If you procrastinate long enough, the write up of all the adventures must expand! Since my last post, Tarma and I have brought home ribbons from our first dressage show; finished our fastest 30 miler ever (plus a poker ride the following day), and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the woods with friends over the loudest and rudest of American holidays. And now she’s nursing a minor injury, ah horses.

It’s a rare thing when everything clicks together and goes smoothly for a wonderful endurance ride. While getting to ride camp was anything but smooth and straightforward, we still made it through the generosity of friends so we could enjoy a couple of fantastic trips over the mountains!

A few weeks ago my weird Jame luck engaged once again: I did a short haul over to Mandorla Farms to practice for our first dressage show with a friend, and when I pulled into Nancy’s barn…I found a bearing had exploded on one of the trailer tires. Jame’s luck: weird/bad stuff still happens and goes sideways, but it’s pretty much always somewhere I can handle the response easily. I was able to put Tarma back in the pasture and limp the trailer home the next day by taking the tires off the front axel and creeping home with my hazards on. My amazing husband was able to take off the brake drums and the front axel, and I dropped it off a repair shop. The trailer is currently still lounging in the side yard; I have the repaired axel back, but we still need to order a new brake drum and stick everything back on before I can haul myself out again. Tarma has been such a trooper hopping on three different trails each weekend! Dani lent me her trailer for the dressage show; Rachel let me borrow her trailer to get Tarma to Santiam; and Angela picked us up so we could spend the holiday out at Sheep Springs.

Our dressage schooling show at the Lake Oswego Hunt Club was more fun that I had hoped for, and a rousing success. I ended up only doing two classes; the USDF Intro B in a deep seat dressage saddle in the morning, and a Working Equitation Intro dressage in the afternoon with our normal endurance saddle. Our scores were great for a first ever show for us both (64.68% in the morning, 64.26% in the afternoon) with similar judge’s notes. Our biggest thing to work on is asking Tarma to really rise up into the bit instead of her default above the bit tenseness, which is totally workable with how strong she’s gotten. I did struggle a bit in the dressage saddle and was much more comfortable in my saddle. I enjoyed the slightly longer WE test and that sport is a bit more fun, with the obstacles and cattle work, so I’ll be looking for a Western saddle to continue our education with that in mind eventually.

The next weekend we loaded up and headed over to Sisters for the Santiam Cascade endurance ride. It was a little more nerve wracking than usual, packing someone else’s trailer for an endurance ride, but I managed to remember most of what I wanted to bring. It was a smooth haul over the mountains and we slid into camp with plenty of time to get everyone settled. It was a low attendance year unfortunately, but this did mean Tarma was able to relax in one of the oversized corrals at Cow Camp all weekend instead of the hi-tie. She vetted in with a heart rate of 36 and all A’s.

I had my ride morning prep and list all set, and I was doing great and was totally ready to leave out with the leaders right when the trail opened for the 30 milers…but alas, somehow I managed to put the hackamore on upside down. Absolute brain fart. I was able to fix it, but it cost me 15 minutes of fiddling. At least this meant I was mounted and able to head out of camp on a loose rein, marching down the trail like a freaking pro-fess-ional! My main goal for this ride was to finish as fast as we were capable of, keeping a close eye on how Tarma handled the extra speed and slowing whenever she needed to. Our usual rides include a lot of walking, which we can get away with because her endurance march is 5-6mph. We barely walked at all this ride, mostly when I needed to electrolyte her and right before vet checks.

Santiam is an perfect ride for a bit of speed, much of the 30 miler loop is on some quality gravel or dirt tracks. It’s a big climb up to the out check at Whispering Pines horse camp, about 2300 feet over 15 miles. The weather was perfect for moving out, not too hot but not bitterly cold even when the wind picked up. I was glad I wore my vest though! We were treated to an amazing rainbow over Mount Bachelor on the way up, it was so freaking cool! Tarma was flying so fast we caught up and passed several groups before the out check, another first for us; I had to remember my trail manners for sure! We made it to the out check at exactly two hours, for a moving average of 7.5mph. Not as fast as needed for some sections of Tevis, but a vast improvement over our normal 5.5-6mph!

