View from the Wilder Ridge Overlook

Okay, she’s not really a sergeant, but she *is* a member of the Wilder Ranch State Park Horse Patrol.  (Does anyone besides me remember “Sgt Preston, RCMP”?  I thought it had the same ring to it.  Anyhow.)

“Horse Patrol” is a volunteer organization that has branches at several California state parks; in our general area, there are Horse Patrols at Wilder Ranch, Henry Cowell, and Henry Coe State Parks.  The Regional Parks, like Ft. Ord, have a similar organization: BETA (Bicycle Equestrian Trail Association).

The role of the Horse Patrol is to “. . . participate in safety patrols that augment regular state park ranger patrols . . . “  What this means in real life is that we ride the trails, checking on the state of the park:  answering questions, noting trail damage, logging sightings of mega-fauna such as bobcats and deer, and being available to the rangers via radio, to go to a specific site, if necessary, and check things out.  We have to patrol in groups of at least two, and, since the idea is to be accessible and visible, we just walk.

Georgia and PJ

To get on with the story, PJ, a friend who also has a young horse and is also a docent at Wilder Ranch, mentioned that she had just gotten certified for Horse Patrol, so I looked into it, too.  It sounded like just the thing for Sunny:  getting exposed to lots of different things and people, and doing it calmly, so I sent off a note to Georgia, the Person in Charge at Wilder Ranch, to get started.

To get certified, you have to go on four check-out rides with Georgia.   You have to (a) complete all the rides safely (Georgia tells tales of potential volunteers who didn’t!) and (b) your horse has to meet certain behavior criteria.  Georgia sent me a copy of the standards before we went out.  It included such things as stands quietly when being tacked up and mounted, deals calmly with other horses, is a good ambassador to park visitors, pace can be rated, etc.  I sent a note back to her saying that Sunny could do most of the things most of the time but none of the things all of the time. Georgia said that was probably normal for a horse, so we set up our first check-out ride.

Our first ride pretty much set the pattern for the rides to follow.   The Patrol usually consisted of PJ and her gelding Wiley, Georgia and her mare Scarlett, and Sunny and me.  When on patrol, we park our trailers in the visitor’s lot at the Wilder Ranch State Park complex – a paved parking lot where all the visitors park.  That’s the first hurdle. Sunny was, and is, to this very day, wary of that lot.  First, since it’s paved, it’s slippery. Second, you never know what or who’s going to get out of a car – there are frequently groups of 20 or more people, lots of cyclists, and a zillion kids, many of whom have never seen a horse, except on TV.

The Parking Lot - All Patrols Start Here

After everyone gets ready, you walk down the road to the Wilder Ranch Ranch Complex.   As some of the docents say, “We’re no Williamsburg, but we’re on our way.”  The Ranch Complex consists of the following buildings:

• A home built in the 1870s(?)
• A Victorian home built in 1897/8
• A dairy barn built in the late 1800’s
• A blacksmith shop and machine shop, all run by water power
• A granary
• A chicken coop with about 40 chickens
• A barn with 5 goats and a some sheep in outdoor paddocks
• A adobe building, probably from the mid-1800’s
• A rodeo arena from the 1920’s which currently contains draft horses

And the volunteers are all in period dress, which features long dresses for the women and hats for both men and women (when I am acting as a docent, I wear coveralls – my persona is as a dairy worker).

Anyhow, when there are volunteers available, all the buildings are open – and there are blacksmiths whacking on things at the forge, people in the machine shop using the water-powered, belt-driven tools,  and people in the houses, cooking on the wood stoves, making quilts, carding wool, etc.  And that’s just what the volunteers are doing; the park visitors are watching the activities or eating the just-baked cookies, or participating in making corn meal or learning how to milk a cow,  or just scampering on to the next thing.  In other words, from a horse’s point of view, anything could happen at any time.

If you happen to be a horse walking through this, in addition to the things mentioned above, parents and children will run up to you and want to pet you. Frequently, the parents will want to lift their kids up in their arms so they can touch the horse’s face or mane.  Sheesh!  It’s good, but scary.  One of the requirements to pass the certification is that you can ride through the Ranch Complex.  I did it twice, to prove that Sunny was capable, and since then I’ve hand-walked her.  I think it’s safer and it makes us more approachable. Also, you have to walk your bike through the complex, so it seems only fair that we’d walk our horses, too.

Coming through the Hwy 1 Underpass. Note the tunnel mouth in the background and the family off to the right

So, you mount up in the parking lot and ride down to the Ranch Complex, and right through the middle of it.  Then you go through a tunnel *under* Highway 1, and out past the arena with the draft horses in it.  Whew!  At that point, you’re finally at the trail head, and according to Sunny, things are easy after that.

View from the Wilder Ridge Overlook

There isn’t a set route that we have to patrol, it’s purely “dealer’s choice”.  Our rides with Georgia always featured a stop at the Wilder Ridge Trail Overlook – you can see why.  As we ride, we keep track of any deer, bobcats, coyotes, wild boar, etc that we see.  And the horses usually see these things first.  I’ve learned to pay attention when Sunny’s head goes up – her nose is frequently pointing as something “countable”.  We also count the hikers and bikers we pass.  When the budgets are drawn up for each state park,  weight is given for park usage and how much habitat it protects, so our documentation serves a purpose.

Dealing with Bikes

On the training rides, Sunny had to lead, follow, and be in the middle.  The only issue for Sunny was hikers with backpacks – they looked darned scary.  Oh yeah, and bikers trying to look invisible  by getting off their bikes and squatting down behind them.  It’s sort of funny: the people who are trying hardest to do the right thing are frequently the scariest to the horses because they try to be *really* quiet – so, Sunny at least, thinks they’re laying in wait for her and there’s no way she’s getting close enough for that!  When this happens, we start waving and yelling “Hello there!”, hoping to get some response from them that will allow the horses to figure out what they are.

Also, we had to show that we could negotiate normal trail obstacles.  Like logs across them.

Checking the Singletrack

The other necessary skill is getting off the trail for hikers and bikers and baby strollers to pass.  Sunny hasn’t had a problem with this so far, but I’m not sure if she’s going to be as imperturbable after all the trailside grass is dried up.

After you’ve done your trail ride, you have to return to the trailer via the same route, that is, through the complex – but it’s way easier after the horses have been out for a couple of hours.

