We had another lesson last weekend and my friend Paul and his wife Nel (and her mule) came over the mountains to join in. Paul tried out and purchased a new horse that day – a grey PRE gelding named Mateo that I might have bought if he didn’t. Those Spanish horses are just so gosh darn pretty.

We worked on one-handed riding to emphasize the use of our other aids in steering, which I found very helpful. It can be so easy to fall back on the reins and grow dependent on them. Henry was a little distracted in the group lesson setting, and we also talked about empathy and giving credit to the animals for putting up with all the wild scenarios we put them in.

The best part of the group lesson was when Alice hopped on Mateo at the end to do some “military style” riding with Nel and I. She turned on some music and we rode three abreast and I had flashbacks to drill team riding at 4H camp and boy, was it fun. Henry was very good about being packed in with two strange horses but it was harder than I thought to keep the right pace with a snappy little mule and a big, stretchy Spanish horse.

Column of threes, aka the odd trio

Pace is something that’s been on my mind a lot lately as I think about endurance riding. The books all say you need to find your horse’s ‘all day trot’ and that has been a real challenge. Henry has reverted to the giraffe trot on many occasions recently, and I feel like I’m begging and pleading with him to put his head down a bit and relax into it, engage his core and hind end. Aside from looking ghastly, the giraffe trot is also horribly uncomfortable to ride.

I thought maybe I just needed to get out and trot him a good long time to find that trot, so last night we trailered two miles up the road to ride on the forest roads. My goal was to ride for an hour and do more trotting than walking. I brought RCowboy on his mountain bike and two dogs badly in need of exercise.

I will now summarize how this ride went from start to finish in bullet form:

• 6 pm, unload from trailer. Woo, hoo! Beautiful night. Let’s start off walking and jogging in hand to get us both warmed up. This is going to be great and we’ll be home in time to make spaghetti and meatballs.
• Mount up. He’s forward but controllable. Dogs are going berserk.
• Argument with RCowboy about which road to take. I loathe going out-and-back and would give my kingdom for a damn loop. He claimed there were no loops where we were. I figured he was probably wrong, but had no good evidence.
• Took the trail I wanted. H suddenly kind of tense but I’m trying to just ride through it.
• H explodes into a bolt because the grey dog runs in from behind him. The grey dog goes everywhere with us. He has never before cared one bit about the grey dog. I ride my first bolt without dying.
• H remains tense. “Well, this is terrifying.” (I actually say this out loud.)
• All trails I pick dead end, so we turn around and get on the one trail we know goes a long way. We trot some, canter a little. I cannot find the all day trot. It is either too fast and bouncy or he’s breaking back into a walk. He’s especially unhappy about trotting on the stretches of hard, rocky ground. I start obsessing over buying hoof boots, which is probably not what I should be doing while riding.
• We have a couple pretty good stretches at trot and canter. (They feel long, but in reality are probably only a minute or two.) I’m smiling. Everything is green and lupine and balsamroot are blooming and it’s a very WOW spring evening. I’m SO going to do my first LD on this horse soon. I love this.
• I keep waiting for the loop to form, but don’t say anything. It’s probably like 7:30 pm. We’ve been out 1.5 hours.
• Again, even after 5-6 miles, I cannot make my horse do a comfortable, consistent trot. He’s starting to be Obnoxiously Hungry Horse, threatening to go full stop from a trot to stick his face in whatever green thing is on the side of the trail. I have to keep rein and leg on constantly.
• There’s still no loop. RCowboy finally asks how far we’re planning to go; it’s going to be dark soon. I tell him about the loop. He reiterates that there. are. no. loops.
• We turn around. It’s a long way back and the sun is setting and I *still* can’t make my horse go the speed I want. I snap at RCowboy and tell him to “just go back” because I’m tired of him stopping to wait for us. We’re plodding along at a pokey walk now because I’m too frustrated to keep trying to trot right and my legs are fresh Jell-O.
• My brain is going “I’m never doing this again.”
• A mountain lion killed someone on a mountain bike in Washington this week. Mountain lions like to hunt at dusk.
• I hate my horse, I hate my tack. I hate everything. I don’t want to do endurance. Our ride has become a slow, sad death march back to the trailer. We have gone 8.5 miles. It is dark-ish.
• Horse suddenly terrified that there’s a mountain bike on the trail ahead of us. I dismount because another bolt right now will absolutely kill me.
• Silently walk next to angry man on mountain bike the last mile back to the trailer.
• Horse will not load into trailer. Of course he won’t. It is full dark and after 9 pm.
• RCowboy, displaying an amazing load of patience for this juncture of the evening, loads horse for me. It is not pretty, but it gets done. He also tries to talk to me about focusing on all the good things that happened tonight, and I want to murder him.
• Get home, examine odd sweat patterns that probably mean saddle doesn’t fit, feed, feel terrible about myself, pour large glass of wine and eat leftovers while watching dark crime show set in rainy city. Sleep the sleep of babes.

No part of this looks the way an endurance ride should look

Death by out-and-back

Regarding goals for the ride, we were certainly out for an hour. We most certainly did not trot more than walk.

It’s amazing how little time it takes to forget how shitty something can feel. Today I’m all “let’s go out again! I bet I can find a loop! Where’s the entry form for my first LD?”

At least we saw a pretty sunset

Author: jess

I love my dogs and equines and good food, drink and music. I believe that the world is a better place because of bad Sandra Bullock movies, Hank Williams, and honeybees. I used to think I would never live in the middle of nowhere eight hours from the ocean or own a horse as an adult, but now both are true, so I may be an unreliable narrator.