FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 12

[HairOfTheDog]

The FreeRepublic Saddle Club - (very out of date) Who's Who *pics*

This is a horse chat thread where we share ideas, ask for input from other horsemen, and talk about our riding and horse-keeping. We have a lot of different kinds of riders and horses, and a lot to share, usually about our horses, sometimes about our dogs, gardens and other stuff we do. :~)

I have a ping list for horse threads that are of interest, and MissTargets will ping everyone most mornings. Let MissTargets and/or me know if you would like to be on the ping list.

So... like the previous threads, this is intended as fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends.

Previous threads:

The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - thread ONE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread TWO!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread THREE!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FOUR
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FIVE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SIX
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SEVEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread EIGHT
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread NINE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread TEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 11

New folk and occasional posters, jump right in and introduce yourselves, tell us about your horses, and post pictures if you've got them!

[MissTargets]

We went camping and riding this weekend. Sorry, no pictures. I rode the Paint mare, Ziggy and didn't know how well she would do with a camera case along her side. My camera is really too big to tote on a ride.

Ziggy did well for me. This is the first time I rode her and the first time I have been on since my incident with Jody. Amy rode Jody and she spooked a few times and got her arse waled for that.

We rode a few hours on Friday and Saturday. The trails were pretty muddy and this morning it rained again. Plus the temps were in the high 80's and very humid. Amy, Alison and Amy's half brother went out and got caught in the rain. We all got soaked loading up. The camp we were at, had a ox roast on Saturday night and a live band. Quite a crowd too. We didnt do the poker run they had on Saturday. It would have taken about 3-5 hours and I didnt want to commit to that, not knowing how my rear would feel. This was a fund raiser for the club who own the camp and they had a lot of raffles also.

[Duchess47]

It sounds like a nice weekend, even with the rain. I'm glad to hear that Ziggy did well for you.

Tuffy left this afternoon.

[MissTargets]

Wow, he looks very nice! Is he going for more training, showing or being worked with? Sure has grown up.

Is that a 6 horse trailer in the background?

[Duchess47]

No, Janelle’s trailer and our large one are four horse. The other one is a two horse stock.

We sold 50% ownership to Janelle, she took him today and will arrange to campaign him for his ROM and later stand him at stud. She is walking on air right now :)

[HairOfTheDog]

That’s a terrific outcome for him. I’m glas about that, we’ll still get to follow his progress! :~)

We got back late from our trail ride... had a good ride! I’m uploading pics and stuff, but I’ll probably just post it in the morning, we’re beat!

MT - glad your ride was good!

[HaveFaith]

Glad to hear you are back on. Sounds like a fun trip. I would ride in mud just to get to have rain.

Duchess-Tuffy is beautiful. I will try to take pics of Freckles. He is getting white hair where his belly and back legs meet. I am trying to wait for more gray for his paper pictures. The "seroma" is coming back. Guess I'll just have to wait for nature to take it's course.

Becky, the vet is very nice. Hal says it's mid-80's model. I just wanted to see if he knew since he is a GM retiree and a vehicle nut.

[HairOfTheDog]

Finally, a trail ride from Washington! I don't know if it was particularly dark in the shade of the woods yesterday or if I'm out of practice, but a lot of pictures didn't come out very good... dark and blurry. Well, we enjoyed it in the dark and blurry places, because it was a little hotter out yesterday than we like it.

But here's some that came out.

We rode out to the falls rest stop, and got off and took a break. It was a hard ride out for us, and it shouldn't have been, it's only a few miles. But being out of shape and hot, we were ready for a rest. :~)

Bay licking the salt off Cyn...

Cyn taking our water bottle. ;~)

The bridge on the way back...

Pretty big tree...

Cyn leading for awhile when we had to turn around and backtrack to find a wide enough place to let some other riders pass.... I'm glad we did that, the lead horse in the group we met was giving Bay an awful mean stink eye when we let them by us, I would not have wanted to meet her in closer quarters. I was half expecting him to fire a hoof at us as it was. And the lady was oblivious...

And that's it! The trip back was great... Bay was really on his game on the way back, as usual, with Cyn trotting to keep up. Never let anyone tell you old friends don't lie. ;~) They do. Well, Bay, we'll take you out a little more regular now, and we'll get all of us back in shape.

Here's a video of him walkin' out on the way home.

Trail Ride with Bay

Oh - and when we got back, we had to boys approach us who we'd actually seen with their family walking out on the trail. I'd guess their ages at 4 and 8. They were dressed in some kind of traditional clothes, but they weren't Amish or Mennonites, it was different. Perhaps an Orthodox Jewish sect... Grey or blue smocks that looked like cotton linen and went down to nearly their knees. Their dad was dressed the same way.

They wanted a ride on the horses and asked if we would let them or want them to pay. How could we turn that down, they were nice kids, just wanted to ride a horse. They were sitting there holding bike helmets. I asked if it was OK with their parents and they said yes, but I had to just believe them, their parents were no where to be seen. They said they were camping just up the hill. So we put them up, the older one on Bay and the younger one on Cyn, and we led them up the hill to their camp. It's a pretty steep hill, Becky might remember it, right out of the trail head at Mima. I figured, if it wasn't OK for them to be riding, we'd soon find out when we walked into camp ;~)

But their dad was gracious and thanked us for letting them ride, they had a very little girl too, maybe two, and small talked a little while and walked back.

