I had a marvelous ride yesterday with Heather and Lacey at LBL. We got off to a little bit of a late start due to some tack changes and fitting issues. Lacey went back to change saddles on the first attempt so that was 1.6 mile loop. After trying a few different shimmed pads, I had ended up borrowing Heathers ortho flex saddle to try since she wants to sell it. I think she said it was a Patriot, it has a high pommel and no leg rolls. But It fit Roy really quite well, and was pretty comfortable to sit in at a walk. It was a little awkward or unfamiliar for me at a trot and canter. I ended up deciding against it because, when we jumped a log the pommel jammed me in the gut, (which is quite purple today) as I tend to ride quite forward for the most part. We totaled about 9.7 miles but possibly a bit more because the GPS misses some of the actual footage on the twisty-turny, tight and steep, technically difficult trail we were on. They left about Noon because Lacey had to go to work. I took about an hour cool off period and decided to go for another loop. Bad decision, against my better judgement, and I knew it, but after driving all the way up there and paying day use fee, I wanted more miles. I knew I was sunburnt and a bit overheated, but I had cooled off with ice pack in the truck with AC running, I was staying well hydrated and it was cooler in shade of trees plus wetting my over shirt helps in cooling too. So I saddled up again and we went back out. We headed to trail 10 I think, very rocky and pretty steep at first so I let him pick his way slowly up the ridge. He is still barefoot and a little tender on rocks but not bad. He did very well, calm and quiet, he prefers company though, he wanted to follow the other horses who passed us. After the first mile or so it leveled out more and he trotted a little. Thats when things got.... interesting. We came to a very small stream, just a trickle, and he took a long drink, came up for a pause, and collapsed face first into a mudpit and somersaulted into a roll over. I came off and although my leg was under him when he rolled over I didnt get hurt. I was freaking out though!! I thought at first it was exhaustion or colic or seizure or something and couldnt figure it out. We both came up coated head to toe, bilaterally, with an inch of gooey, grey, gravelly mud everywhere, it looked like wet concrete. My phone case broke and phone was wet/muddy and I couldnt find a clean place to wipe it off. Fortunately the inside of my fanny pack had some clean tissue in it. I wiped it off hurriedly, stuck it in pack and went to catch Roy. He had staggered up and run off about 50 feet and stopped when I called him. He was pretty shook up and spraddle legged at first. I was able to partially rinse my sweat rag and wipe enough mud off his face to get it out of his eyes so he could see. The water was too muddy by then and too shallow to truly rinse off even the rag. But I wiped most of it off my face too, I found a few scrapes from gravel but relatively unharmed. I used my crop to scrape off majority of mud from Roy and saddle and inspect him. He had a small scrape on knee but nothing major. It took me a while to lead him across the creek at that point but moved away from mudhole enough that he finally quit balking. I found a downed tree to remount and we walked on a few feet further then turned around and headed back. By this time I had a headache and he was moving slowly too, although more like he didnt trust his footing than sore. We made it back down the ridge.. Why does it always seem scarily steep going back down? And back to camp. I hosed off horse, saddle and me. It Took a while to get the mud off! He behaved better than usual about the water too, making headway there. My leather boots and gaiters got hosed thoroughly along with the rest of me. There was mud EVERYWHERE!! After thinking about it for a while I think what happened is that his front feet slowly sank deep into mud while he was drinking and when he went to move forward the mud didnt let go and he pitched forward. Luckily he didnt seem injured and no sign of lameness. We did about 3 miles on that loop for total of 13 for day. By the time we loaded up my heat stroke migraine was full blown, hard to focus on driving, falling asleep, had to pull over and puke (and a cop stopped to see if I was ok...yeah, Officer Im fine (puke) or I will be when... (Puke) I finish puking he didnt seem too convinced but drove off. Lol ) I had to get Don on phone to talk me home. It was an AWFUL 1 1/2 hour drive!!! I fell out of truck and into bed (my wonderful hubby took care of horse and trailer) where I was unconscious for 6 hours. I woke up thinking it was morning when he came to bed at midnight. Today I feel pretty good considering. My worst after effect is the sunburn, my upper arms and cleavage are fuschia. So I decided to stay inside today. :) Still, it was a fun ride, I just need to work on cooling options more. I have no heat tolerance and never have. I have learned about a few options to try; Different fabrics, cooling vest n sleeves, light colored helmet, maybe an ice pack around my neck... Dunno, but I have to find something!!
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 21:30:02 +0000
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