We got certified about a month ago. The only problems Sunny had during the process were due to her pull-backs. Her first blivet was when I hooked her to the bike rack while I went to the bathroom. Fortunately, I just wrapped my reins around the rack, I didn’t tie. Anyhow, according to PJ and Georgia, she did great until I flung open the door, whereupon she pulled back dramatically.  Of course, she stopped nearly instantly when she was free, but it was scary.  Also, it’s had a lasting effect:  many of the bathrooms at local parks (Ft Ord, Sunol) are built on the same pattern – and now Sunny gives them a *very* wide berth.

And on her last check out ride, I had her attached to the trailer on a Blocker tie. As I set the buckle on her girth, she went straight up. When she came down, she went back and slipped on the asphalt and fell. I grabbed her line as she went by, she did two bucking revolutions around me and stopped.  I pulled the saddle and pad, checked for burrs, etc., didn’t find any, put everything back on, and rode out. No problems.  I think Georgia passed us because we were able to recover.

Since then, we’ve done three patrols, I think, all of them uneventful. And, yes, I *do* wear the uniform that you see Georgia and PJ wearing – as a child of the sixties, I’m a little uncomfortable with it, but there it is.  There are some male patrollers, but most of the Patrol are like me:  middle aged to late middle-aged women.  My personal opinion is that we keep things quiet by spreading grandmotherly zen around from horseback.  On the other hand, at Henry Cowell, horse patrols were stepped up last year because there were a couple of incidents of theft – so we *are* called out to meet specific needs.

Anyhow, it’s a great privilege to be able to ride in one of the most gorgeous places in the world *and* be able to feel like you’re doing some good.  If you have some time, investigate joining the horse patrol.

wanna ride?

View from Top of the World

Last Fall I observed a couple of NATRC rides and decided that they would be a great way for Sunny and I to start our large group riding career – everyone there has a stake in keeping their horses calm and well-behaved, so I figured I’d have a better chance of  keeping Sunny calm and well-behaved.

Apologies in advance: my memories of the pre-ride activities are *much* clearer than those of the actual ride!  And this is a LONG post, so be prepared.

**************Skip this part if you know about NATRC****************

To get everyone on the same page, NATRC stands for North American Trail Ride Conference, and, after listening for 2 days, I understand that it is pronounced “Nay-Track”.   Here is what I think I know about NATRC rides.

NATRC puts on competitive trail rides, where horses are judged on conditioning and manners, and riders are judged on their skill in riding, managing and caring for their horses.   The judging starts as soon as you check in and includes the set up of your camp.   The rides are designed to be ridden in a specified amount of time.  You are penalized for each extra minute up to 30 minutes late, then you’re disqualified.  Same deal only backwards if you’re too fast.

There are three classes of competition:  novice, open, and . . . something else.  Novice is for beginner horse and rider teams, the others are for more experienced teams.  Thus, novice class does less distance than the other classes, and at a lower speed. The default pace for novices seems to be 3.5 mph and 5.o mph for the other classes. This speed can be adjusted for terrain, so if the ride terrain is unusually difficult, the speed can be lowered.

In each class, there are lightweight and heavyweight divisions.  “Lightweight” is defined to mean that the rider plus tack weighs over 190 pounds. Heavyweights exceed 190 pounds.

Before you start, there’s a vet check, where the horses get a once-over: pulse, respiration, gut sounds, back soreness, legs, hydration, etc, as well as a trot out and lunges in both directions, to ensure that they are fit to start with respect to soundness, attitude, etc.  In addition, the horsemanship judge makes sure that they are clean and well taken care of and that the handler knows how to manage them in the group.

On the trail, there are several Pulse and Respiration checks (P&Rs) as well as observed obstacles, where the judges ask all horse and rider teams to negotiate a specific obstacle and assess their performance.  Also while on the trail, teams are judged for things such as one horse crowding another – in other words, manners count!  At the end of the ride, the pre-ride vet/horsemanship check is repeated.  As you can see, to be successful, you have to have invested the time to have a well-conditioned and sensible horse, hence my interest and confidence that we’d have a good chance of being safe from lunatic horses and riders for our debut.

Finally, each time the team is vetted or judged on some horsemanship issue, the judges fill out a little form with comments, which you get at the end of the ride, so you know why they gave you the score that they did.

*******************Back to the ride story***************************

All in all, it looked intimidating and challenging, and something that would be good for Sunny and me both. So I signed up for the first ever Arnold Rim Trail NATRC ride.  It was held in the National Forest just outside Avery, California – at about 3500 feet of elevation, I’d guess, on Saturday, 22 May.  The novice course was 21 miles.  That’s longer than Sunny had ever done at one stretch before, but we’ve done a lot of miles and a lot of back-to-back rides, so I figured we could do this.

The only little thing is that you have to have your horse “securely” attached to your trailer:  portable corrals won’t do.  And Sunny has developed a pull back problem over the past year, so this requirement worried me a lot, but it also motivated me to do something about it. So I went to Marybeth, as I usually do.  This tale was told in a preceding blog (Sunny & Pull Backs) and end of the story was that Sunny successfully spent one night tied to a trailer before we went to the ride.  So I figured there was a chance we’d survive, but I was still very concerned.

The first hint that this was going to be even more than we had bargained for was the drive in.  Google Directions were great until we left the paved road. Then the going got rough – the road had gotten a work out over the really wet and snowy winter, and there was a set of ruts literally 9 inches deep running down the road. They looked like they had been created by a big truck of some kind because they were set at about the width of *my* truck wheels.  I was really concerned about getting stuck because the truck is sort of operating at its limits with the camper and the horse trailer both.  The task was complicated by the huge puddles that occasionally covered the road. The last 1.5 miles took me almost 45 minutes – I had the truck in 4wd all the way.  Sheesh.

When I got there, I got some directions as to where to park, unloaded Sunny and went to check-in. I must have telegraphed my nerves: Chris, the Ride Secretary, sent her daughter back to camp with me to show me around and tell me what came next.  Thanks, Chris!

As soon as I checked in, I had to wear a bib with my number (61) on it any time I was out of the camper, so the judges could identify me, in case I did something really goofy. Also, Chris gave me little ribbons with the number on it to put on Sunny’s bridle and halter, in case she got away.  There was also a tag for my trailer, so the judges could judge my camp set up.

