Klickitat Trek – Part 2

This post is all about our “test” of other things that pertain to going down the trail with a healthy mind and body. And my long-winded thoughts, of course.

Tack – pads, saddle, and boots (oh my)

My current tack setup seemed to work fairly well. Deli’s back felt great after the ride and stayed in good shape in the following days. There is still some backwards-forwards sliding of my saddle so I have endeavored to tighten my crupper another hole. It really needs to be tight with this saddle, but so far that doesn’t seem to bother Deli. I’ve been smoothing coconut oil her tail and working it into her tail-hair roots after rides to keep the area happy.

Deli loves my new pad – the ThinLine Endurance Sheepskin pad – that I got for my birthday. It’s sad how quickly the sheepskin gets dirty, though, and ThinLine recommends I don’t wash the pad more than 3 times in its 10 year lifespan. Yikes! I did (and continue to have) issues with the pad sliding back which I’m not sure how to fix. Perhaps sewing billet keepers onto the pad is something I should look into doing.

More like "A+"...

My saddle is still painful for me to ride the miles with, but doing more trotting at the Klickitat Intro Ride confirmed that trotting is far more comfortable for my various bits than long hours of walking. The trotting issue shouldn’t be a problem when it comes to endurance competition…

Speaking of hoof boots, her boots stayed on and worked well for the entire ride. But I was foolish and agreed with my trimmer to get a smaller size Easyboot Glove than I thought would work. I got them on, But Deli’s wide heel bulbs and heels and general made it way more of a PIA than I ever want to struggle with. I went back the Renegades I’ve been using on her hind feet on a trail ride yesterday and I think for the time being (until I can afford another set of Gloves – anyone want to buy the basically new 0.5 wides with powerstraps I was convinced to purchase?). I’ve been using the Gloves on her fronts successfully for YEARS, but have never been quite satisfied by any boot on her hind feet, which are more irregularly shaped and have that fat fetlock scar on her right-hind to contend with.

Vetting in – before and after our intro trail ride

The front of our ride card.

Dr. Foss was the ride vet who checked Deli in and out and he had some valuable comments for us. Our starting evaluation she wasn’t as forward for our trot out, which is easily explained to the somewhat rocky area to trot on and Deli freshly trimmed feet. She’s always very careful about stepping on rocks and it seemed like that was the case here. The weird weather we have been having seems to have made Deli’s soles more sensitive than usual anyway – but since I boot her for pretty much all of my trail riding and she moves out comfortably with them on, I wasn’t too worried. Once it dries out more and stops being hot AND wet, her feet will be more comfortable.

And the back of the ride card.

 I’m sure many other Western Oregon/Washington folks can agree that standing on damp soil all day long is never the best thing for horse feet. I like the rain and the cool weather, but it’s not a natural condition for our horse beasties.  

With her boots on Deli trotted off for our final vet check big and sassy. 

The A- in attitude at our vet-in is related to her not being super forward on our trot out and her fussing some for having her capillary refill checked. We have been working on THAT quite a bit at home and she is loads better. As in, he was actually ABLE to check it this time unlike the vet-in at our Grizzly Intro ride.

At our finish, I did ask the vet what he thought about her ability to do a slow LD since we were the only ones there at that time. He asked some questions about my pacing for this intro ride, how stressed she seemed, and our normal “conditioning” regime. He concluded that he thought she could do a slow LD and recommended I work a little bit to increase her cardiovascular fitness in the meantime if I was worried. As it relates to that the vet said our mostly-walking trail rides at home did seem to be getting her in decent shape muscle-wise, and her heart-rate was in a good place for having trotted into the vet check, but that some added cardio work would make an LD less tiring for her (probably).

He also commented that she was a bit chubby, but that I probably knew that. Yessier, yessir I do. Both Deli and her pasture mate are on a sort of-diet. Their hay ration was decreased and they are eating down what they have in their small grass pasture area.

Deli's favorite thing is eating...
which I hear is good for an endurance horse.

As for the “B” on gut sounds coming in, the vet said not to worry about it unless she SEEMED off. He added that many horses have “Bs” on their gut sounds coming in from the first loop – which is essentially what we were doing. My endurance mentors concurred with that statement and Deli immediately began attacking both food and water at our return to camp.

The vet also stated with respect to us TRYING an LD: you won’t know until you try.

I’ve heard that quite a few times from people that have been in this sport for a long time.

Deli’s skin issues and allergies

A couple days after the ride Deli had another flare-up of her dermatitis in her chest and between her front legs. All the classic signs: inflamed skin leading to skin peeling and sometimes-scabbiness. I treated it with my normal methods which have seemed to work so far, including skin soothing shampoo, antihistamines, and one of several various topicals I use. So far there has been no infection or hair loss, which is what I battled with all last summer. The inclusion of chamomile and spirulena into her diet have seemed to help with her recovery time, as have some other supplements like apple cider vinegar and MSM.

