of it before he decided he'd had enough, removed the foot (and having been kicked in the past for having the audacity to hold onto the foot to prevent its removal, I wasn't going that route again) and then refused to pick it up again. No amount of pushing and pulling resulted in compliance. Hmmm. Time for more groundwork.

Off we went, up to the driveway again (not much flat on my property, so the driveway is usually the groundwork location of choice). This time I asked him to turn tight circles around me, stopping every so often and asking him to pick up the rear foot. If he didn't, then he'd be turning circles again. After a short while, he got the idea, so we went back down to the barn whereupon he promptly forgot the lesson and ignored my "foot up" requests.

O-kay... I guess we're going to be trimming on the driveway afterall. I took all my tools and him back up and had him turning tight circles around me and the equipment. Again, fairly soon he got the idea and decided that maybe he could allow his foot to be worked on.

And here was the great part. Once he'd concluded that he was going to have to do something unpleasant (turn small circles) if he wouldn't allow me to pick his feet up, he also realised that standing quietly and being compliant might be the way to go. I was able to trim both back feet, using the cradle on the HoofJack with him standing basically ground-tied and relaxed while I did it. Nice!

Once we were done with the back feet, I rewarded him with a short grazing session and then we went back to the barn to finish up the last front foot. At the end, I had a nice relaxed horse, neither of us were at the "argghhh" stage and his feet looked really good. Yay!

To finish up, I gave him a haircut (he'd rubbed the middle part of his mane off on the fence, so had long sections top and bottom and a short section which stood up in the center) and (courtesy of quarter of a bottle of ShowSheen) brushed out his tail which was a felted mess containing quite a bit of gravel and twigs.

And then off we went up to visit Patrick up in his shop, still relaxed and contented, allowing me to lean on him, scritchle his nose with enjoyment, and generally hang out.

This is the best session I've ever spent with Hopi and I was so very pleased at the end. Hopefully this will be the shape of things to come - maybe we've finally turned a corner and he will actually start to enjoy being interacted with - in turn making interacting with him a pleasure - and thus breaking the cycle of us avoiding each other.

Well, predictably I couldn't muster the energy to glue boots on the pones by the time we got up to Washoe Valley for the two-day endurance ride last Friday afternoon, and even more predictably I wished I had afterwards.

Firstly, the ride was a great success. This was the first 50 miler Patrick and Fergus had done since Christmas 2009 so he was a little apprehensive about it. I told him it was a tough trail, but a really cool one and well worth the effort. Fergus did brilliantly all day, only having a short floppy moment which we put down to his having led for the first 35 miles - and as soon as we stuck Uno in front, Fergus perked up and turned back into his normal powerhouse self - overtaking us within a few miles and proceeding to trot enthusiastically over some really rocky trail, causing me to hold my breath, but we had no problems.

Fergus had no tack issues, no boot issues, no eating and drinking issues. Nothing.

Uno, on the other hand...

Actually, it wasn't that bad. I wrapped the heck out of everyone's feet with athletic tape (except for Uno's right rear, where I couldn't get the boot on when I did wrap it). The freshly-trimmed Fergus was wearing a set of brand-new Gloves without PowerStraps, while Uno was wearing the same set of Gloves that he wore last month for NV Derby 50 (with four PowerStraps).

I confess to having let Uno's feet grow out too much over the winter and as a result am now paying the price of forward-slung hooves. The left front is a little flared at the toe, so the top of the boot is gapping slightly at the front. In the first ten miles or so, I had to stop a couple of times to untwist this left front - finally getting to the stage of ignoring it which worked really well as it twisted back on its own and stayed put ...right up until it came off at around 20 miles.



As it turns out, the boot came off because of the couple of tablespoons-worth of sand that he'd scooped into the toe. We'd just come through a portion of trail that was actually creek-bed and that was the final straw. But strangely, after rinsing out the sand I stuck the boot back on (now sans tape, since it had fallen off) and the boot stayed on for the rest of the ride, despite some of the fastest singletrack-trotting I've ever done (Fergus towing us along at warp-speed), followed by trudging through some fetlock-deep sand on Washoe Lake beach.


We couldn't really complain, given how well the boots had performed for the rest of the interesting terrain - rocky roads, climbing up various types of footing, and finally the infamous SOBs.


At the end of the ride, both horses had some sand in the back of the gaiters, but it was easily shaken out by dropping the backs of the gaiters down. Fergus had had no boot issues whatsoever all day ...freak... (thank goodness he's not my horse - what would I write about?)

Both horses finished looking (and feeling) very perky and definitely ready for more. Fergus got the next day off - hanging out at the trailer, munching his way through a large hay bag - while Uno had to go out for Day 2.

Unfortunately he'd gotten some slight scuffing at the bottom edge of the front of the gaiters on his back pasterns - where the two halves cross. But it didn't look too serious and the spots weren't sore, so I smeared on desitin and kept an eye on them.

Knowing that we were going to be doing the creek-bed trail in reverse - uphill - I considered my options and finally chose to rewrap his hoof, put on a new (non-stretched) boot on his left-front , and wrap athletic tape around the top edge to keep out the sand.

Day 2 started with some light icy snow while I was tacking up. I rode with Tami Rougeau who was also doing her second day in Gloves. As we picked our way up the first rocky climb, we both agreed that we'd wished that we'd put Goober Glue in the bottom of our boots for extra cushioning (something that I would have done, had I glued boots on), but neither of us were willing to chance taking off boots that had stayed on so snugly the previous day.


Having done this ride twice before, I knew the trail was rocky, but it seemed even worse than usual. Within a few miles, we once again came upon the creek-bed portion at the bottom of Jumbo Grade, but splashed through it without incident and continued up the trail.


If anything, the trail on this day seemed even rockier than the previous day. Uno had been a little sore during the previous few weeks, with some heel bruising evident when I rasped him. To tell the truth, I was concerned that I'd overdone his trimming and that 100 miles over two days would result in him being foot-sore. But despite picking his way carefully through some of the rockier parts, he never seemed to suffer from any tenderness - witness this photo of him striding out on day 1:


His preferred pace is usually a jog-trot which requires little energy, but he really worked hard for once during the weekend - following Fergus the first day and Tami's Fancy the second - neither horse is a slouch when it comes to moving out on the trail.

My athletic tape wrap to keep the sand out didn't last more than a few miles, but got us through the creek-portion at least. When we came back to camp for the hour-long lunch hold I tasked Patrick with finding a better option. He broke out the duct tape and did a masterful wrap job - such that the tape stayed on for the second half of the ride, performed wonderfully (no sand in that boot), and looked spiffy (when you're slow, you might as well look good - Uno received many compliments on our colour-coordination this weekend):




We finished up the day with both Uno and Fancy bopping along through the sagebrush - just as energy-filled as they had been the day before - quite amazing after 100 miles of rough trail.

The only bad thing that happened all weekend (if you ignore Uno's tendency to forget to eat or drink until about 30 miles into the ride, which worried me greatly but didn't seem to do him any harm) was that the scuffing on the back pasterns developed into full-blown weepy patches. It didn't alter his gait in any way, but was a lesson in why glueing for two days would have been a better option.


Discussing the problem with Kevin Myers afterwards, he mentioned that using boots during training develops callouses on the skin, meaning that you're less likely to rub. Initially I was surprised, having thought that we'd done quite a bit of training in boots this spring, but after consulting my log book it turns out that apart from NV Derby 50, we'd actually only done 25 miles in boots, compared to the 80 miles of training barefoot. Hmm. That would explain it...

So next time we do more than 50 miles, I will be using Glue Ons. And in the meantime I'm going to experiment with fastening the gaiters a little looser (I tend to snug them up really tight) and see if that helps the problem.

Despite these minor problems, I was thrilled with how well Uno did this weekend. Our next ride is NASTR 75 in a month and I'm going to concentrate on getting him to eat and drink better for that.

All my boys did me proud this weekend - and congratulations to Patrick on doing such a great job with Fergus - he's turning into a real endurance rider. <sigh> soon I'm going to have to start putting up with spousal rivalry. :)

Spring must truly be here. This is the time of year you trim feet and then look at them a week later and think "Hmm, did I not trim enough off?". No guesses as to what I'm going to be doing this weekend.

With spring's arrival we can hope for an end to the eternal slop... provided Uno refrains from trying to extend it. During an unsupervised moment last weekend, he yanked the water trough off its foundation and flooded the nicely-drying paddock several inches deep in water. In the process, he also dumped out all the mosquito fish - necessitating Lucy spending 30 minutes fishing them out of muddy puddles.