Anyhow, it had gotten really cold as we climbed up to Avery, so I had a heck of a time getting my bib over all my clothes, but I finally did and Sunny and I went for a couple of laps around camp. After that we went over to vet in.

The horsemanship judge checked her first by feeling her coat and mane to see dirt, checking hoofs, etc.  Then the vet did her exam, while the horsemanship judge watched to see if I was handling Sunny in a way to keep her in control and the vet safe.  Sunny stood nicely for the check, then we had to trot out a ways, stop, make two trotting revolutions in either direction, then come back. Sunny was totally confused by lunging on a line shorter than 22′ so we didn’t cut a good figure, but we were certified as fit to start.

(Which was a relief:  from what I heard later, 30 people brought their horses to the ride, only 23 made it through this initial check.)

The next step was to go to the Ride Meeting – which required that I tie Sunny to the trailer and leave her. I tied her to my trusty inner tube, took a deep breath, pulled up my socks, and marched off to the meeting with my info packet.

Ride Map for Arnold Rim Trail Ride

There were two interesting things about the meeting. The first was the discussion of the map – you can see it above, with my annotations.  The top outline is the morning route, the bottom one is the afternoon route.  I *get* that a map is a symbolic representation of the terrain, but this was at least one level of abstraction up from a map:  as you can see, there were no points of reference, no trail names, no lat/longs, no nothing.

As those of you who have traveled with me can attest, I was going to get lost for sure and I was terrified. No one else seemed to be panicking, so I guess that you learn to read these route sheets, just as you do a map. And in addition to the sheet, the route is marked on the trail by ribbons and pie plates.

The second item of interest was the weather.  First, it rained.  Then it hailed.  Then it rained.  And the wind blew throughout. And Sunny was tied to the trailer.  And it was COLD.  I was wearing two sweaters, wool socks,  and a Carhartt heavy jacket and I was cold. Fortunately, I’d brought Sunny’s heavy blanket, so she was okay. Anyhow, I got back to the trailer and Sunny was eating her alfalfa, so I went to bed in the camper. As the rain rattled on the camper roof, I thanked the guys at Scotts Valley RV for fixing my roof and the lights. It was bad enough to be cold, but to be wet, cold, and in the dark would have been too much.

Did I mention that it was cold?  I didn’t want to turn on the heater in the camper because I’d never done it before and trying it in the dark and rain for the first time didn’t seem smart.  So, I went to bed with my clothes on under two sleeping bags and a throw blanket.

Ride management honked a horn at 5:30 AM, so I got up, made myself some coffee and started hand walking Sunny around again until she seemed somewhat comfortable, then I cleaned her, tacked her up and went down to the starting point in time for the 7 AM start.  It was clear, for which I was grateful, but cold – I wore a sweater as my first layer, another sweater as my second layer, then my vest and my bib.  I felt like the Pillsbury Dough Girl, but I was able to get on Sunny, so I figured it wasn’t excessive.

Riders start at 30 second intervals, but after the start, usually group up. I *really* needed to group up since I was certain I would get lost alone.  Since I didn’t know anyone, my plan was to hang out at the start and look pathetic.  I got a couple of nibbles, but they didn’t work out because I admitted that Sunny was a slow walker – these people had Missouri Foxtrotters, which are gaited horses with really fast walks, so we decided that we wouldn’t fit it. Finally, we were running out of people so I just took off. There were two kids (not children, but kids to me!) Daniel and Cacia, right behind us, so we all sort of rode off together.

Daniel and Cacia

I’ll get it out of the way early:  if it hadn’t been for Michelle (who’ll be introduced later), Daniel and Cacia, I would be wandering in the Sierras, even now. I was completely lost within a mile of camp.  As I mentioned, the trail was marked with ribbons and pie plates, but I seemed unable to either see them or interpret them. I certainly owe finishing the ride to my companions, so, if you read this, thanks!

Our first observed obstacle was about a quarter mile from the start. You had to trot across a little clearing to the judges, then follow their instructions. I think the idea was that the horses would be pretty amped this early in the ride, so this would be a test of the rider’s management skills. We trotted over to the judge, who told us to stop, then back 2 steps.  Sunny stopped and backed the two steps, but swerved her behind to the right, to see the jeep driving by on the forest road. Dang!

When we left that point, Sunny and I were following a man and a woman riding together.   I was really working to keep them in sight because I figured that if I had Daniel and Cacia in back of me, and these two in front of me, I had a good chance of (a) not getting lost initially and (b) getting found if I did get lost.  Anyhow, in about a 15 minutes, the couple separated and the woman slowed down enough for me to catch her. This was Michelle, whom I’d be with for the rest of the ride. Thank you, God.  Thank you, Michelle.

Anyhow, somewhere in here Daniel and Cacia caught up with us. Or maybe we caught up with them – anyhow, we started riding together.

I should mention that, on the infamous map, there was a grid of points on the map and the elapsed time it should take you to get there.  So you’d be riding along and there’d be a paper plate attached to a tree with “P3″ written on it.  You’d refer to the grid on your map, which would tell you that you should be at P3 at 2 hours and 35 minutes into the ride.   At the start you’re supposed to set your watch or timer to noon (zero), so your have something to match to the time.  I thought I’d done that, but I didn’t realize how tight the times were going to be:  I hit the start button when I got on Sunny, about 5 minutes before I actually started. Michelle had hit the button on time, so she had a clear notion of how we stood.

At the first point, we were already several minutes later than the optimum time, so we had to figure out how to speed our little group up.  I volunteered to have Sunny take a crack at leading, and she really stepped up.  I was wearing my GPS thingie because I wanted to see how her heart rate trended through the ride, but it also gave speed. She was walking between 3.2 and 3.8 mph  – which is darned good considering that she wasn’t getting to 2 mph early last summer.  Anyhow, she seemed to set a pretty good pace, so we stayed in front.

Oh yeah, just after we got in front, there were two big boulders across the road. All the horses did the “snort and swoop” when then saw them and it took Sunny probably a minute to get across them and the other horses took their time, even after Sunny was over. These boulders were the ONLY thing that all four horses were leery of in all the time we rode together.

Sunny led through overhanging branches and eroded trails. I think we crossed creeks three times in the morning and twice in the afternoon. They weren’t the Mighty Mississippi, but they weren’t puddles either, and she did great. She’d stop, sniff and go. I was so proud of her.