I do have some concern about her skin flare-ups making this sport impossible. I don’t like riding her when she’s having a flare-up (because her skin hurts, obviously), and they are unpredictable. I have started riding her when she is recovering from a flare-up without ill effect so far, which is helped by none of the typical inflamed zones interfere with tack.

The skin issue is another thing that I won’t “know until I try” whether it will keep us from competition. Oral antihistamines that have been helping the severity of the dermatitis cannot be used at an endurance ride so she couldn’t be on that medication before or during any LD. She’s not on them all the time – I just give her a round when she has a flare up.

Insect bites and activity still seem to be the root cause of flare ups, so I’ve been religious with fly spray as well. But it only does so much! This year, given our warm weather over the winter, the flies and insects are particularly bad. Bring on the barn swallows, I say!

Thoughts on our next steps…

I am a bit wary just given Deli’s history of injury and her allergies, but I think the vet and my mentors are right… I won’t know if we can do an LD until we try. And this is the first summer in a long time we have actually been able to do meaningful conditioning and rides. I evened out her one-sidedness in a big way (she still clearly has a weaker side that is weaker than what I've felt in her in the past, so this is ongoing) over the rainy months and now my focus needs to be on MILES.

The trails at my home barn are somewhat limited, but I can access a few nice trails if I suck it up and ride up a road. Apparently I have PTSD when it comes to cars and I battle anxiety when it comes to riding among traffic despite Deli being a champ around moving vehicles of all sorts.

No REAL surprise there, since a lot of my own health issues stem from being HIT by a car while riding my bike. 

The best horse ever, but I'm biased. Deli prefers grass to stupid humans.

On the third day after the Klickitat Intro ride I took Deli out to see what we could see. The beginning of the ride it poured and so we stayed off a lot of the slicker trails. We were able to find some nice access that, if I’m creative, should provide the miles we need to increase Deli’s cardiovascular fitness though steep climbs (to walk up) and a few places we can move out. We still have the problem of not having long tracks to trot on, but I’m hoping as long as we can do the miles and trot where we can, a slow LD will still not be a stretch. During this ride I also trotted her on part of the road, having padded her front boots. That actually worked out rather well.

So the very tentative plan is to take her out on long trail rides at least 2x a week and ride a faster shorter ride at least 1x a week. Given my unpredictable work (and need to take on any work I’m offered) I hope we can still manage this. I’ve decided for both our sakes that we will only ride up the road when we can plan our rides in the middle of the day. All the crazy and dangerous drivers seem to come out near commute times and that’s just too stressful for me.

I even took some short video of our 9 mile trail ride on a rainy day this past week. Deli felt good and raring to go, which was great to feel after working her harder than she has done for quite some time at Klickitat.

Here’s the video:

Yesterday, finding myself more limited on time, I opted for a shorter but much faster ride. I tried to see what kind of pace I could manage in the loops around the fields across the street from my boarding barn. We were able to keep a pace of 5.2mph over our period of 3.5 miles of “work”, allowing for a much slower combined warm-up and cool-off where we walked through the more suburban neighborhood back to the barn that totaled 1.4 miles altogether. It was a hotHOT day and Deli got quite sweaty, but she felt good and happy to move out where the footing was okay.

I’m not going to make definite plans, because if I do Deli (or me) will get hurt. That’s just the way it works in Red Mare land. (But I’m thinking we might try for our first LD in early July if everything is going well.)  

We won’t know until we try…

Last time: Klickitat Trek Intro Ride - Part 1 (wherin I talk about the trails and horse camping).

A minor setback as the Pacific Northwest welcomes in winter.

Our plan had been to sign up for our first ride in August. It was a ride just next door, which I thought would be a good experience for both Deli and I since we could (assuming we could find a ride) go to the ride and then home again when finished. No overnight stay – which neither Deli or I have done yet – required.

I’m sure she would have been ready to do the limited distance (25 miles) at that ride. I was more worried about my own physical ability, but was pretty sure I could pull it off and suffer for it in the week following. She had been doing great on our trail rides, and recovering quickly after doing frequent 8 mile rides that included a decent amount of trotting and 12-13 mile rides at the walk. Our trails behind our barn are extremely hilly and rocky, which limits what we can do. If anything has been an issue, it has been her lack of enthusiasm with moving forward into a trot when we were out by ourselves. This has made it difficult to do proper conditioning. I attributed this to laziness or her normal tendency to be a worrier and didn’t push her much. Since I spent a lot of time walking her in-hand (which I always did for the last big hill up and down) I also trotted her in hand a little.