For this reason, the last two training rides we've done were barefoot. Unfortunately, because of all the moisture, it would appear that Fergus and Uno aren't particularly comfortable barefoot right now - from their short-striding, I suspect squishy heels. Luckily this time of year there's an abundance of grass on the side of the trail, so we spent our entire time riding on that:


Not having done much cross-country riding, I found trotting at speed through deep grass a little alarming, but was surprised that, no, the horse didn't automatically do a face-plant when performing this routine skill. The only time riding on the grass verge wasn't acceptable was when it was on the drop-off side - erk - at which point we practised leg-yielding (or side-thumping in the case of Uno, who definitely needs more refinement... I can see more arena-work in our future).

Spring's arrival has also placed us squarely back into conditioning-mode (Fat Boy puffs way too much when asked to do more than mosey). Both horses are off to Washoe Valley at the beginning of May: Uno to hopefully complete two days of 50s, while Fergus will do the 50 on Day 1 (this will be his and Patrick's first ride in over a year).

Day 1 of Washoe Valley covers some of the same trail as Virginia City 100, including the infamous SOBs - a set of three short but very steep, rubbly V-shaped canyonlets. Those always give boots a good work out, so I'm going to have to make sure whatever footwear we opt to use is very, very secure.


Right now, I'm weighing up the pros and cons of using Gloves with athletic tape, versus glueing boots on all 8 feet. Although the glueing isn't my favorite activity, it'll probably be worth it for the two days for Uno - and if I'm glueing him, I might as well glue Fergus as well. The trick as usual, given my current ludicrously busy work-schedule, will be finding a suitable time to do it (which probably means I'll be glueing upon arrival at the Ride on Friday afternoon).

At the time of writing this, I still have nine days to figure it out so we'll see how things work out.

 * NASTR = Nevada All State Trail Riders



The other enjoyable aspect of this ride was getting to hang out with two friends - both of whom were also sporting Gloves - one an old hand, while the other was trying her first barefoot + boots ride. 

This was supposed to be an excited entry detailing Fergus (my husband, Patrick's horse) and my visit over the mountains to NV to do our 50 miler together. Instead, by Friday afternoon when we should have been travelling over 7,000'. Donner Pass, I-80 was closed in both directions due to white-out conditions and severe accidents. Fergus and I stayed at home, him watching the snow coming down, me catching up on some much-needed sleep. 

We are now definitely in rainy-season shut-down mode. The rain continues to pour down, I watch the slop in the paddocks get deeper and deeper, I admire the attractive waterfall feature that has sprung up on the driveway between house and barn, and I neglect my trimming duties. What? Those horses have feet?

It's a motorcycle tyre removing iron. Not only does it have a broad, blunt prising tip on it, it also has a slight curve at the end, so you don't run the risk of chiselling into the side of the hoof wall when tapping it down the inside of the boot.



To begin with, I thought this might be a little heavy-handed for the job but although I still need to use my screwdriver to get under the lip of the boot and start the separation process, once I get that far, this tool works great. Using this to prise seemed to bother Uno less than usual and the long handle meant less levering effort for me.

Into the trimming tool bucket goes my new tool, ready for next time we glue. The current schedule has us aiming to do two days of 50s at Washoe Valley in May, so I may glue again then, or at NASTR 75 in June. We shall see. In the meantime, I'll continue to use Gloves for our 50 mile rides.

Assuming, of course, the rain ever stops and the mud ever dries up.

Yesterday morning I let Uno out of his paddock to roam while I mucked and fed everyone else. Within a few minutes, he was running in and out of the hay barn doing drive-by gallops and bucks, leaping about like a spring lamb. For such a chunky horse, he always amazes me how light on his feet he can be.

Best of all, I was thrilled to see him feeling so good after completing the 20 Mule Team 100 and the returning 13 hour trailer journey just over a week previously.

We made the trek down to Ridgecrest overshadowed by a less-than-promising weather forecast, but I was fresh off following the Yukon Quest sled dog race where they had to deal with -40°F for days on end so a bit of light snow wasn't going to faze me. As my friend Renee says: "no-one likes a sissy".

As usual we started our trip off with a bang - literally in this case - I blew a trailer tyre about three hours from home. Luckily I heard it go and was able to pull off the highway before it shredded and ripped the fender off.


My jiffy jack lives permanently in my tack room in an easy-to-get-to spot, so it only took me about half an hour to get the tyre changed. I was glad it wasn't raining, though, since the only way I can get the wheel back on the hub is to sit on the ground and balance it on my feet.

We arrived at 9 p.m. on Thursday to gusting winds which didn't really let up until late on Friday. Welcome to the desert!

Friday lunchtime, my friend and most-excellent crew-person Kaity Elliott (she's mine, all mine, and you can't have her) showed up and we spent a happy 45 minutes glueing on Uno's boots. This went very smoothly and the only time I was forced to mumble impolitely was when Uno knocked the schnozzle off the glue gun at an inopportune moment. We also had to interrupt the proceedings twice - once for a passing plastic bag (remember the wind?) and once when a low jet passed overhead - neither time Uno reacted, but I'd rather not be underneath him at these times "just in case".

(Many thanks to Kevin for not only prodding me into glueing, but also making sure I had what I needed when I discovered I was missing half the necessary ingredients... like a pair of front boots.)


The ride itself was one of the more relaxed ones I've ever done. Although the forecast was for both rain and snow, it never reached us and instead we were blessed with bright sunshine the entire day. It was cold, but that worked out great for the woolly horses.

We started at 6 a.m. and although Uno was somewhat cheerful in the crisp air, he settled down fairly quickly when he realised his buddy-for-the-day wasn't acting like an idiot the way he was. Despite having never met face-to-face, by the power of the internet, I'd arranged to ride with Crystal Stutz from AZ and her horse Groovy on his first 100. We both wanted to keep a sane pace and as it turned out the horses travelled beautifully together, keeping each other enthused without making each other crazy.

Shortly after the first vet check, we also gained a third rider, Rebekah Loscar, who was doing the 65 mile ride (same loop) and who's horse, Misty, was having a confidence crisis. Both ladies made the day very fun and I thank them for their good humour throughout.


The even bigger bummer part, however, was that after having spent a really fun day with Groovy and Crystal - Uno and I were going to have to go out and do the last 35 mile loop on our own - and Uno doesn't do "on his own" very well. 

Well, the good news is that after wrapping Uno's back foot copiously with athletic tape before banging on a size 1.5 Glove, his left rear boot (which he spooked off during our last outing) stayed on beautifully.

The bad news was that I couldn't get the stupid thing off at the end of the ride. :)


My hope was that the athletic tape would prevent Uno's left rear from flying off should he:

a) leap forward at warp speed because an imagined eye plucker was about to get him
b) flail around like a stupid because he's over-fed, over-fit, and under-ridden
c) trip
d) climb a large, steep hill.

The plan worked perfectly. He did leap forward (for reasons unknown) and he did climb a large, steep hill - and the boots stayed on. Flailing was kept to a minimum and although he did manage to trip and flip a front boot off, I'm confident that if I'd taped all his feet, that wouldn't have happened.

At the end of our 14 mile excursion, Uno and Eagle politely shared a slurpie. Well, tried to, anyway:


As the munching progressed, I walked around Uno, removing his footwear.

Yup, I'd say the athletic tape worked.

Thursday we are piling into the trailer for the 9 hour trip down to desert at Ridgecrest, California for the 20 Mule Team 100 mile endurance ride on Saturday. The forecast is for a bit of everything, including snow, rain, sun, and wind. At this point I haven't decided if I'm going to glue Uno's boots on or just go the athletic tape route - it certainly proved its worth so I have that choice. I'll let you know how we get on.

Well, so much for my "Trimming Day" plan - a two-week bout of lurgy sickness resulted in a stupendous 4 out of 24 feet being trimmed. Better than nothing, but not exactly what I'd hoped for. 

Luckily by Saturday, I was sufficiently recovered to give Uno the trim he needed (after five weeks, it was definitely needed), followed by a proper boot fitting session.

Thanks to living in squishy mud and being ridden exclusively barefoot since he came off his break, Uno's feet haven't been expanding with quite the same alarming speed as they were in the summer. Back then, I was having to rasp him practically every time we rode. But interestingly, the lack of recent trimming did allow me to see how he's been wearing down his feet. Unfortunately, it also allowed me to see that his tendency to travel like a banana - always keeping an eye out behind him, "just in case" - is resulting in the right sides of both front toes wearing down quicker than the left sides. I'd be happier if they were a matched set rather than looking like two left feet, but at least I know what to concentrate on, form-wise.