At the first P&R (pulse and respiration) check, she got 8/2 – they measure each item for 15 seconds, so that means a heart rate of 32 beats per minute and a respiration rate of 8 breathes a minute.  The people at the stop seemed impressed and a couple of them asked where she came from.

Daniel and Cacia Climbing to Top of the World

Right after the P&R, we climbed to Top of the World.  It was steep and rocky, but beautiful at the top.  And by far NOT the steepest climb in the ride.

Another view from Top of the World

In the photo, you can see the clouds coming in.  It was cold when we started, but clear.  On the trail, it stayed cold because the first part of the ride was down in the trees, and then, when we emerged, the clouds were rolling in and consolidating. Finally, there were large, wet globules falling from the sky.  I’m not sure whether it was technically snow or sleet, but it was wet and cold and I hadn’t anticipated it on this ride.

The trails were mostly singletrack with some small sized fire roads thrown in.  I was comfortable walking, Sunny seemed comfortable, and, according to my gps unit, we were marching along close to right pace.  But by the time we got to lunch, according to Michelle’s time keeping we were 30 minutes over time – disqualification territory.  I was not too concerned – Sunny was acting like Miss Manners and she’d successfully spent the night at the trailer, so my goals had been met.  However, Michelle kept saying, “Your horse is doing beautifully. It would be a shame for her not to place because we missed the time by a minute or two.”  I thought that was pretty compelling, so we agreed to really step up the pace after lunch.  We thought we could do it because we had essentially half the ride left to do – we’d done 11 miles in the morning, so there were 10 left  in the afternoon.

You have to take 45 minutes for lunch and I thought it would drag, but it was the shortest 45 minutes on record.  It seems like I pulled Sunny’s tack, got a handful of chips and put on yet another jacket, then realized I had to get her tacked up and back to the Start point in 10 minutes. Sheesh!  We made it, but just barely. Just as we came out of lunch, there was another judged obstacle. This one was a series of 3′ high berms, all in a row. The idea was to see if you could keep your horse controlled through the quick up and down, and if you could keep your weight in the right places to help your horse stay in balance. I felt like we did okay on that.

Anyhow, we stuck to our commitment – we trotted everything that was flat or slightly uphill and had good footing. The footing became a consistent issue on the last half of the ride – there were lots of times the trail had either huge boulders in it that the horses would slip on, or babyhead boulders that would roll around under foot.

Oh yeah, the last segment before the P & R, we had to ride out to a point, then backtrack back. There was a big tree across the trail and it had fallen so that at the end where it was low so the horses could step over it, there were several large branches to step across.  Sunny looked at it, then tried to step across it, but didn”t make it – she stuck her foot between two branches.  When she tried to step out, it caught her leg and pulled her back.  I wasn’t expecting it, so when she stopped, I almost went over her head -  I wrapped my arms around her neck and saved myself.  Sunny stood stock still until I sat up. Then she very deliberately pulled her leg straight up and out and walked on. What a gal.

Slight diversion.  In the last half there is a point where there are three ultra steep pitches right in a row – much steeper than the climb to Top of the World. The longest is probably only 50 yards, but, to my mountain biker’s eye, they look like they are at least 30% grades, and they are erosion paths, so the surface is loose – I wouldn’t dream of trying them on my bike, either uphill or downhill.  When we were at the bottom, we noticed a woman tailing up the hill (”tailing” is when the rider walks and holds onto the horse’s tail, so the horse pulls the rider up the hill, but doesn’t have to carry the rider’s weight.)  I asked Michelle if that was legal because if it was, I wanted to do it, too.  The woman answered instead – when her horse was trying to get up the hill, he broke into a canter, missed his footing on the trail, she fell, and as she fell, the saddle rolled under the horse’s belly!  Somewhere in the wreck, her stirrup was broken, so she couldn’t continue the ride, and she was hand-walking him in.  Sheesh again.

When we left camp after lunch, we were last. By the P&R on the back half we were ahead of 4 other people.  At the P&R, we had to do a judged mount. Sunny was practically perfect.

I’m not sure where it fell in the ride, but there was another judged obstacle – we had to walk our horses through a big puddle. Sunny had been forging across rivers all stinking day – do you think she’d walk through that puddle?  No way!  The first effort, she got her toes wet, but danced around to the side. I walked her back through the middle of the puddle and she did very well, so I turned her around to head out and she jumped it!  First time ever.

Anyway, after the P & R, we continued our pace until I noticed that Sunny was starting to slip in the rear – we’d be walking and she would lose her footing in the rear.  That used to happen a lot when I first started riding her, and it happens now when she gets tired, so I told Michelle that I thought Sunny and I weren’t going to be able to stick with our trotting program.  Michelle took a look around around and said, “The footing’s not good enough to trot here anyway.  We’ll walk too.”

I think we came to that decision about 3.5 miles from the end of the ride. They were among the longest miles of my life and I’m positive they were THE longest of Sunny’s!  She slowed down so much that Michelle had to lead.  The good news and bad news about Sunny is that she really doesn’t seem to care what other horses are doing on the trail. It makes her easy to handle when other horses are misbehaving, but it also means that another horse walking away from her doesn’t count as motivation.  Fortunately, Michelle is patient and the trails really didn’t support speed. The footing was bad and it was all uphill back to camp.

We finally made it back to camp and checked in. After that, we had to clean up our horses and get our final vet check.  I cleaned Sunny as much as I could while she ate.  We went back to the vet, who looked her over and said, “I’d ride this horse, and I don’t say that about many horses!”  Boy, was I thrilled – I think every one thinks their pony is a genius, but it’s really nice to know that someone knowledgeable thinks highly of her, too.  Sunny did well on the check, but I blew the trot out by running into a pile of pine needles on the way back.  Note to self:  look where you’re going, stupid!

When we were done, I tied Sunny to the trailer again – all she wanted to do was stand still and eat – and went off to watch the rest of the horses vet in. There weren’t very many:  only 23 teams started and (I think) only 17 finished within the time limit.

About 30 minutes after the last horse vetted,  the awards ceremony began.  And here is the punchline of this whole story:  Sunny won best horse in the Novice Lightweight division and I won the Horsemanship award in our division.    Whoo Hoo!

In the short term, all the credit goes to Michelle. We finished exactly 30 minutes over optimum – if we hadn’t moved out when we did, we would have been disqualified.