They followed us down a few minutes later and wanted to give us some little prayer cards they'd made that said 'God Bless You! and I think has Hebrew writing on it.

So that was nice. They were excited to get to do that. They'd been turned down by other riders.

[MissTargets]

How nice to let the young ones ride and I am glad you guys had a good ride. I see a deep spot in the first picture, on the right of Bay. Other then that, the trails look really nice and dry.

I was really beat too. For some reason, I couldnt sleep very well this weekend. Beautiful full moon though! I was up a couple of times during the night on Saturday. The people next to us has three beautiful Spotted Saddle Horses. The one big gelding was laying flat out and we thought he was dead! He laid like that for a long time and I kept checking on him. The next morning, I told the owner and he said the horse always lays like that.

[MissTargets]

I would ride in mud just to get to have rain.

We have had our share of rain this year and then some. I really wish I would have taken some pictures of the bogs were rode though. Most where up to the horses knees. Jody lost a shoe in one of them. No wonder they have a wash rack at this camp.. :)

[MissTargets]

campaign him for his ROM

Halter or Pleasure? He is a good looking guy. What is he, 3 now?

[FrogInABlender]

Well I’m glad you finally got to go! I’m looking forward to the pics. Lawn mowing pics are better than no pics at all, but trail ride pics are definitely better.

We had a good ride on Saturday too. It was our annual Saddle Up for St. Jude ride. HaveFaith and her husband Hal, my old riding buddy Shirley, my friend Elizabeth and I went. We also met up with some other friends who live up near the rails-to-trails. It was hot as usual but there was a large crowd in spite of it and lots of money was raised for the hospital. I’m not sure of the final number but over $78,000 had been raised by 1pm. We rode the hottest loop early in the morning, then took a break for lunch and to watch some of the auction of donated items.

We left out on the more shaded loop sometime after that. It’s always the prettiest because you ride down the middle of a creek for quite a ways. But we didn’t make it to that part though because Bob tripped on a rock going down a hill and fell and skinned himself all up and also rolled over on my left ankle and knee and sprained it pretty bad.

It hurt when I got up, but not bad enough that I couldn’t walk, so I got back on and we rode on. Not much choice there anyways since we were in the middle of the woods at the time, but when we came out on the road not too long thereafter there were some volunteers with a cooler and some water and they offered to call someone to come take me back to the camp.

I could tell that it was swelling in my boot pretty bad and the motion of it rocking back and forth in the stirrup was aggrivating it and I knew the trail was pretty hilly in places after that and I wasn’t sure how it would hold up to having to push back in the stirrups on the hills so I just called it quits.

Kari and Elizabeth decided to take Faith and Hope on back to camp via the short-cut and were planning on getting my truck and trailer to come back for us, but we forgot that my keys were in Bob’s pommel bag until after they were gone. But the ride volunteers showed up in a large ATV and they loaded me up in that so it worked out ok. We passed Kari and Elizabeth on the way back.

We tried ponying Bob back behind the ATV, but he was limping a little, probably because of his knees, so one of the volunteers offered to ride him back to camp real slow so that’s what we did. Once we got back to camp the medical team offered to look at my ankle, but I knew that once I got that boot off it wasn’t going back on so I just decided to wait since I already had an appointment at the bone and joint clinic on Tuesday anyways. I guess I’m trying to become their star patient or something! ;o)

So Kari and Hal and Elizabeth got the horses and tack loaded up and I made it home fine. I kept it iced and elevated for the rest of the day and all day yesterday and it’s better. It’s black and blue and about 3 times the size of the other ankle, but I can hobble around so I don’t think it’s broken.

So there’s my tale of woe. They say things always happen in 3’s, so I’d say I ought to be done for a while! ;o)

[FrogInABlender]

Great pics of Tuffy! He’s just gorgeous. I’m glad Janelle’s taking him. He’ll do well for her and she’ll treat him right.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yeah - the trails were all hard and dry. There were places where we could tell it was muddy a month ago.

It was hard on us to finally get out... it’s harder when you don’t do it all the time. :~)

[HairOfTheDog]

Jeepers Frog... this year has been hard on you!

Sounds a little like my crash when Bay fell on his knees a few years ago. He fell on my ankle too.

I always tell them to watch their feet going down hill!

I hope your ankle is fine with just some rest and won’t need major medical intervention, but it sounds like it’s more sprained than mine.

And Bob too... That’s a leap of faith to hand him off to another rider... on both your part and the other rider!

[FrogInABlender]

Sounds like a good warm-up ride. That was nice of you let those boys ride too. I like riding kids like that who are really crazy about horses. Lord knows I was that way when I was a kid. I begged for rides every chance I got too. I figure it’s the least I can do to repay the favor.

[HairOfTheDog]

I saw myself in these kids too, so I couldn’t turn them down, even though we were beat. :~)

[Duchess47]

He turned three in March. She’s shooting for Halter and Pleasure and I think depending on what she and the trainer decide, one more discipline but I have no idea what.

[Duchess47]

Great pictures, glad you guys got out. We have never been able to resist kids :)

[Duchess47]

Thanks - she will do the very best she can with him and Tuffy works well for her.

[Duchess47]

I’m sorry to hear about the ankle. For some reason this reminds me of the snake oil salesman in Little Big Man. Everytime you saw him, he was missing another part. Every time we hear from you, you’ve damaged another part :) Time to start taking care of yourself.