Yup - size 2 it is! He'll need some power straps on there as his feet don't fill the upper part of the boot quite how I'd like - the result of his spatula feet - but the bottom half is a good snug fit.

I finishing trimming up his back feet and refitted them - and again, it seems that he's gone up a size in the rears as well.

From now on, I'm going to have to be extra careful in keeping track of my boots. Except for any new boots, every single size 1.5 Glove Uno has worn has been stretched closer to a size 2. Luckily, Fergus is a "large" 1.5 Glove in back so those boots can go to him, but Uno is a "small" size 1.5 in back - not only does he need a brand new, non-stretched pair, he also needs power straps.

Saturday night I dug around in my boot box and found a pair of new powerstraps, and then stole another set off a pair of old (and stretched) size 1.5 boots for his back feet.

And on Sunday we went riding:


Usually I like to have a different colour power strap for the front and back boots - saves confusion when trying to put them on - but all I had was yellow straps. The remedy was a big "R" for "rear" on the back boots.


Luckily for me, Uno is finally starting to calm down after an, er, "exciting" start to the year (Lucy gets dumped at least once and comes close a few more times). The 70-degree heat helped on Sunday and we had a relatively mellow ride. There were lots of mountain bikes out in the sunshine - which was very good practice for his over-active imagination. After leap-frogging with one group for about 12 miles, he eventually came to terms with the idea that things coming up behind you aren't automatically equipped with Uno Eye Pluckers and there for that sole purpose. 2 to 20 mph in a nanosecond on a loose rein is not my idea of a good time. Unfortunately, 2 to 20 mph in a nanosecond also doesn't do good things to boots and we lost our right rear during that little event - ripping the gaiter irrepairably in the process <grr>.

Back to the drawing board. I have two choices which I'm going to experiment with.

The first is to use athletic tape under his rear boots. For the rest of the 20 mile ride he retained the other back Glove, as well as the sparsie old, non-powerstrapped 1.5 I slapped on, despite trotting up some steep hills. This encourages me that I'm on the right track.

The second possibility is that his right rear foot is slightly smaller than the left, so actually still needs a size 1 Glove. The following morning armed with a rubber mallet I did manage to get the size 1 boot on his foot, but am thinking I'm going to be in the same situation as I was with his front feet - struggling to keep a too-tight boot on.

So I'm going to try the athletic tape option first and see how it works out. In reality right now, most of the time we seldom ride further than 15 miles in training which he's quite comfortable doing barefoot, so I only need boots for endurance rides, longer training rides, and rides where I know the footing is going to be tough.

Either way, Uno was still spooking at 18 miles, so we're signed up to go to 20 Mule Team 100 miler at the end of the month.


Uno enjoying a grazing break at 16 miles - that pone worked hard (witness the greased pig look). The green bag on the back of the saddle is my sparsie boot bag. During competition, I have one on each side and carry a full set of boots "just in case". The bags are in an excellent location - completely out of the way, but easy to access from the saddle so you can be ready with boot in hand to hop off should the need arise. I managed to perform this maneuver so fast one time that my riding partner was still making a minor tack adjustment when I was done.

We've been lucky the last few weeks and had some glorious sunshine and warm temperatures. This means that my goal of getting Uno out every weekend (currently the only time I can ride) has been successful. More usually, this plan prompts three months of pouring rain meaning the trails are in such bad shape that it's safer to stay at home.

Two weeks ago we left home in lovely sunshine and drove 20 minutes down the road to Cool so that we could ride in thick, peasoup fog.


OK, so that wasn't the exact purpose of the exercise, but...

It was a bit like riding in Wuthering Heights as the mist blew across the moors. No matter, it gave us excellent practice in negotiating the swamp-like terrain while not being able to see much. I was glad that Uno was barefoot as I think he was better able to feel his way along the sloppy trail. Even with this advantage, we nearly went down once and I was impressed by his ability to keep us upright (previously not a skill I'd thought he possessed).

Last weekend's excursion went much better. Both Fergus and Uno were barefoot as usual and we managed to get in 15 miles, including some long-trotting by virtue of the drying trails and careful choice of route (round here, we don't have much by way of long-trotting trails - mostly it's trot 10 feet, walk 20 feet, repeat).


I'd like to say that the pones were both barefoot because of my commitment to toughening their feet. In reality, it had more to do with lack of time. We're still living in Slop Land and everything is still liberally covered in mud.


On the schedule for next weekend is to get Uno fitted for his 2011 season's boots. We're due to go to the 20 Mule Team endurance ride at the end of February and I need to make sure what boots I have are going to work for him. Back in September, I finally realised that he'd graduated to a size 2 Easyboot Glove in front, and need to ascertain if his trend towards bigger feet has continued through the winter.

Unfortunately (for me) Trimming Day (like Wash Day or Bath Day) is also coming up next weekend, so my toilet brush is coming out of retirement. Every barefoot rider living in mud should have their own toilet brush. The long handle means less time stooped over a recalcitrant horse, and less soaking for the operator from the inevitable fidgeting and leg flailing. And, eventually, the mud should come off revealing the bald clean legs beneath.

It could take a while, though.

Lucy Chaplin Trumbull - Northern California

Sunday we were due to ride in the sunshine but instead went into town in search of cheaper hay.

A couple of years ago, finding cheaper hay was relatively easy - most feed stores in this area sell a three-grain mix (oat, beardless barley, and wheat) which smells like yummy crackers and the horses gobble it up. Little wonder–it's completely packed with sugars and carbs... sort of like feeding your child on mashed potatoes - yes, they'll love it, but at what cost?

It's well-known that diets low in sugar/carbs make for better feet so nowadays my herd no longer get their yummy cracker-hay - much to their sadness. Instead, I've switched to grass hays - either grass/alfalfa (provided I can find one where the alfalfa makes an appearance more as a seasoning than a main ingredient), orchard grass, or - what I bought on Sunday - an orchard/meadow mix.

In the winter my herd get fed in multiple small-mesh hay bags - string hay nets which, unlike "normal" hay nets, have smaller 2" x 2" mesh - meaning the horses have to nibble wisps out of it, rather than go for the smash-and-grab method that they could get away with using the usual style.

To begin with, the horses were a little frustrated by the new feeders - chomping and ripping in the hope of getting the hay out faster. Unfortunately, even though the hay nets are quite sturdy, a couple didn't make it through the first few months. Luckily, however, at $6.99 a pop, they don't break the bank when it comes to replacing them.

After a while, the horses got less anxious about getting their hay and gradually have come around to a nibble-a-bit-and-doze-in-between foraging style. As a result, they are actually eating less and are much less frantic at feeding time (better for petty squabbles).

This evening I went down to the barn where four of the six get fed. Not only was there hay left in all three hay bags, but piglet Jackit was napping in the corner, Provo and Uno were quietly munching, while Roop (Mr Pudgy personified) was down in another shelter and didn't even bother to come up for supper* when I put out a fourth bag to keep them going until morning.

*the flip side of this, is that you worry when the horses don't come running in a rabid manner at supper time. It's not natural.

Filling hay nets for six horses when I'm scuttling to get to work isn't my idea of a good time and whilst I'd much prefer to just toss hay over the fence, current slop-like conditions don't make that possible even if I did want to skimp on my horse-mother chores. In the winter we live in a sea of mucky clay. We're on a hillside and it seems like all the water that comes down the hill channels straight into my dry dirt paddocks. Slop R Us.


The quickest way I've found to fill hay bags is to use a muck bucket or bushel bucket as a bag holder.

Spread the hay net over the bucket and pull down the sides so the "pocket" of bag is only a couple of inches deep:


Dump the hay in:

 
Flip up the sides and pull the string tight and tie a knot in it for carrying:



I attach the hay net to the panel using some kind of snap - no fiddling about fastening it with knots:


Or in Fergus' case, a very strong snap attached to the tree (he likes to shake his bag vigorously to get the "good bits" out and it was quite hard on the fence):


Finally, I have about 7-8 of these bags which saves on having to go and fetch empty bags before being able to refill them. A couple more would be nice. 

