Love my little red horse

Tanzaknight finished the Spanish Peaks 50 with about 9 hours ride time,  1 hour faster than Mtn Mettle and looking pretty strong.   He did have a bit of erratic heartbeat at the 2nd VC and finish.  Vet  said that was probably a little electrolyte imbalance.   He ate less than 1/2 of his big overnight mash with electrolytes in it so I probably should have given him some elytes in the morning before starting the ride.    For future I'm going to offer him mini-meals with 1/2 doses of electrolytes to try to get more of the slow release ones in him and have a better idea where he is.  And I will skip the calcium addition JIC that was putting him off eating.

I think I rode better and that helped Tanza be less tired even though I did less conditioning miles on him while I was fiddling with what bit to use,  german martingale and length on it and putting on a balance rein to keep from bumping his mouth when his trot got bouncy at home.   At the ride I just used the saddle pommel and did not worry about keeping tension on the reins.   Tanza did a good job of not running up on the horse in front of him or getting too fast when we were not in a group.

He is SO FUN to ride at these events.  Oddly he gets a bit more keyed up at home and is harder to ride.  Sadie is the opposite.  She gets keyed up even at home but she tends to get so hyper its not fun at group events.  So betwixt them both I have it covered,  if I networked more and could get riding dates for working Tanza on a regular schedule to get him legged up well I think he has so much natural ability that he could become a competitive horse and run for ride placings and season points totals.    Having that potential is already leading me to stretch myself more than I have in several years; perhaps he will turn me into a serious rider rather than just a piddler as I have been.