In the longer term, most of what we did was baked in the cake when Sunny was born, so I have Robbie Pruitt to thank for that.  And I have Marybeth to thank for enabling me to give Sunny what support she needs.

So. We had a great first ride. It was really challenging, but I’m ready to do it again.  I’m not sure what I’ll do about the map reading, but there’s got to be a way to convince Michelle to ride with me again!

Lessons learned/ things to work on:

1. I didn’t mention it specifically, but everyone in camp was friendly and helpful, particularly when they found out that I was a new rider.  Linda Thomason, whom I had met last Fall, and Chris, the ride secretary, were both particularly supportive.

2.  Figure out a way to spend the night there after the ride. This time I left right after the awards ceremony because it was SO cold and I was worried about Sunny.  I would like to have stayed and talked to the judges about how to improve our weak areas, as well as socialize with my new tribe.

3.  Sunny didn’t drink as much as she usually does.  They had nice big water tanks, but she scorned them.  I brought her water from home, but she just didn’t seem comfortable drinking her usual amount. The only place she seemed relaxed was drinking from the huge puddles. Fortunately there were a lot of them, but that’s not going to work come September, for example.

4. Find someone to interpret the judges’ comments for me.

5.  Practice lunging on a short line in a flat halter.

6.  More conditioning – Sunny was tapped out by the end of the ride. I don’t know if she could have made it if it had been really hot instead of really cold.

7.  Learn to start my timer when I leave the start, not when I get on Sunny.

wanna ride?

donna

Sunny with her Girth Rope

Sunny has developed a pull back problem over the past year, culminating in a spectacular display on our final checkout ride for the Wilder Ranch Horse Patrol. (BTW, I intend to blog about the Horse Patrol Real Soon Now.)  I’ve been using Blocker Ties with her, which give up some rope under pressure, the idea being that if the horse can get a little relief but still have tension on the poll, they won’t panic, but they will learn that the tension only goes away when they step into it.  And I had her on a Blocker Tie that morning.

Anyhow, something startled her and she went straight up, landed on all four feet, reared, slipped and fell back on the asphalt, which pulled the rope out of the Blocker tie completely.  She scrambled up and I grabbed the rope as it went by.  She did two bucking revolutions around me and came to stop. Sheesh!  It was scary, but it finally motivated me to do something about the problem.  (Note:  I saddled her up and we went on our ride, where she was her normal “What, me worry?” self.)

When I analyzed it, I think I had been making the issue worse by using Blocker ties. Sunny had learned that if she just really stuck to it, she’d eventually get some extra rope. After she figured this out, she did two types of pull-backs:  the truly terrified kind (which I think the Wilder Ranch one was) and the “I-want-to-see-around-the-corner-of-the-trailer” kind.  I wanted to address both, so I went to see Marybeth, as I usually do when I run into a problem.

The first thing that Marybeth did was point out that that on the pull-backs where Sunny was truly scared, the real problem was that when she was startled, her head went up and her body went back – then she ran into the lead rope and it scared her more and it turned into a pull-back. So, for that case, we had to work on Sunny’s “startle reflex” – that is, what she does when she’s surprised.  To do that, we surprised her:  Marybeth jumped up and down and waved flags, etc, while I tried to keep Sunny’s head at a a “normal” place; if it didn’t go up, there wasn’t any pressure.  If her head did go up, I held on until it came down.  We did that one time at Marybeth’s and it got assigned as homework to keep up in Santa Cruz.

The hardest part was to keep startling her:  I’ve worked a lot on desensitizing her to various sounds and sights, so we had to really work to come up with something that she’d respond to, particularly on her home turf. Even when we found something, she’d only be frightened by it the first couple of times we used it, then it was back to the drawing board. And if I do something, by definition, it’s pretty much not scary.  Sheesh. I had Cory be my Horse Startler and she had to work so hard she hurt her back gyrating around!  Also, Marybeth warned that we couldn’t do it often, or Sunny’d start to expect to be scared every time I took her out, thus turning her into a ditzy Arab instead of a sleepy one.

The next issue was the “because-I-wanna” pull backs.  MB addressed these in a couple of ways. First, she had me buy Sunny a flat halter. I always used a rope halter, so the thought was that the flat halter would make Sunny think the rules had changed. Second, since she wasn’t yielding to poll pressure, we used a girth rope on her – it’s in the picture at the top. This is a rope around her body at the withers. When she pulled back, if she didn’t yield to poll pressure, I would tighten  the girth rope a bit, which she responded to instantly. It took about two tries for Sunny to learn how to respond to the girth pressure, then after just a few trials, she started to respond to poll pressure again, so we were off to a good start.

(Note: when we started this, we were in the arena and the girth rope was NOT run through the halter. After she learned what it meant, we set up the arrangement in the picture, which serves the purpose of keeping the ropes organized at the trailer.  This is probably not something you’d want to do without adult supervision.)

I worked on these things at home and returned to Marybeth’s right before our first NATRC ride, where the horses have to be “securely” fastened to the trailers, to see if Sunny had gotten to the point where she didn’t need a girth rope in order to stand still at the trailer. In order to test this, we had to give it a try under conditions as close to a camp out as we could manage.

The first thing MB did was to verify that I’d done my homework: that the startle response was safer, if not completely safe, and that Sunny was responding to poll pressure.  And she was. Yah!

The next item was to actually tie her, surprise her and see how she did. The first step of that process was to set up a safe environment to try it.  MB has a stout little tree growing just outside her arena which she uses for this.  Because of the way the tree is placed, a horse can be tied to the tree while staying in the arena, where the footing is good and it’s pretty safe if the horse does slip.  Also, MB puts a sort of screen over the metal arena fence so a horse can’t slip and cast itself, or put a foot through.

The second step was to attach Sunny to the tree, surprise her and see what happened. Note that I said “attach” not “tie”.  We attached her to the tree by wrapping a rope around it, with an end set up so that, if it was pulled, the wraps would just loosen and Sunny could pull it out under slight tension, and when she stopped, we could pull her back in.

It didn’t matter. We hooked her to the tree and danced around like maniacs. We got her to pull back once for about 10 seconds, then she decided there were better ways to live through the experience, namely by standing still.

So we advanced to the trailer. Marybeth got me an inner tube from a kid’s bike – it was about as wide as it was round, and we attached that to the tie point on my trailer. We then tied the lead rope to that, so there would be some give, but not a lot.  I got a sharp knife (to cut the tube if necessary), we tied Sunny to the trailer via the tube, and we started our scary routine. She pulled back just far enough to test the tire and stopped. And we couldn’t make her do it again.