The good thing about having barefoot horses is that, unlike shod horses, you don't have to worry about them hooking a shoe in the mesh so you can hang the bags lower or even touching the ground. The mesh is also small enough that even small Jackit-feet can't fit through the holes, so you don't have to worry about droopy bags once they're empty.

In the old days when I used "normal" hay nets, at least once I came down in the morning to find my calmest horse (thank the endurance gods) tethered to the panel by virtue of having a leg stuck through the bag up to her armpit. That'll bring you out in a cold sweat, quickly.

Work has been ridiculous the last couple of months and I've been struggling to keep up with the day-to-day care of my six, let alone get much riding in. For this reason, several of the pones' feet got longer than they should have. I'm usually pretty good at keeping the workers' feet in line, but due to Real Life the non-workers only get done when I can manage it - which, given the current state of affairs, means they haven't. 

The Thanksgiving break gave me a chance to not only catch up on some of my trimming, but also get my head in a better place. Both Roop and Long-Term-Project-Horse Hopi got their trims - Roo was "a little" overdue, while Hopi was "a lot" overdue. I'm not even going to publicly admit how much the "a lot" was. Suffice to say, Hopi's a hard horse to deal with, so trimming him is never my favorite and he gets moved to the back of the line more than is good for him. Luckily, he has the best feet of all my horses: they grow nice and evenly and don't tend to chip much, so even when he's horrendously long his feet usually aren't bad. 


5) First pass-through with nippers and hoof knife. I've removed some of the excess bar, and chomped off all the extra hoof, but haven't done too much with the heels:





10) After working the left foot in the same way, the resulting front hooves look much more like a pair of feet instead of two randomly selected items stuck on the ends of his legs. Compare with Photo 2) above. The heel on the right foot is still higher, but that's just how that foot grows. Trying to make it match would be a mistake - I can only rasp down as far as the good-live sole in the seat of the corn will allow me. But if I work his feet often and don't let them get out of control, the mismatch has a lot less impact.


11) The toed-in-ness is much less "ack"-like. Compare with photo 1 above:


Roo's a good boy for trimming and I work with him loose in the stall - installing him in front of a hay bag which means he usually stays where I need him to be, but can wander around in between each foot while I'm decricking my back.

And that concludes Roo's front foot manicure. 

Here's the second half of Uno getting his Mega-Trim after seven weeks of no trimming in order to let everything grow out for a "reset". All the usual caveats apply - this is how I trim my horses, knowing what they're doing, how much they grow, how they move, how much work they're going to be doing, on what kind of terrain, what has/has not worked in the past, etc. YMMV.

My best advice to new trimmers is to work little and often - that way you can always go back and do a bit more if you realise you didn't do enough. Plus that way, you don't permanently wreck your back from unaccustomed scrunching up/leaning over/vigorous arm flailing. As always, your goal is to work towards short toes, short heels, balanced feet, minimal flare, and no thrush.

Uno was still a little fidgety and uncomfortable on this right rear foot - I'm assuming something is still slightly tweaked in there - so I'm giving him a few more weeks off to let Mother Nature do her thing (in the meantime, I've been riding pony Jackit on his first few forays out of the trail, and having a blast). Uno's not gimpy, he just doesn't like me cranking on this leg so I have to work carefully around him - making sure not to position it wrong, or lift it in such a way that causes him discomfort.



The black stuff half-way up his hoof wall is leftover Adhere glue from glueing on boots at Virginia City 100. Those boots weren't going anywhere - it took me a good deal of patience, two screwdrivers and a mallet to get them off his feet the day after we got home.

During the week before Virginia City 100, in two separate evening sessions, I trimmed and stuck Glue-ons on Uno's front and back feet. It took me about 20 minutes to trim and glue the rears—and an hour and a half to do the fronts. Why? Because I was desperately trying to smoosh Uno's large front feet into a size too small boot. In addition, a pair of really good nippers is wonderful. Having said that, for the first year or so, I didn't have nippers and did everything with a rasp. This works fine until you don't get around to trimming someone for many weeks and then have to remove half an inch of hoof wall in the middle of the summer.  Can you say "sweat and biceps"? 

If you're worried about shelling out lots of money buying expensive tools for something you're not sure you're going to be able to manage (and you won't be alone - I was that person once), get the hoof-stand before the nippers. The hoof stand will make your life so much more pleasant and you're more likely to feel like you are capable of trimming your own horse.

Anyway. On with the show. My caveat is that I'm self-taught and this is meant to show how I trim my horses - knowing how they grow, how they move, how much work they're going to be doing, on what kind of terrain, what has/has not worked in the past. I'll probably forget to mention some super-important detail, so please don't follow this as gospel and lame your horses because of it. This is just what I do.  You need to read as much as you can (I highly recommend Pete Ramey as a common sense, non-radical, real-life trimmer), think about what you read, discard things that don't work for you, and experiment to see what does. 


1. Above we see Uno's right front pre-trim at 7 weeks. Euw - bull-nosed toe (I'd rasped and rasped to get it in the stupid boot. Remember - do not try this at home, it works really badly), and very long and spatulate-like.




4. Another view showing his long heels.

One question that comes up is "how do you know how much foot you can trim off?" My guideline is the seat of the corn (see red arrow) - this is the little corner of sole which sits in the V-shape of the bar/hoof. On a horse with lots of overlaid bar, it can be hard to find sometimes. This is part of the heel area that you're trying to trim down to move to the back of the foot for support. I clean that area out down to proper sole (as opposed to mud or crumbly sole) and that's my limit - I go no deeper than that.

For the rest of the foot, towards the end of summer most of the horses are hiding proper sole under lots of dry, dead, false sole which presents a problem. Do you dig around and take it off, or do you leave it?

Ideally, you want to avoid paring away sole - you're hoping to get that nice barefoot callous going. But in reality, if your horse isn't housed on rough terrain there is usually a time when you need to get the old sole off because it's packed in there (by the end of summer, my horses are living in fluffy dirt in their dry lot - the chances of anything wearing off their feet are slim to none).

So the answer to that question depends on the horse. A few months ago, a friend and I trimmed four horses between us, aggressively removing false sole from all of them. Given how much I'd taken off, I expected mine to be sore but surprisingly they weren't. Of my friend's two horses, one was fine, while the other (trimmed in the same way) could barely walk for about a week.  So the trick is know your horse - and experiment little by little.

When I first started trimming I took very little off. The only thing I used on the sole was my hoof-pick - if the sole didn't come off with that, it could stay there. Now I'm more enthusiastic (did I mention my new nippers?) and have to mentally curb my desire to hack away at the sole. I'm guessing the ideal is somewhere in between the two.


5. Here I've taken my nippers and worked on Uno's overlaid bars. He grows lots of bar and if not kept under control, it starts to flop over onto the sole. I've also trimmed off some of the more upright parts of the bars. On some horses you can do this with a hoof knife. Not Uno, though, he grows bars of steel.


6. Here I've gone a step further. I'm gently poking around on the sole to try and ascertain what's healthy sole and what's junk. Because Uno has been allowed to grow out and because it has been wet here, his feet are very soft and crumbly underneath. In reality, until I get some of the loose sole off, I can't tell what's what, so I'll just scrape away any obvious excess junk sole. If I were to look at his feet again in a week or two, there will probably be more sole to take off, but I'm going to err on the side of caution here and not go bananas this time around.

Again, if Uno was working, if it was drier here, if he was walking on rockier stuff, etc, his soles would be nothing like this - they'd be hard, shiny.



8. Once I've gotten this far, I switch out the cradle on my stand for the rubber stopper and work the hoof from the top. In the old days, pre-nippers, I would do most of my work from the top - it's easier to take off extra hoofwall working from the top than the bottom, so if you're nipper-less consider that.

This is also the point you would be looking for any flare on the hoofwall and removing it. In Uno's case, there isn't much flare on his fronts, so I'll have to wait for another example to show that.

To start, I took off a bunch of that nice thick toe - good to have it as protection, but not so good in terms of faster breakover and strain on the tendons - I like my toes really short. Another consideration is that having short toes, especially on a toe-y horse like Uno, you're far more likely to have success keeping your boots on than if you have long toes.


9. And this is what it looks like on the underside now - much less toe and hoofwall, and no sharp edges to snag hoofwall. And bravo, Lucy - you have resisted hacking away at the still-too-long-heels in favour of a slightly more finessed rasp-approach – still to come.

Looking at this photo, it's a pretty radical trim and not what I would do on a horse that didn't grow as much foot as Uno. Again, it's a case of knowing your horse and knowing his characteristics. I will try to take a photo in a week or so to compare with this to show how much he grows.