The check was a bit tricky, she took about 10 minutes to pulse down (normally she’s pretty much at 60 as soon as we find the pulsers), but I wasn’t worried based on the extra effort she’d put in. She peed and drank and came down, trotted out beautifully in her Renegades. I’m really glad I tossed her cooler in the outback bag, she definitely needed it! I didn’t sponge her for cooling at all this ride, it was just cold enough that I was more worried about keeping her muscles from cramping up. She ate well, a bit of everything, but was ready to head out about 10 minutes before our out time. A cold ass wind chased us out of camp and along the ridgeline, which we did walk due to the footing. We hit our groove back along a road…so much I forgot to watch the ribbons and had to turn around. Tarma HATES when I loose the trail and we have to backtrack, she thinks it’s such a waste of time and why couldn’t I have been a better navigator? We found the missed turn after a bit of attitude and kept our speed up the rest of the way into camp without any other mishaps.

Kade helped me strip her tack and sponge her down just a tad, she vetted through cleanly and I decided to show for BC (Best Condition) even though we were almost an hour behind first place. It’s good experience! But this is when I got info I’ll need to reflect and work on…for BC you have to weigh yourself and your tack, as weight is a factor in the judging (though less than overall completion time). Tarma carried 290 pounds, which is more or less what she’s been carrying for five endurance seasons now. By conventional math, that’s about 26% of her weight (I’m assuming she’s about 1100 pounds give or take, I’ve only weighed her once and she was 1050 and she was much less fit then). That weight would get me shamed out of endurance in the UK (and in some circles here too)…and yet, we are three years into our AERC Decade Team status now and Tarma just gets stronger and more capable year over year. If we kept to 50s and Pioneer Rides, it wouldn’t be such a factor, but Tevis asks for less. 1,390 pounds up the hills and through the canyons and into the night is quite a bit, though according to an earlier study on Tevis and body condition scoring not insurmountable. I’ll be doing what I can to shave that down over the next year. It’s not just about loosing weight myself; it’s the factor that will get the most focus, but getting us both stronger and more flexible is just as important. To be honest, I’ll probably always be classified as an AERC heavyweight (over 211 pounds with tack), but at this point it’s something to work on, not a full stop. I’ll also be looking at my tack and seeing what adjustments I can make there. Our saddle is going to stay, but I can switch out to lighter stirrups and leathers, only carry the essentials in my bags, swap out for a lighter bridle and breast collar combo.

At any rate, we didn’t win BC obviously (but received a respectable BC score of 651, not too shabby!) Unfortunately her heel bulb injury from last year did chafe in the Renegade boot (though her other feet did great!) so instead of a 25 miler on Sunday we downgraded to the poker ride. Tarma immediately made it clear I should have cobbled together something else for that foot and done the 25 anyway, she was powerful and amped and ready to charge ahead. She was not hip to the poker ride, booze cruise energy for the first three miles or the last two miles of a barely seven mile loop. I just had my hackamore but we still did a lot of lateral work…for miles. Fitness baby! Thankfully the friends and their horses we rode with were quite tolerant of Tarma’s drama, and we did enjoy a few peaceful, loose rein miles.

The following weekend my friend Angela picked us up and I drove her gooseneck over to Sheep Springs, where the order of operations included “Laziness, debauchery and slow horses!” We interspersed a couple of rides in with largely relaxing, reading, and catching up over good food and drinks…and heard not a single firework, which was all the better for Benny. After three busy weekends I had always planned on giving Tarma this one off so I could help my husband out with house stuff and parenting (teenagers…the same amount of highs and lows as horses!), but she ensured a short vacation by scrapping her leg up on…who the frick knows, but I’m starting to get real grumpy that every injury continues to be on her right side. Every single one. WHY?