Soooo, I ate dinner, procrastinated as long as possible, went back to the truck, tied Sunny to the trailer, and went to bed in the camper. I got up about every hour or so to check to see if she was still okay.  She was always okay, and I must have been confident about it because about 2 AM I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 5:30 AM, when she was still quietly standing tied to the trailer, demolishing the alfalfa I’d given her.

So Sunny and Marybeth came through like champs.  Next stop: NATRC!

WOW!  What a week.  Another great camp here at Cowgirl Up Ranch!  I have to say that times like these, I know I am lucky to do what I do.  I so enjoyed sharing ideas and getting to know 8 great ladies.   The weather was great- a blessing considering the storm two days prior to camp and a pretty gloomy day the day after.  Mother nature shined down upon us.  From morning coffee (and Esthers breads) to laughing until our sides hurt after dinner, each day was an adventure.

Hopefully Donna will have a chance to post the pictures after some down time> (and thank you as always for being the camp photographer)  

Thanks again to everyone!

If Sunny and I are invited to ride, Fort Ord is our default destination; there are quite a few reasons for this.

As I mentioned before,  Ft. Ord is the place where the trails are always rideable, all 83 miles of them, I assume – Sunny and I have only ridden about a quarter of them, I’d estimate. The trails are a mix of  singletrack, doubletrack (as above), some large fire roads, and paved roads.  On our rides, we spend well over half our time on single or doubletrack and, since there is so much trail to ride, we haven’t run into too many gonzo mtn bikers – only one, in fact.  Most of the cyclists and hikers we’ve met have been very polite.

Maps.  The Ft. Ord mapping is wonderful.   You can pick up maps at the Creekside entrance or get a pdf file on line.   The maps are show, as far as I can see, the complete trail system, and the trails are numbered, with signs at the intersections labeling the trails.  If you get lost or confused, which happens to me frequently, you can just keep riding until the next intersection, consult the map, and be back on track.  One warning, though – it’s a one page map, so the print is *small* – bring your reading glasses!    Also, since it’s a biiiig park and a small map,  the distances can be deceptive, so keep track of your time.

The terrain is somewhat hilly, as you can see from the Google Earth route map, although not as steep or as high as the Santa Cruz hills.  Sunny and I are starting to trot and canter on the trail a little, and Ord offers perfect trails for our purposes:  pretty open, good footing, and not-too-steep uphill.

The scenery is varied and, particularly at this time of year (spring), uniformly good. Some of the hills are high enough to look out over the Monterey Bay, and others provide views of Mt. Hamilton and Toro Regional Park.  Also, there are several vernal ponds in the park, surrounded by oaks with that moss-mimicking lichen hanging from it – looks like something from the Everglades.  And the wildflowers are gorgeous this time of year (Spring).

Sunny is impressed with the local fauna – they graze a herd of sheep there, which you can hear far before you can see.  We haven’t gotten really close to them yet, but it’s in Sunny’s future.  You can see them on the hillside in the picture below.

Sheep Herd from a Safe Distance

Oh yeah, a Boy Scout troop has started a project where they are stashing geocaches all over the park at places either of historical interest, or placint them so you can see a point of interest – and the description of why the place is interesting is in the geocache.  So there’s one at a point where you can see where the Monterey natural gas storage facility used to be around the turn of the century – before it blew up.  Or points out the route the Portola expedition took in the 1700’s.  I think it’s really interesting and sort of fun to try to find the geocaches.

Suzanne and Sonador at Ft Ord

We have ridden out from two entrances to the park, one near the intersection of Hwy 68 and Reservation Road, and one in back of CSUMB, on Gigling Road. The Gigling entrance is pretty classic California trailer parking – a wide dirt area to pull off in.  The trails from that entrance all take off from a paved road, and many of the offshoot trails have been closed for maintenance when we’ve gone there.

The other entrance, called Creekside, is a dream.  There is a special parking lot for horse trailers and the planners actually budgeted a reasonable amount of space for a horse trailer, so there is plenty of room between trailers and you can drive forward, both in and out – no backing!  Also, the restroom has a *paddock* in front of it where you can leave your horse while you . . . rest.  Finally, they’re not hooked up yet, but the plumbing is in for both a people water fountain and a horse waterer – very unusual in my experience.    The donation station is in front of the restroom. There is no fee for using the park or the horse facilities, but we always leave $10 or $20 – it’s well worth it!

Since didn’t write about the rides as they happened, I’m going to summarize our rides of the winter.  The Master Plan was to work on Sunny’s softness and my equitation this winter, but it just didn’t happen.  As most of you know, this was a really stinkin’ wet year, and the trails in (relatively) near by parks got dry faster than our arena. Also, everyone we ride with had cabin fever and when the rain wasn’t falling, they wanted company on the trail – and we didn’t mind obliging.  So, my grand plan failed, but we covered a lot of miles.

Englesmans & Old Cabin Trails at Wilder Ranch

And for Christmas I got a Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS, with an equine heart rate monitor set up.  Santa didn’t think of this himself; I requested it because I was thinking that Sunny’s heart rate might be a predictor of surprising behavior (such as at the SpookFest), thus making it a non-surprise.  After using it regularly for five months, I don’t think it’s useful for that – the heart rate reporting lags the actual heart rate by a couple of seconds, I think – but it is a really fun device.  As you’re going, it gives you speed, heart rate, distance, elapsed time, etc.  It saves all the info so when you get home, you can chart it on a topo map (see the sample above), and it provides graphs of heart rate, speed, etc over time and allows you to associate them with points on the map – so you can see how quickly your horse recovers from a big climb, or a stretch where you trotted, or whatever. Anyhow, I’ve used it pretty religiously, so I have maps of most of the rides we’ve taken.

So. The next few posts will consist of my descriptions of four places Sunny and I have ridden this winter/spring: Fort Ord, Wilder Ranch, Salinas River Beach, and Sunol Regional Park.

The executive summary is that Ft Ord is the most reliable place to ride: the trails are *always* good, the views vary from looking across the valley to Mt Hamilton to the Monterey Bay, and there are 83 miles of trails.  Oh yeah, and the Creekside entrance was really built with trailering horses in mind.