10. One thing that is worrying me at this stage is how deep a groove he has (where my index finger is pointing). I don't know if this is because he has excess sole still to shed, or if I need to trim more off. For now, I'm not doing more, but will watch this to see what happens. He's very flat-footed - I seldom see much concavity in his feet - and even less right now. Again, how much of this is a product of letting him get so long?


11. Here we're much closer to being finished. I'm working from the underside again.

Holding the leg by the fetlock, let the hoof flop vertical and sight down the foot. What you're looking for is any unbalance from side to side. Is one heel higher than the other? do you have a bulge of foot somewhere that needs to be taken down? When the foot lands, will it have a nicely-balance platform?

I've taken a rasp and rolled the entire outside edge, filed down the heels, and have paid special attention to that separated area on the right in this photo - I don't want the hoofwall there to get snagged on anything, so roll it extra specially. When I think I'm done, I'll run my fingers around the bottom edge to see if I can feel any areas that might get snagged by rough ground and chipped/bent and touch them up into a nicely smoothed bevel with my rasp.

As a final step, if the foot was thrushy, I'll treat it with some magic potion before letting the horse go out to play. My potion of choice is Coppertox, but I know many people feel it's a bit too toxic, you end up with green hands, green horse and green stall, it's stinky, and it's not that cheap. This is an area for research - see what others are using and decide for yourself.



14. The untrimmed left front neighbouring foot. Ack.

Because I let him go so long, I will probably check again in a week or so to see what's happening. That's one of the neat things about doing your own hooves - you can keep poking at them and see what happens.

You know what you're aiming for: short heels, short toes, no flare, minimum chipping, and lack of thrush. By working towards those goals, the feet should eventually turn into what you're hoping for - it might just take a while. But one day you'll look at them and think "Huh, all that [insert whatever hoof problem your horse had] is gone and I didn't even notice". 

If you make a mistake (as I did, over-trimming Uno's heel... and then did exactly the same thing a couple of weeks later with Roop), the foot regrows. Your horse may not be too impressed with you, but so long as you learned from the experience, you can try to avoid repeating it.

In the early days, I would take off much less foot, unwilling to get too carried away, but invariably would look again a few days later and wonder why I thought I had done enough - a fresh eye often shows you things you didn't notice at the time - either in terms of uneveness or just not taking enough off.


This is actually Fergus, who got trimmed next. Patrick bought me this little rolly-stool which I sometimes use for initial foot clean-up. Whilst it helps my back, I would caution the use of one of these - you need to consider your particular horse/trimming situation carefully and make sure you aren't inviting a recipe for being trampled. As an example, I would never use it on a windy day <grin>.


If I know I've got plenty of time to trim the entire horse (sometimes I'll only do the feet two at a time and come back later to do the other two), I usually work my way around the horse, instead of doing both fronts followed by both rears.

My reason for this is that if you do the feet in pairs - both fronts, then both backs - a mysterious force means that the right rear foot will always get done last. Since the right rear foot is the only one that ever does any work, it's usually the one the horse is least comfortable on, so better to get it over and done with earlier on while you're still fresh and can cope with a wriggling horse.

In Uno's case, this time around, I did RF, RR, LR, and LF.

It takes me about an hour to trim each horse - depending on how dirty they are; how long the foot is; how cooperative they feel; how my back feels (this weekend I did three horses and my back was pretty sad by the end - I don't do this for a living. I take lots of breaks to untangle mane, watch the chickens, admire my horses, etc). It also depends how much time I spend staring at the foot to see what needs to be done - Fergus has a wry foot; Roop is toed-in; Jackit grows high heels; Provo grows long curly toes but no heel; Uno just grows and turns into dinner plates; and Hopi, who has the best feet of the whole herd but is the hardest to trim because he's Hopi, gets done too infrequently.

If you poke at the feet more often (once a week? ...much easier to do in the summer when they aren't covered in crud), you'll do yourself a favour and it'll take a lot less time because you're just touching things up not having to do a complete overhaul as I have here.

Oh. And what did I discover at the end of this session? The whole reason I left Uno so long was to discover what size Glove he should actually be wearing - and as suspected he's grown into a size 2 (I put a shell on and then couldn't get it off - always an encouraging sign). Luckily, Fergus wears 1.5s on this back feet, so Uno's front 1.5s can go to F and I'll have to get Uno some 2s. This should really help prevent my recent struggles and help avoid boot-losses. Yay. Mission accomplished.

The worst thing about taking your horses barefoot is that you become a hoof snob when it comes to looking at other horses' feet - so many hooves like baked-bean cans, frogs an inch off the ground, ridiculously long toes, or hoof-walls flared to dinner plate dimensions.

With Uno on break after Virginia City 100, Roo just starting to come back to work, and Patrick busy conditioning Fergus for their next 50, the timing has been perfect to start riding my 12:3 hh Section B welsh pony, Jackit.

On the rear feet, his measurements came out to:

Left Rear: 106 mm wide x 110 mm long
Right Rear: 107 mm wide x 107 mm long.


Predictably, none of these measurements fit neatly into the Glove sizing chart (which, as we all know, was designed for imaginary horses). 

For the front feet, the lengths put him a mm under the smallest size of 00, while the widths put him in 0 or 0.5. Curses. 

His rear feet were slightly less ludicrous - the lengths put him in 00.5 or an 0, while the widths put him in an 0. Since his rear feet look a bit heart-shaped, I'm leaning towards the smaller 00.5 - thinking the length will stretch.

He's definitely going to need a fit kit to get him dialled in properly. Luckily, I have 00.5s and 0s, so I can try those on his back feet, but it'll be interesting to see what works on his front feet in their current upright formation - and to see how they change shape from very regular rasping.

Walking along in the pitch dark at 3:30 a.m., trying to focus on something - anything - I actually dropped off to sleep in the saddle for a nanosecond and hallucinated a huge flock of black birds against the mountains on the horizon. That woke me up and I called up to Tami ahead: "Talk to me - about anything - I'm falling asleep here!". Not that Tami was in any better shape, and our fellow rider, Sally, had gone quiet half an hour earlier. We were 95 miles into the Virginia City 100 and the moon had set an hour or so ago.

It was around this point that I decided maybe I'd rather just be a 75 mile rider. When we'd come in off the 76 mile loop at 10 p.m. I'd been happy and bouncing. Uno had been happy and bouncing. We'd survived the 2000'+ climb up to the top of the ridge and the subsequent descent in the dark - thanking the endurance gods who guided us wrong two weeks previously during our pre-riding, causing us to cover more miles than intended. At the time it was a bit sad, but now as soon as we hit trail he recognised, Uno perked up and off we went.
Loop 1, Part 1
VC100 wasn't like Tevis - I actually got to sleep the night before and didn't feel totally nauseous all night. When the alarm went off at 3:15 a.m. I was relatively relaxed and didn't feel like killing myself. We had to be on the horses by 4:30 a.m. to walk the couple of miles from camp to the 5 a.m. start in front of the Delta Saloon. It's one of the more bizarre starts to an endurance ride I've ever done.

Asking Tami before the ride what she thought the hardest thing about VC100 was, she replied with very little hesitation: "the rocks". They are a fact of life and something you have to learn to work around. Obviously, foot protection is super-important under these conditions. 35 riders started VC100 and of those I counted eleven horses that were wearing either Glue-Ons (7), Gloves (1), or Original Easy Boots over shoes (3). At the end of the ride, 26 horses completed - including ten of our booted horses. The only booted horse who got pulled (that I know about) made it 92 miles. Not bad.

The first 20 miles were among the fastest I've ever done - we got it done in 3 hours - needing to move out where we could and this was trail you could trot. ...Actually you can trot most of the VC100 trail - so long as you only want to trot for 10 ft before slowing to prance through rocks.

When Uno gets going, he trots BIG. I seldom allow him to do it (just because he can, doesn't mean he should), but this time around I let him have some fun and he trotted so big that the SPOT GPS locator clipped to my pommel pack went flying off (can you say "BIG action"?) and had to be retrieved by Dave (thanks Dave!). It got firmly tied on at the next stop.

Quite by chance, we ended up riding the first 30 miles or so with fellow booters: AERC Hall of Famer Dave Rabe on White Cloud in Gloves; Carolyn Meier on Rushcreek Okay (great big feet - he wears a 3 on the front and 2.5s on the backs); and Tami and I, all in Glue-Ons.