So for two months we were in trail-heaven. Then I had my masseuse come by to adjust and work on Deli, because I had noticed the inevitable buildup of muscle tension in her hamstrings and pectorals. My masseuse, as I have mentioned before, has this excellent thermography camera. We were both ecstatic to see that Deli’s primary injury of concern – her groin and hamstring tear – was completely gone. As in, the heat signatures matched in all her legs. Unfortunately, the backs of her pasterns on all four feet were inflamed. This was a surprise, because Deli has great leg conformation that includes great medium-length pasterns. She is a smidgen toed out, but it’s barely noticeable unless you know you are looking for it or you have owned her as long as I have. My masseuse wanted me to consider that her workload was too heavy, but that didn’t sit right. Her back and other soft tissue all looked great, with the exception of a rib being slightly out on her right side (and no surprise that this is right under the spot where my bad hip is).

Then it occurred to me – her boots!

The BLM roads are tough on a bare foot.

I’d been riding her with Cavallo Simple Boots for her front feet and Cavallo Sport Boots for her hind feet exclusively almost every time we went out on the trails. The long stretches of harsh gravel BLM roads necessitate the foot protection we had, and I refuse to put shoes on Deli unless she has some traumatic reason for their need. However, the Cavallo boots have a pretty hard leather “lip” in the back. When I considered it more closely, this lip would press into the back of her pastern at some point in her natural footfall, but particularly when she trotted or cantered and picked up her feet more. My masseuse agreed that this interference could definitely be the cause of the inflammation we were seeing on the thermography camera – particularly since every foot had such a freakishly identical pattern.

I’m extremely thankful for the thermography camera spotting this issue before it became serious. For one, you couldn’t feel any heat in her pasterns. Because the inflammation was equal on all four legs, she also wasn’t moving lame at all. Now I believe some of her hesitation to move forward and trot on the trail to be because it was painful, to some degree, to have the boot jabbing into the back of her pasterns.

So our tentative plans to try for our first endurance ride were shelved. My masseuses recommended three weeks of light work, with cold hosing 3x a week, so that’s what we did. And then I started work at a new job while retaining my summer job, meaning my time to ride or do anything other than sit in front of my computer working has evaporated, so she has gotten more like six or seven weeks of light work. The muscle from our summer work is fading from both of us, and I feel somewhat discouraged that things worked out as they did. Particularly since my own fitness and weight is a serious problem going forward with our competitive trail-riding dreams.

On the other hand, the EasybootGlove Wides are finally out, and we have been experimenting with them. It seems they will work well for Deli eventually (when the size we need actually comes into stock!) and I believe they are the better option for trail riding because they do not have any hard “lip” or anything hard at all above the hair line. I feel some wariness that the gaiter (which is completely soft and shouldn’t cause any pressure points) will be a problem because of heat buildup on her pasterns, but hopefully that won’t be a serious problem. We have done some test-rides and I have found Deli is much happier to move forward in the Gloves, so I am hopeful we will be successful using them. If and when we do compete I plan on doing Glove Glue-Ons, if I can.

Front hoof in progress!

In the meantime I have given up completely on farriers after going through seven individuals since moving up to Portland two years ago. Deli has good feet, but they like to flare and my most recent farrier was not taking off enough toe despite my encouragement. She has some white-line separation as a result. Having taking farrier science classes at UC Davis, I’m somewhat handy with a rasp and hoof knife and decided that I need to brush the dust off my old farrier science books and attempt to do her feet myself. In the past I have been worried about hurting Deli or worried about hurting myself, since I have a bad back. After obsessively reading everything I could find about barefoot trimming, I started work.

So far, the results of my work on her feet have been noticeably good. She moves out more comfortably on gravel now, where she would mince before. I’m taking it very slowly for my own comfort and mental health, meaning I trim her a little more each week. It’s more enjoyable than I thought it would be, although all my study has made me realize how many horses are improperly shod! It’s become somewhat of an obsession – I now see a horse’s feet before I take in anything else about the animal.

The Gloves for Deli don’t fit quite like they should because of her toe flare, but they don’t move at all when we walk or trot on rough ground, so I’m going to stick with them. If we have issues, a little “bootlegging” with sport tape should do the trick. The boots are difficult to get on and off, so I'm not anticipating a need for a powerstrap.

Deli finishing up lunch in her shelter.

Also, with my busy schedule I have decided that doing in-hand hikes with Deli is a more productive use of our time. I need the mental break after my long days at the office and the exercise, and she loves being out and about in the forest rather than confined to the arena. I also caved and bought a fancy (and expensive) Skito bareback pad so that we can focus on MY fitness this winter when we do arena work. The pad is made of foam specifically designed to carry the heavier rider because I am constantly conscious that my weight gain since my accident has put me above what Deli is mathematically designed to carry. Again, I keep a sharp eye on her back health and have seen no adverse effects, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.