Wilder Ranch has the most spectacular scenery (the Bay and redwoods), lots of Santa Cruz history,  and the best long hills for conditioning.  However, it is sensitive to rain – the trails turn killer slippery fairly easily in any kind of rain, and parking can be a problem.

Salinas River Beach is, well, the beach. It’s beautiful but it took Sunny awhile to get used to it.

Sunol Regional Park was stunning, also with good trailering facilities and good climbs.  Oh yeah, it’s the only place we’ve ridden with real rivers to cross, which was really good for Sunny. The downside is that I’d guess it would be hotter than blue blazes during the summer, unlike the coastal parks.

Anyhow, I’ll describe each park in more detail in subsequent posts.

wanna ride?

donna

So.  It’s been awhile since I’ve updated the world on Sunny’s Progress.  I think the last post was . . . last Fall?  Sheesh. Well, here goes, and I’ll try to stay on top of it from now on.  So, working forward from the Fall . . .

At the Santa Cruz County Horseman’s Association (SCCHA), after the Trail Trials (see a previous post), comes the Spookfest – held at the SCCHA Showgrounds, usually the Saturday before or after Halloween.  Before the event, the organizers set up 4 “stations”:  a parade, exotic animals, a set of obstacles outside the arena, and a couple of obstacles in the arena. They accept about 20 horses for the event and divide them up into 4 groups that rotate through the stations.

Cory and Jade decided to come along and we arrived early on Spookfest morning, early enough so that the stations were still being set up, and also early enough to nab two of the pipe corrals, in the camping area at the back of the Showgrounds.  Cory and I left The Girlz in their paddocks and went up for orientation, where we found out our groups. Cory and I were in the same group.  After orientation, we got sent back to tack up our horses and meet in the large arena for a large group exercise, after which we’d break up into groups.

Cory and I got our mares saddled up and led them out to the Spookfest area. HA!  When Jade and Sunny went into the paddocks, all that was there were the arenas, round pen, and cross country course. When they emerged this time, there were BIG obstacles, flying flags, bobbing balloons, and about 20 other horses!  The adrenalin spurted, and Sunny went rigid, which is unusual.

I hand-walked her over to the arena and tightened her girth. She was nervous enough so that I’d gone invisible to her.  I turned her a couple of times and got her attention, but I knew, getting on, that I’d never ridden her when she was this distracted.

As my butt hit the saddle, my camera banged on my back (I *think* this is what happened), and Sunny went straight up. And every time she came down, that camera whacked me again, which I think she could feel, and she went higher. On the fourth buck, my camera came flying off. On the fifth buck, my helmet, which I hadn’t buckled came flying off. On the sixth buck, I came flying off and landed on my butt.

Kristie Locatelli, the SCCHA president, was sitting on her horse about 2 feet from where I landed, and she looked down at me and said, “Good job, Donna – I think you made the 8 seconds.”   In the meantime, I watched Sunny buck herself to a halt – about three more huge hops. I hadn’t actually realized quite how athletic she is.  When she came to a stop, I dusted myself off, picked up her reins and went to the round pen for a little calming (why, yes, she needed calming, too). After about 5 minutes we went back into the main arena and I mounted up.

She was initially very nervous but, as the day went on, got progressively less concerned. And I was initially terrified – I’m too old to get dumped very often and survive – but we had so many zen miles by then that in about a minute, I forgot to be nervous, and resumed my normal “What, me worry?” riding posture.

My camera was the only thing that suffered permanent injury – a seriously broken lens.  However, even that had an upside: The Husband had a wonderful time taking it apart and trying to put it together again.  He did, in fact, get it reassembled but it never focused again.  RIP.

Our first station was the parade. Sheesh, talk about confronting your fears! The dressage arena was set up as a parade route, so along one outer edge of the arena  there were a dozen metallic balloons tied to the rails, blowing in the breeze, and people were stationed just inside the rail, waving miniature American flags.  Down the middle of the arena, there were more people, and these had baby carriages, back packs, floppy hats, and umbrellas.  There were no obstacles behind the middle row, so you could take a break back there and just look at all the stuff.  The idea was that your horse would run the gauntlet, then return to the beginning via the low-sensory-input path at the back.  Oh, all of the people had carrots, so if your horse would get close enough, she’d get a reward.

Sunny and I just looked at it for awhile, then I hopped off and I walked her through.  She was hard over that we weren’t going to get near the balloons, so we investigated the baby carriages. She didn’t mind those much, but she drew the line at umbrellas and there was no way that she was going to eat from someone wearing a hat like those people were wearing!  After I walked her through it a couple of times, I climbed aboard and we rode through.  Just about at that point, our group had to move to the first obstacle course.

That course had a LOT of stuff.  Let’s see. Tarps, of course.  A bucket of tennis balls where you were supposed to pick one up out of it and then drop it into another bucket.  (There were golf balls for the truly brave.)  A mattress to walk over.  A pedestal.  A log to step over.  Oh yeah, a kid’s basketball hoop and backboard, so you had to pick up the basketball and put it through the net.

We did all those things, but Jade was getting progressively MORE nervous instead of less. Cory finally got off her, but she was bucking just standing still, so we took the mares back to their paddocks, settled them in, and went back to check out the program.

While we were caring for our mares, four women from the Horse Patrol had rotated into the obstacle course.  Now, the following is not a joke; it really happened.  They had unfolded a real, full-sized  parachute and the four horse/rider pairs were distributed around its edge, so the parachute was waving in the wind, right about eye level of the horses.  Then, one by one, each rider held up their edge and walked their horse UNDER the parachute, while continuing to hold it up!  Holy macaroni!  Please note that they were holding the parachute with one hand, leaving only one hand for the reins. I say again, holy macaroni!

The exotic animal station featured a llama, a sheep, a burro and some miniature horses.  The sheep seemed to be the most fear-inducing thing there.

The other obstacle course was a “car wash”, like the one Mary Beth has.  It was inside the arena.

All in all, I learned a lot just watching the other people. And the thing with the parachute was unbelievable, but inspiring.  I suspect that I frequently sell Sunny short, assuming she’ll be too afraid to do something.  But if those horses can learn to be confident enough to do THAT, surely the sky’s the limit for Sunny, too!

More later.