My booting experience hadn't gone quite as planned the previous week (so what else is new?) and I was enviously watching Fancy's tidy little compact feet in her tidy little compact Glue-Ons, comparing them to Uno's dinner plates.

Having struggled at Bridgeport last month to get Uno's rear feet fitting nicely, this time around it only took me about 20 minutes to tidy up his back toes and glue. Ta-da! By contrast, I spent about an hour and half poking and rasping and squinting at his fronts and still wasn't happy with the fit. <sigh>

Hindsight being everything, I've concluded that perhaps Uno's feet have expanded enough that instead of trying to squoosh him into a 1.5 Glove, he probably needs a 2. Post-VC, he gets a month off and I'm going to leave his feet alone, then tidy them up, and refit him and see where we're at.

Anyway - I was less than happy about the gluing job on the fronts, but you have to obsess about something, right? :)


After the road crossing, we dropped down the Old Geiger Grade - the old Toll Road - to the outskirts of Reno. I'd like to say I ran the whole 2.5 miles, but cimcumstances being what they were, I wasn't in as good shape as I'd promised myself I would be (why are we not surprised by this?), so had to content myself with walking as fast as I could, interspersed with running for as long as my bad ankle would allow. But I took pictures! And I fed Uno some hay that mysteriously appeared by the side of the road mid-way down! Ambidextrous, I am.

On the way down the grade, Tami and I picked up our third rider - Sally Hugdal - who's riding partner had unfortunately pulled at the highway crossing. We were happy to have her and her mare, Ellie, who were going for their fifth consecutive VC100 completion.

Fancy led us in the last section through residential streets likity-split and we got to the first 24-mile vet check in 3 hours 40 minutes for our 45 minute break. My friends Renee and Russell Robinson had come all the way down from Eureka to crew for me, and they, together with local friend Crysta Turnage did a most excellent job catering to our every need - hand-feeding Uno slop and pretending to enjoy it when he covered them and everything within a few feet (including Crysta's dog, Molly) with mush.

Please form an orderly line to sign up to crew for Uno in the future.
Loop 1, Part 2
The next 15 mile section included the four mile foray through Bailey Canyon. I'd been hearing about this canyon for years - tales of woe about the awfulness of it, and indeed it was pretty gnarly - but, gah, it was fun. There is a sort of trail to follow... ish. We put Fancy in front, Ellie next, Okay, White Cloud and then Uno bringing up the rear, and blitzed through it - too much fun. I love this kind of trail - it's a bit like a snow-boarders' half-pipe, only with lots and lots and lots of rocks to clamber over before you scoot up the opposite side, duck under a bunch of tree branches, and then drop back down, clambering back over the creek bed rocks and up the other side.



At one point, all the riders got bunched up together and there were 14 of us going down the trail. A parade! Considering that 35 riders started, we had about half the field there for a while. Too funny.

After an hour of rock clambering, we finally hit Jumbo Grade and Fancy took off, with Uno in hot pursuit - they were wound a little tight from the slow pace in Bailey Canyon - so we flew down, Tami cursing Fancy for yanking on her bad knee (lots of surgeries in those knees) and trying to explain to her that having a bit of horse left later in the ride would be desirable. We stopped a couple of times to try and persuade them to drink and I even managed to sponge Uno in an inch deep creek. He was miffed - wanting to run after all the horses passing on by.

The last section crossed Washoe Lake State Rec Area to the 15-minute hold and a trot-by at 39 miles. This is every local rider's favorite trail - a twisty singletrack that winds its way through the sagebrush. Fancy did her wide trot (she squats and goes wide in the back in order to lengthen her stride) and Uno cantered, and poor Sally and Ellie hung on in the back, as the tail of the dog. I know we were supposed to make time where we could, but this was ridiculous.

Excellent Crew were again at this stop, waiting to have slop dropped on them, to be itched on, and generally abused. Trot-bys completed, we scuttled around getting everything done - 15-minute holds are never long enough. Endurance riding being the glamorous sport it is, I dropped my tights to re-butter the insides of my knees and calves that were developing some hot-spots.

Loop 1, Part 3
After Washoe Lake State Rec, there is a loooonnnggg, hoooootttt, climb. All the previous enthusiasm waned and we trudged to the top. Some of this lack of enthusiasm from Fancy might have been because she knew that the SOBs were coming up - Tami and Fancy completed VC100 in 2007, so she certainly knew the trail. Uno had done this trail section before during Washoe Valley in the spring but in the reverse direction, so I'm not sure he remembered what was approaching.




As we approached, I was weighing up:

Ride them = Use up too much horse (it's Uno's first 100 <bite nails>)
Walk them = Use up too much rider

But who's doing most of the work, we ask? So I got off, and Tami and I slithered and slipped our way down. Tami took the lead on the way up the other side and I was grateful for every break that Fancy took (she was snacking all the way up), as I clung to Uno's tail, watching his back feet about level with my thighs as we went up, wondering if I was going to get a rock flicked in my face.

There are few things more educational in order to learn about boot fit than tailing your horse up a steep climb. I was able to notice how the backs of Uno's front boots were separating from his feet, but that the rears seemed relatively snug still. If your horse is wearing Gloves, you can watch how he digs his toes in, and what that does to the boots as he pushes off. It gives you an idea of how good your fit is.

Hyperventilating, we made it to the top and trudged on to the next descent - SOB #2. They get gradually less steep as they progress, so when we reached the bottom of this one, I scrambled back on and Uno felt pretty good from his short break - a lot better than I felt, at least, which was the desired effect.


We made SOB #3 with no difficulty and could finally enjoy the lovely view looking down on the lake and the mountains beyond.

Hands up who can guess what happened next? Remember me whining about the front boot fit? Yup, the right front came off. Sally noticed, so I hopped off and replaced it with a Glove from my pack (I always carry a full set of boots, just in case). Uno still had a lot of Glue left on his foot, so I had to use one of those handy NV rocks to give the Glove a couple of whacks to seat it back in place, and off we went again.

Finally, after more than two hours climbing, we reached the water stop at the cross roads at the top of Jumbo Grade, manned by volunteers Dave and Judy Jewkes. Let's see? 24 miles in 3 hours 40 mins at the beginning of the ride when it was cool, while in the heat of the afternoon: 8 miles in 2 hours and 10 mins... I see how this goes.

The Jewkeses offered lemonade (that hit the spot!) and cookies, but we only stayed a few minutes before setting off down Ophir Grade for the 4 miles or so into Virginia City.

A quarter mile down, Uno's left front flew off and hit the underside of my right foot (that was confusing) <grrr>. This wasn't what I wanted, but oh well. Off I hopped again with my second sparsie Glove and on it went with the help of yet another handy rock (who knew they would be so helpful?) and off we went again.

40 minutes later we were back at camp in Virginia City, hot, tired, and crumpled - but half-way through.

For me this was probably the lowest point of the ride. I'd made the classic mistake of consciously thinking "Ack, we're only 52 miles in and we still have another 48 to go - and I'm already at the pooped-out stage... not good". This is a BIG no-no for 100-mile riding. How does the old saying about "How do you eat an elephant?" go? One bite at a time. I should have been focusing on my hour hold, instead of the next 12 hours.

My friend Ann Blankenship took one look at me and started trying to get me to eat something. I am hopeless at eating on rides - and the tireder and hotter I get, the worse I get. However, Ann was in charge of Lucy-Intake during Tevis, so is familiar with my habits. She fetched me some baby wipes (ah, bliss), some lotion ("Age Defying" - perfect!), and a bowl of canteloupe melon.

Renee rasped off the excess glue on Uno's fronts, so we'd get a closer fit for his Gloves; we replenished my sparsie Gloves on the saddle; Uno's front pasterns were snugged into neoprene wraps (made from a weight-loss belt, of all things) to prevent any under-gaiter rubs; Crysta inspected a new loin rub* and got out the baby powder ready for saddling up; it was decided which clothing would be needed for the next leg - we'd be starting at 4:20 in the warm afternoon sunshine - and coming off the trail at 10 pm in the dark; more snacks (which I wouldn't eat) were added to the pommel bag; the rump rug was rolled tightly and clipped on ready for action; and of course, I retired to the privacy of my trailer to re-butter those delicate areas that needed attention.