Overall, things continue to move along. We have had setbacks, but Deli is otherwise healthy and I have a plan for my own fitness needs.

No hoof, no horse.

My horse is barefoot.

In simplest terms that means she does not wear shoes. We once experimented with shoes to see if they made any difference in her way of going and had our farrier-of-the-time hot shoe her. 

It didn’t work out.

For one, Deli has incredibly fast growing feet. I think this relates to the fact that before I owned her she basically had free run of a large acreage and for the most part wore her feet down naturally. This means that I would have to re-shoe her every four weeks if I didn’t want her tripping on her face because her natural movement would not wear down the horn of her walls. As it is, if I’m working her on mostly soft surfaces I still have to get her trimmed every four-to-five weeks during the summer (when her feet grow the fastest) to keep them from getting too long.

For another, shoeing contributes to the contraction of the heel and such contraction prevents proper blood exchange up and down the leg. Not to mention the fact that nailing on a shoe weakens the hoof wall. At any rate, we experimented with shoes for two months and haven’t considered them as a viable option since.

Plus, Deli is one of those horses who is lucky to have straight legs and large feet, both of which contribute to her having good feet overall. She is a great candidate for being barefoot the rest of her life.

However, with new goals in our sights I recognized that Deli was going to need some additional protection for her feet. Some of the trails we have access to now are rocky or have a mixed gravel surface; particularly the narrow logging roads that are the trails that will stay nice and ride-able throughout the winter.  Deli has let me know that walking on gravel is uncomfortable – she has yet to get bruised from it, but she picks her way very carefully across any rocky surfaces. Any serious work on these surfaces would also wear her feet down too quickly, resulting in tenderness for her.

The clear solution was to find a boot that fit Deli well and could be used when we worked on rough ground. After much research I bought a pair of Cavallo Simple Boots. They came with good recommendations, were in the right price range (read: cheap), and my research suggested that they would work well for Deli’s rounder hoof shape. They still seem a little bulky in my eye, but the industrial Velcro rather than wires (that can snap) design seemed simpler and more idiot-proof than other brands. 

So far so good. Our first use of the boots was on a 30 minute hike in-hand through the woods. She didn’t seem bothered by them and she had no rubs or indications that they were too tight or too loose. What I did notice is that she is going to have to adapt to having a “larger” foot – places where she could normally step easily became a bit awkward for her. You could tell it was giving her a brain-funk to have her feet be larger than she was used to. 

The next day we did a somewhat longer hike in-hand with similar results, though Deli was less clumsy overall when navigating uneven footing. The third day I put them on her in the arena so I could see what she was like under-saddle (even though she hardly needed them in the soft footing). She had a bit of a mental breakdown when someone decided to use a weed-whacker, so our ride ended up being longer than planned. However the boots did stay put and did not seem to impede her ability to trot sideways, spin, or shy as only an anxious Arabian can. And no, she wasn't particularly interested in my monotone reminders that she was supposed to be too weak for such athletic maneuvers.

After that we hit the trails in a dripping Oregon mist to cool off her brain and steaming body. In the process we discovered a delightful little trail loop instead of getting lost (as has happened earlier). Overall she had her boots on for about an hour of work. We checked them before heading out on the trails and they seemed to have stayed put remarkably well throughout Deli’s pronking in the arena. And upon removing them at the end of our ride there were no rubs or other indications that they were not fitting. Her feet looked great, and it was clear they had suffered no ill effects from either her arena antics or riding on uneven rough surfaces out on the trails. Success!

And Deli is adapting quickly. She is normally very sure footed, and her adjustment to being with her Cavallo Simple Boots have been impressive. She is happy to move forward on ground that would otherwise make her step more comfortably, which is the whole point behind the boots.

Right now Ms. Deli is due for a trim at the end of this week, so the fact that the boots seem very snug is probably appropriate. The Velcro construction seems pretty solid and easier to clean than I would have thought. I’m planning on getting her rear boots as well if she seems to want them, but so far she is moving quite easily on rough ground without them.

This is probably the first time in the history of Deli and my relationship that something has fit her the first time. She has always been a bit hard to fit for every conceivable piece of horse equipment (blankets, fly masks, saddles…) because apparently thick-bodied Arabians with wide foreheads are not a common horse body type. That and I was in denial for a long time that my 15.2 hand horse would ever need an extra-wide saddle tree (which she does).

Hopefully the Cavallo Simple Boots will continue to impress us with their usefulness for many years to come.