Tanzaknight got his 10th ride completion on Saturday

But it was not easy.   Cold wind all day.  Parts of the trail had terrain or trees blocking the wind but the basecamp and vet check area was full wind all day.   I need a crew to remind me to blanket when its cold.  I kept forgetting for a few minutes and then having to fight him being chilled.  Plus I need to work on his recoveries.   He has strong legs but I did not get the speed and hill work in this year like I intended to.  Really need to make that a priority now that his legs have the great base.   So we equalled his 2017 season for # of rides completed.  Finished very strong with the 3 days at Virgin Rim and then coming in 3rd at Greenland.  I was surprised that at that placing as we took over 7 hours to complete and I had thought there were 4-5 folks ahead of the largish group I started with, plus Jimmy the greek passed us.  (He got BC, strong horse, Jim led him out to avoid him getting too wound up at the start, it was great to see him practicing such great horsemanship and it paying off for them)

Tanza is such a trooper.  We started the last loop a few minutes behind the folks I had rode with because of the slower pulse recovery but he caught up and ended up leading them in.  They were great trail partners to ride with.  At the finish line Tanza drank up and then got chilled even though I took him to the trailer to block the wind and got a blanket on him right away.   So lots of walking him tying to get him warm enough to pulse down to 60.   But using the cantle bar for the crupper and the shimming I put on the saddle kept his back comfy.   The pad worked forward, I have got to figure out how to solve that issue.  I'm thinking adding girth straps that velcro around the girth will help and probably a ring at the back of the pad to tie it to the cantle ring would be a good thing. 

I should also figure out what to do for browband.  The band that snapped to the halter was rubbing Tanza's face so I switched to Sadie's browband.  It is too loose for only being on the bridle w/o having the halter through but I like being able to quickly take off the bridle .