* I had opted to ride in Patrick's treeless Sensation saddle for this ride. It is almost exactly the same as mine except for having a longer seat. Although I'd ridden 70 miles in it over the previous three weeks, apparently it wasn't enough to show up this problem. Thankfully, Uno wasn't sore from the rub during the ride, but I'm not sure bald, pink loins is a look I'm thrilled with. Back to my saddle from now on.
Loop 2
None of the three of us were thrilled to get going again on the 52-76 mile section. All our muscles had seized up and everything felt lumpy and stiff, so we walked for the first mile or so. Tami was a little concerned about Fancy, so she hand-walked her for a while to make sure everything was well. Fancy snacked the whole way, and was absolutely fine, so she needn't have worried.

This trail was the portion I knew least about, so it was hard to aim for that "bite-sized" piece. Luckily it was beginning to cool off and as we got going again and began to trot, everything fell back into place again and we were off again.

We crossed the V&T railroad tracks a few times (Uno has decided that perhaps a troll doesn't live under them, after all); passed a peculiar derelict set of buildings out in the middle of the desert - they looked like something out of a set for an "apocalypse film" - kind of creepy. Tami spotted someone's lost vest on the ground, so scored big in being able to wear it for the rest of the leg and keep warm.

And after a few miles, we began to climb again. This would be our last major climb of the day - but it was a doozy - climbing for 7.5 miles, past the Jewkes at the Jumbo Grade water stop (stopped to snack and water the horses), continuing up to the very top at ~7,500 ft where you could look out across Washoe Valley as the sun finally set behind the mountains.


As we dropped down the other side, the twinkling lights of Reno came into view and Uno began to pick it up again. For the first time that day, he had shown signs of actually being tired towards the top of the climb - at about 65 miles - and I was a little worried about him. But now he was on trail he recognised and by chance we once again caught up with Dave and Carolyn so Uno was back with his main Herd du Jour and happy to have the company of familiar buddies. Instead of the trudging we'd been doing for the past hour, we were popping along, trotting the flats, jogging some of the downhills, and in no time came to the road crossing at Geiger Summit.

Excellent Crew were ready - they had buckets and pans and everything a horse could want - and Uno wanted it all, including the next door neighbour's leftovers. It's amazing how much stuff a horse can suck down in seven minutes before we were off again - we had a little more than 6 miles to go before getting back to camp for the next hour hold.

Back at camp at 76 miles, I almost felt like celebrating - Uno's vet scores were far better than they had been at 52 miles - owing much to the fact that he was at last eating and drinking like an endurance horse should. He was cheerful and I was cheerful. Renee got me a pot-noodle which went down well, although the peanuts I attempted triggered the gag reflex, big time.

The hour hold flew by and in no time we were off again on our final loop, fitted with headlights, sweaters, wind-breakers and with the rump rug down.
Loop 3
The horses were quite cheerful leaving camp, which surprised me. I expected maybe a little baulking at having to repeat-in-reverse the route we'd just come in on through town. The two miles went without incident until we got to the cemetery at the outskirts and Uno suddenly realised what was going on. I think he thought maybe we'd go that far (as we had on our little pre-ride jaunt the day before) and then turn and head back to camp, so he seemed a little shocked that, no, we were actually going out on the trail again.

Even though we were all good to go leaving on the final leg, once we'd passed through town and started down on the trail, we all got a case of the paranoias. Having made it this far we really didn't want to trip on a rock and have one of the horses go lame, so we turned into ninnies ultra-cautious riders - opting to walk almost everything. We had 24 miles to go and six hours to get it done in. How hard could this be?

Tami and Sally, having both been in this position before, explained to me that once the horses got out there on the dirt road leading down the valley, they'd go into Power Walk mode and we'd just motor on through the loop.

This news was met with some sadness on my part. Uno doesn't have a Power Walk. He has a shuffle. He has a trudge. But his idea of keeping up involves jogging. So I concluded that they'd Power Walk and we'd jog along behind.

To begin with, I was all enthusiastic. My knees were feeling a little crunchy from the walking, so I asked Tami if she would be happy trotting the odd section just to loosen them up. What we managed in the "trotting" department was pretty pathetic - we'd make it maybe 20 ft before walking again. But after a bit, that seemed just fine.

We had a bright, almost-full moon. The mountains rose up either side of us along the valley and we saw a small herd of wild mustang grazing quietly in the moonlight. It was quite magical. Sally had some glowsticks attached to her breast collar and a dim headlight, but they weren't needed and Tami and I went with no lights (even though we carried headlights with us just in case).

This section of trail is an "out-n-back" with a lollipop at the far end with a vet-check. This is where we'd gotten chronically lost two weeks before, missing a turn, so even in the dark on a marked trail, we were vigilantly looking for that left turn.

There's a section that crosses a chalk outcropping for a short distance and the chalk was so bright in the moonlight it looked like snow. At the back end of the lollipop we dropped into the rockiest part of that trail - and of course the moon was hidden behind the thick juniper trees. Soon enough we were back out in the moonlight, but sadly it was starting to set behind the mountains, so we were either plunged into pitch black, or had it shining directly in our eyes when it would peek out the last few times.

Just before the Cottonwoods vet check, there's a peculiar spring where the water overflows onto the rutted road and we had to wade through it in one place. I remember worrying that Uno's Gloves would get wet and pop off in the dark and that I was too far gone to be able to do anything about it. But of course they didn't. At 2:20 a.m. when you're reaching the last of your reserves, your brain does its best to cover all bases.

At Cottonwoods they greeted us with soup and hot drinks. Uno was ravenous and just wanted to eat and eat. Once again, there was one of those annoyingly useless 15 minute holds - no time to do anything except try to slurp down that soup - which made me queasy. There was a roaring fire and all *I* wanted to do was curl up in front of it. Instead, I was stuck holding the ravenous horse, blearily trying to scrutinise him to see if I could spot anything amiss. We were joined by a fourth rider at this point and I was last to vet through, so as soon as we were done, it was time to leave again. <sob>

My visions of spending ten minutes - that's all I wanted - curled in front of the fire while someone else held Uno evaporated in a cold blast as I sadly climbed up the step-stool thoughtfully provided for the purpose of pathetic-rider mounting.

Uno wasn't thrilled to be leaving behind the bucket of carrots that he'd wolfed his way through, or the piles of hay, but I finally got him going after his buddies and we set off for the final 8 miles. That's all! And four of those would be trail that Uno had already done three times that day, so knew like the back of his hoof.

And here was the lowest point of the day - the four mile trudge back along the dirt road. The moon was gone. Any earlier energy and desire of "Let's TROT!" was gone. And I was left with the uneasy feeling that I get driving home after a long day - that I was going to fall asleep at the wheel and there was nothing I could do about it.

But here was the surprise: Fancy and Ellie, now headed for home, got into their Power Walk and there was Uno, keeping up with them. ??Uno?? He does have a Power Walk, he just only uses it for very special occasions.

Uno even led us in the last few miles through the canyon like a grown-up. I couldn't really see what the trail was doing and would find myself peering at a dark bush thinking it was a shaded tree tunnel we were going to go into, only to have Uno sweep us by - me teetering on top doing my best to stay with him.

Climbing the last short grade to the cemetery finish line, there was my Patrick waiting to greet us - and then we were done - it was 4:30 a.m.. We'd finished!!

Renee and Russell were there with more pone food and water and we allowed the horses a short snack before making the last pass back through town to camp and the final nail-biting vet check (which, thankfully, all three horses passed without incident).

Uno did so good he made me cry through much of that last journey through town. He had kept bopping along all day, staying cheerful almost the entire 100 miles. Itchy face and drooling aside, he had been the mellowest, easiest partner to share the day with and took my breath away with how strong he had felt throughout the ride.

At 5 a.m. we finally climbed down off the horses for the last time that day and set to work getting them ready for bed. Well, Excellent Crew did. I just sat there in a chair, looking pathetic.

And so goes the final chapter in the story of how Uno and Fancy won joint 5th place in the NASTR Triple Crown 2010 - by completing NV Derby 50 in April, NASTR 75 in June, and VC100 in September. We weren't fast, but we were consistent. After the first 50, there were 20 horses signed up. By virtue of attrition, that number was down to 8 by the time we started VC100.

And Sally and Ellie got their fifth consecutive finish! Ellie gets a new halter and Sally gets to be as proud as a proud thing.

This month, Uno and I are getting ready to do the hardest task we've ever attempted - Virginia City 100. This ride is the Nevada equivalent of Tevis, and having started that ride last year with Roo and gotten pulled at 65 miles, I know how daunting an undertaking we're facing.