Donna

Yesterday, I went to a cattle sorting.   I was excited to take along Dakota and enjoy some personal time with one of my own horses.  After a long drive with a number of obstacles making us wonder if we were meant to go at all, we finally arrived.  As we pulled in, I was thrilled to see it appeared to be all I’d heard it to be.  A large group of mostly women in a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere.  Of course, as we finally drove in nearly two hours late, all eyes were on us!

We unloaded and I headed over to sign up.  Taking in all the sights, I saw cowboy hats, baseball caps, pony tails, but very obvious to me-not a single helmet to be seen.  I  honestly felt like an awkward 12 year old, surveying the other kids and knowing I was not only not going to “fit in” I was going to stand out like a sore thumb! 

And those little annoying voices in my head began to bicker.  The “12 year olds” voice started in with a whole litany of excuses why it would be ok to not wear my helmet today.  Along with the whiny “none of the other kids are’” argument, the voice tried to trick me with rationals like, “its really hot out today,” and, “its not like a trail ride, with rocks and hard ground,” Then the voice tried to goad me into it with comments like, “People will think youre scared, a bad trainer, a (fill in blank with whatever personal insult I could come up with) “  Then the guilt approach, “Dakotas a great nearly bombproof horse, it will reflect badly on her.”   All these thoughts raced through my head as I saddled up my horse.

I slipped on Dakotas bosal, snugged up the cinch one last time, and reached in the trailer tack room and grabbed my helmet.  I whispered in her ear, “Its not you, its me.”

Getting on my horse and riding over to the group of around 30 cowgirls, drawing more than passing glances, I could practically hear the judgements.  No doubt some people thought me silly, some thought me scared, some thought me odd, and maybe someone there thought, “hey she’s wearing a helmet, then I wont be the only one.” 

I am excited to have found a group where I can go sort and I can’t wait til the next one.  It will probably be hotter, my voice may have thought of even better insults, and I will still struggle to do what I know is smart and right even if unpopular.  In the end, I will put on that damn helmet, and go do the best I can. 

I wonder if one day I will go out there and not be the only one………….

Well , here we are at week three.  Its interesting that this past week we have had many “honeymoons over” moments.  Now, I frequently have made the observation when a frustrated new owner calls me and tells me that their new horse has been “perfect” and all of a sudden he’s become a total turkey!  My first question: has it been about three or four months since you got him?  Every time the answer is a resounding, “Yes! How did you know?”  My theory here, is that with Cruisers accelerated training, week three is masquerading as month three!

So let me tell you why I’m feeling this way.  If you recall, on day one an interesting observation was his fear of putting his head down to eat with the halter on.  He didnt eat for about 24 hours, enough to concern me.  I believed, and still do, that he was alarmed at the sight of the halter coming behind his eyes when his head lowered.  Well, we passed that obstacle on onwards we went.  Until yesterday. 

I have been taking him out for walks and he’s been great, even no EMU fears!  He’s still unhappy about being haltered-fine once its on- but reluctant at first. So I decided to make a habit of haltering and then getting grain.  Positive reinforcement.  And there, I saw that his sensitivity  to movement behind his eyes, like I observed with the halter, was very much still there.  As I tried to stand to his side while he ate, he became very agitated.  Especially so behind his right eye.  He literally tries to keep that one on me, bending his head all around to watch me closely.

So I stood.  And he fidgeted.  And I stood. And he stomped.  And I stood.  The grain calling to him from the ground, but to eat, he’d have to put his head down with me behind his eye.  By behind his eye, i mean I’m standing at his shoulder facing the same way as he is.  So I stood, and he stood, and I stood some more.  And the song, Stand By Me played in the background.  Cracked me up.  Little did I know at the time, I would stand there in this battle of wills for over two hours!

TWO HOURS!  Yeah, I think its crazy too.  Those of you who remark at my amazing patience, I learned it from mustangs.  They are happy to wait you out.

Well, two hours of just standing there doing absolutely nothing gives one time to reflect on their methods.  I mean, I could get a sturdy rope, a small round pen, a bag on a stick, and push him to the limit until he stands whether he likes it or not.  And in the future we will do that to desensitize and learn how to think through the scary things in life.  But as I reflected, and tried not thinking about having to pee, I knew in my heart that this was a trust issue, not a fear issue, and I want him to freely choose to trust me.  So I stood.  Finally, after a long slow subtle dance of his sly steps away and my casual steps keeping me right where I was, he stomped his foot a few times and then, and I’m not kidding here, then he sneered at me.  It was a true sneer, crinkled nose and sidewise glare included.  Then he put his head down and ate.  Hallaluyah!

I know some of my competition in this challenge and they’d likely have a good chuckle at this posting.  We’ll see.

So today, we reinforced that I’m trustworthy from all angles, and it still hasnt been an easy task.  My patience has been tried and in those long periods of waiting, my doubts surface.  But tonite I really feel we passed a hurdle and he is becoming a willing partner in this endeavor.

Is blue my color?

So its two weeks ago today that I brought Cruiser home to begin our journey.I am convinced that I drew the smartest and most kind hearted mustang ever known!  I know I sound like a proud parent, but dang it, its true.  In two weeks he’s gone from a an untouched, formerly wild mustang to a halter trained, affectionate carrot junkie.  We’ve had some crazy weather, too, thats cut back on working time.  This afternoon though, the sun broke thru and we got some quality time.  I was worried about footing, so I didnt want to do any round penning.  In fact, we have only been in the round pen once so far.  The arena seemed in ok shape so leaving the halter behind, I decided we’d try playing with a big ole saddle blanket in the wide open, unrestrained space.  I really didn’t know how it would go.  Within about 45 whole minutes, I was tossing the blanket completely over his back!

On Friday last week, I took my good ole girl Spirit and did some hook on via horseback.  It was much fun and I really enjoyed working with the young mustang from the back of my first ever mustang.   I have some video (Thanks Cindy) and I am looking into You Tube.  If I figure it all out, I’ll post it.  I’m  bummed that the pics I post are so poor.  As you know, I’m working alone 99% of the time, so the pictures are all arm length self portraits with my iPhone! 

Oh yeah, Roxanne asked how he got his name.  Ciindy and her dad followed along behind the trailer when we brought him home.  They said he rode as calm as could be, taking it all in.  As they watched him watching them, they noticed the name of the trailer just below in bold lettering:  “Cruiser” by Circle J!  and Cruiser he became.  (although, I have to admit, I find myself frequently calling him by his given name of Honey!)