Sadie was a good horse at Indian Creek trip

Well, good by my standards anyway.   She was almost having a meltdown on Monday morning because we were not going out right away but I did some small circles and interrupted her jumping up and down action and let her lead the way walking as fast as she wanted to.   She was pretty much brave and stayed in the lead instead of going "oh scary, someone else go first here."    I worked on my riding form, being mindful of keeping my feet level and legs underneath me instead of out in front.  I think I do this better in the Wintec saddle but I did notice myself doing the toes up and legs forward a few times and corrected.   If I can stay mindful of this on Tanza in the Synergist saddle hopefully I will improve my alignment on him.   I should try to find a place to take some lessons, to get feedback if my position goes wonky but that may not happen since I hate committing to get the horse somewhere on a regular basis.

The trip went pretty well.  I felt bad for J a few times.  Mom and sis IMO do not relate to male to some extent, and then he does tend to get caught up in doing something perfect instead of fast sometimes and doesn't communicate if he decides to drop back from the group when riding; so they were nattering at him a fair amount.   Oh well,  he does have Scouts and now a job so he gets some interaction away from 'the hens'.    

J's new horse is a great little trail horse and was a dream for loading and unloading.   Beetle Bomb (sp?) is also cute.   A small black and white paint, has the cute little QH/paint head.   Mason was pretty good, he didn't seem horribly itchy like last year.  I think maybe Bee and Lady stay up on top more to avoid the deer flies and Mason stays with the group rather than ignoring that he is getting bitten to eat lusher grass down in the bottoms.

Lady is looking good, being out in the pasture with the geldings is agreeing with her.   She did get a sore back.   DL rides kind of heavy on her pockets and the pad I had left them was not thick or long enough.   The one that R thought was too thick when I took Lady up in June seemed to work fine on Monday, and I cut a hole in it where Lady's spine was irritated so hopefully she is more comfy with the saddle for any future riding this year.   I put Arnica on the spot Monday morning and night and
she will have some time for the irritation to go away and they have and use Arnica too so hopefully that resolves quickly.   It was not hugely worse than what Tanza had after LaVeta, a bit more tender to the touch.   His back got better but I must remember to shim his saddle while I am letting him rest and regain weight.

Tanza took 4th place on Saturday ride

But we took almost 10 hours including the official 1 hour hold and voluntary 15 minute hold I gave him to eat.   That was a fairly tough trail;  but some of the slowness for Tanza was meeting many mountain bikers.   The cyclists were all great and folks who have trained on those trails probably didn't lose much time but Tanza slowed to a walk every time he saw a bike coming.   Which is good safety in general but the one thing I believe the new RMs did not do was really spread the word to the biking community that there was going to be a horse event on these two days, so there were quite a lot of bikes on the trails;  folks who had horses that were blasé about bikes probably just asked their mounts to maintain pace.

I rode only on Saturday, it was only a 2 hour drive home on Sunday and I am still out of it today.   I brushed my teeth after breakfast and only got the top retainer put on.   I was trying to figure out why I could not find the edge to remove the bottom one to eat lunch and finally DOH, it is not even in my mouth.

I also left my purse in my p/u so had to wait for someone to be coming in the building to get in to workplace;  I had made a list and was going to get some groceries; parked at the store and no purse when I went to grab it and the shopping bag.   Oh well, it is no big deal.

I need to shorten the new martingale I made for Tanza.   I need to figure out how to stop riding heavy on my left side.  Mainly that is the side I post when I'm not thinking about posting both diagonals but I think that there is additional unevenness from me.   Tanza gets fill on the left side legs, especially the front.  At least I have figured out that I am the cause.

I tried using silicone caulk on the bites from CJ, which worked well to stop rubs from the saddle/pad. I am going to have to put some wool felt or something in the middle of my saddle, it is bridging on Tanza, so that is probably mostly why he got a bit back sore at La Veta.   I used a different pad set-up for this ride; I think it helped but he still got a bit back sore.   I tried using silicone on his legs instead of splint boots also.   I have to see how long it takes for it to come off and he did have a couple of scrapes anyway but I think it will be preferable to boots while Tanza learns to be more careful and not beat his legs up.

I definitely am NOT riding him 50 at Beaver Meadows in 3 weeks.  He is getting a bit skinny and needs some good rest after doing 5 fairly challenging 50 mile rides in 5 weeks, no way am I trying to do a another quite tough 50 mile ride on him.   I think I don't even want to do the 30 on him.  I was thinking I wanted to support the RM but I am not sure that I do.   She is very nice, she does a great job of organizing, having plenty of vets and volunteers -- BUT,  that location is TOUGH riding and I don't think she is even trying to select trails to maximize easier sections.