As you might remember, Uno is not a lead horse so I'm glad that we're going to be riding with friends Tami Rougeau and her mare Fancy. I'd like to say that Fancy and Uno are good buddies, but Fancy isn't that way inclined. She tolerates Uno provided he behaves himself and doesn't get any grandiose ideas. Uno, being mild mannered (and used to being bullied at home), seems quite happy with this arrangement and quite likes her, regardless.

Being slow-pokes, I'm pretty sure we're going to be riding about 30-35 miles of the ride in the dark, so last weekend Uno and I hauled over the Sierra to visit Tami and Fancy and do some preriding of the darker parts of the trail. This would familiarise us with

a) where the heck we were, and
b) where the heck we were supposed to be going.

Uno was wearing his Gloves, while Fancy was dressed in a set of four Epics (Tami's trying to use up her old boot supplies on training rides and saves her spiffier Gloves for competition). We'd planned a 20 mile expedition: a long trot out along the valley, a short loop around into the Cottonwoods vet check area, and then back along the valley returning to the cemetery at the north end of Virginia City (the location of the ride finish line). Simple.
As with all expeditions, good company is essential, and Tami and I chit-chatted our way along the trail, admiring the views and discussing our strategy for the ride, and rode and rode and rode. After a decent climb, we hopped off the horses on the downhill to give them a break and I started to wonder exactly where Cottonwoods was in relation to us. I couldn't quite make the terrain work. I'd only ever been there once before, years ago, in the dark, in a car, crewing for someone during the ride, but this didn't look quite right. Uno expressed his displeasure by stopping dead at one point, but I assured him that Cottonwoods and a drink would be just around the next bend.

Soon enough, Fancy suggested we turn left onto a "jeep road", and not being entirely sure but knowing that Fancy has done the ride before, we followed her suggestion.

Of course we weren't lost. We knew more or less where were were. All we needed to do was go west until we hit the dirt road that drops into the Cottonwoods. After a mile or so of following the "jeep road" and its younger sibling, the "rocky track", we began to see small bands of wild mustangs all around us. How cool!

The rocky track was starting to become annoying, so we opted to set forth across the plains for better footing. This proved to be a Bad Idea. What had appeared to be wide open flat grasslands was actually covered in volcanic rock that was impossible to walk on without scrambling and teetering at every step. Those mustangs are tough living out here, and we were both glad for the extra protection from our boots. The grassy plain stopped abruptly at a rocky cliff which we followed along the top of for a while, until - look, more mustangs! And look, that stallion seems to be paying extra special attention to us. Fancy obliged the stallion by selecting that moment to pee, filling the air with delicious mare aroma. Time to get moving.

Back to the Rocky Track for a few more miles. Where are we? Cottonwoods can't be far now?

In the next 1.5 miles, we probably saw 40 wild horses in many small groups. Although some of the younger boys trotted towards us, once they realised that these strange new horses they were approaching had people on top, they rapidly lost interest. Most of the horses hardly looked up, just continued to graze on the sparse, dry vegetation.

Finally we came to a spot that was recognisable on our GPSs. Although we were both carrying GPSs and although they both showed all the tracks we'd been on - even the Rocky Track - whenever we tried to zoom out to locate Cottonwoods, the scale would turn off the tracks and make it impossible to figure out where anything was. Couple that with bouncing over rocks, the glare from the sun, and riding a horse that refused to stand still, and the only way I could really use the GPS was to be standing completely still, off the horse, sunglasses removed, and threaten him with small death if he stepped anywhere within my 3 ft boundary.

And then we figured it out. We were six miles too far north. Six?? how on earth did we manage that?

At last we came to the powerlines which parallel the jeep road to Cottonwoods and followed it south for a short distance only to come across a mini Grand Canyon. The powerlines went across it, but we certainly weren't going to. More backtracking until we made our way around that obstacle.

Asking Tami what she felt was the hardest part about VC100, she replied "the never-ending rocks" - and we were definitely experiencing those to their full. Even fairly decent jeep roads like the one we were on were littered with loose rock, so that you could only trot 10 feet and then walk 30 until the next slightly clearer section.

At about 20 miles, at the bottom of a steep canyon we came upon a creek which was a huge relief. It's one thing to be "slightly misplaced" out in the desert, but quite another to be out there with thirsty horses. Both Uno and Fancy drank and drank and drank and from then on we knew everything would be fine.

At the creek while off the horse, I noticed that Uno had lost the screw out of the back of one of his front Gloves and the gaiter had worked its way up over the back of his heel bulbs. This seems to be an occupational hazard this time of year - something to do with the dryness perhaps? Either way, we've lost about five of these screws in the last month. They are hard to tighten because the cross-heads tend to fill with concrete-like dirt. To remedy the problem, my husband came home the other day with a tube of LocTite. I resolved that I would spend some time this coming weekend LocTite-ing all of my Glove screws (four boots for three horses, plus their sparsies - that's a lot of screws, but a lot less hassle in the long run than losing boots from screws falling out). I was able to push the gaiter back down to where it belonged and hoped it would stay there (it did).

After crossing the creek we got very excited - here was the best footing of the entire day: a sandystone, somewhat eroded track. Yippeee! Of course, within about 15 seconds of starting to trot, Uno lost a back Glove slipping on a sideslope. Losing the boot wouldn't have been a problem, but Uno decided that he was being attacked and had a small meltdown, kicking frantically at the monster clawed around his ankle* and completely trashing the gaiter. Curiously it was the boot with the PowerStrap (I had to take the other rear hoof PowerStrap off, since there was no way I was going to squeeze the boot over his fat but freshly-rasped foot with it in place). Even more curiously, it was a left boot. That's just wrong, it's always the right boot. This is messing with my theory that the right rear is the only leg that does anything.

* there were some cows near the creek. They could have been Attack Cows. They had horns.

The loss of the boot wasn't a big deal. I always carry sparsies on the saddle just in case and after a quick interlude, we were off again. We continued to follow the powerlines and by now the sun was starting to set and we knew we were going to be out in there in the dark. No matter, that's what we're supposed to be practising, right?

Around the next bend, we came across our most difficult obstacle - a stallion standing right next to the road. This one wasn't doing the "timid wild animal" impersonation. This one wanted to play. He whinnied at us. Tami (on her mare) (me, glad I was on a gelding?) yelled at him - which didn't remotely faze him and he fell in behind us with much enthusiasm. I tried turning Uno towards him - the way you'd face down a barking dog - but he wasn't really worried about that either and continued to approach. Then we used our secret weapon: endurance horses that can trot without stopping for long periods of time... uphill... (boy was I glad Uno's rear boots stayed on for that little escapade).

After a few minutes of this, sure enough, the stallion decided we were too much work and stopped trotting behind us (mucho relief, given Uno's fear of Things Behind).

Down another long hill we got off and ran with the horses. We seemed to be making some headway. The footing was getting better and better (relatively speaking)... or it was getting darker and darker and we couldn't see it? And we finally rejoined the "main road" that we'd been on earlier that morning.

We'd added approximately 15 miles and 5 hours to our ride.... <sigh>

But hey, we were there to pre-ride the trail, right? And - much cheered by knowing exactly where we were - we were happy to be mimicking the trail-on-the-day perfectly. It was 9 pm and completely dark.

We walk-trotted the rest of the dirt road back towards civilisation, admiring the multitude of stars. It's actually surprising how much you can see when you've been out there in the dark so long and there's some ambient light from Reno and Carson City over the mountains. Our night vision was doing great until we got alongside the usually-deserted Lousetown Road (yes, it's really called that) and car after car after car kept coming towards us, blinding us with their headlights. Each time, we'd stop and turn away from the lights, then turn back and trot another ten feet before the next one came along.

The almost omnipresent NV wind picked up in the last few miles and Uno got a little squirrelly (he can't hear the monsters back there), but we made it back up onto the highway without incident (if you don't count Fancy biting him on the bottom because he had the audacity to go in front for once).

From the highway, we dropped down again, thankfully out of the wind, and hand-walked the horses down the steep, slithery hill, stumbling and falling down on the sudden side-slopes that we couldn't see (all we could really see was the pale grey trail and "bush shapes" either side of it).

Back up on the horses for the last mile or so, Uno perked up suddenly and took off at a trot up the hill, happy as a clam, knowing that we were nearly home. And that was the whole point of the exercise, right? <beam>

So we ended up riding 35 miles instead of 20. No matter, it was a most excellent adventure.