09/10/2020
Typically when I post an update here, it’s a huge praise report about how my buddy, Einstein, is progressing. But here’s a fun one that shows that when training a horse that starts out difficult, not everything is peaches and cream, even if you find what makes that horse tick. In the end, we had a couple of first-time events.
About a month ago, I finished one of my favorite endurance rides in Utah (yes, it took me nearly a month to actually write about it), and here's how it went down:
Arrived Thursday after a very uneventful 1.5 hour drive. I get the corral setup and get Einstein settled in; although "settled" is a relative term as I'm about to find out. My first clue comes when he steps out of the trailer, and instead of his normal looking around, he tenses up and screams for a buddy. I take him for a quick walk, and he takes frantic bites of food and doesn’t pay any attention to the water. I place him into his corral, and he starts pacing frantically and screaming for another horse. Any horse. There are dozens of horses in ride camp, but none respond back. Clearly they're not his buddies, otherwise they would be nice enough to respond. I realize this is his first experience camping overnight by himself.
The hours pass. My preparation continues. He's STILL screaming for his buddies… or at least ANY horse that would like to be a friend right about now. The other horses continue to ignore him. Despite there being dozens of horses in ride camp, he’s ALL ALONE!!!
Now it's time for bed. He's STILL SCREAMING! ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Running around the little corral and screaming. I may have managed to doze off for about 15 minutes sometime during the night, just out of sheer exhaustion.
Sometime before my alarm goes off, I figure I’ve laid there awake long enough and get out to see how Einstein is getting along. I walk over to him, as I typically do, and touch him on the neck. He jumps like I just shocked him with a cattle prod! Any time I touch him at all, he jumps out of his skin. He’s about as reactive as a terrified cat. I attempt to take his blanket off. I get all but the leg strap off (I forgot about that one, somewhere between not having enough sleep and just being super vigilant to keep from getting run over by this horse with no brain). I tried to pull the blanket off, but of course it’s caught on his leg. He starts really freaking out. All I could do was just drop the blanket and back away a safe distance and let him get it figured out. He managed to get out of the blanket without killing either one of us! I figured if we made it through that, we were going to have a GREAT day! I tied him to the trailer (with a trailer tie - not hard-tied) so I could get him saddled up. He pulled away and knocks down the manure fork I had sitting there (previously out of the way). Now he's freaking out that there's a manure fork between his legs!
Note: Under normal circumstances, I would not continue saddling. I would take the day and do some groundwork, and let him settle in. But these are not normal circumstances. We have an endurance ride ahead of us. Continuing on…
After he dispensed of the manure fork in a fairly uncivilized fashion, I gently pull on the lead rope to bring him closer… and he slams his head against the trailer to try to get away. Somehow that brought him to his senses enough for him to stand there while I saddle up.
The rest of the saddle process was fairly uneventful. Next up: electrolytes. He wasn’t about to be caught dead with a syringe in his mouth. I’m pretty persistent and patient, so I manage to get electrolytes in him. Now we’re ready to go!
We head to the starting area… but I realize I forgot my helmet (scary!). I run back to the trailer with Einstein reluctantly in tow. I grab my helmet and run back to the starting area… but I realize I forgot my sunglasses. I run back to the trailer, with Einstein a little less reluctantly in tow. He’s a bit more of an active participant at this point. I grab my glasses and head back to the starting area. My Map!!! We run back to the truck again for a third time. This time Einstein was really with me. A lot more relaxed, and actually letting me pet him.
Now this time we head back to the starting area and he actually feels ready to go. Since we have to cross a creek immediately, I hop in the saddle. He actually stands relatively still for me while I hop on. At this point, I’m 6 minutes late. Everyone else is long-gone.
First step: cross the creek. To-date, Einstein has been a creek-crossing-champion. Not this creek. He takes a look around and says: “No, I don’t think so”. You know me… I won’t take no as an answer right here. After a quick, light, reprimand, he crosses the creek, and we’re on our way… or are we?
A short distance in, there’s a tepid water crossing that is fairly wide. He takes a look at that and says “definitely not!”. Well, it’s not often I get a “definitely not!” answer from him, and with how tight he feels right now, I don’t want to push it. We make a quick survey of one side to see if we can get a more narrow area to cross. Nope. We head back to the crossing. He says: “Yeah, still no.”. I feel like we’re moving in the right direction, but I decide to survey the other direction. Nothing good there. We go back to the crossing one more time. He says: “Yeah, not happening!”.
At this point, I’m like: We HAVE to cross here.
Me: Go!
E: Nope!
Me: Seriously, Go!
E: Ok, I’ll just take a look. (bends down to inspect the water). NOPE!!!!!!! Turns and starts running back for the trailer.
Me: Pulls back.
E: Starts bucking.
Me: WE’RE NOT DOING THIS! Shut your butt down and get across that water.
E: Fine. No bucking. But we’re still not crossing.
Me: Yes WE ARE!!!!! (kick, cluck, kick, cluck, kick cluck)
E: No, Jig. No, Jig. No, Jig. Ok, fine! Just stop kicking me!
Us: crossing the water!!!
Well, that wasn’t so bad. Now Einstein is focused… on… there’s probably horses ahead? Whoa buddy, 15mph is too fast! Slow it down. Ok, 12 is reasonable for now.
At this point, we’re starting to settle in. I still don’t feel like I have a lot of control, or his head attention, but we’re working in the right direction.
We pass several groups of riders (apparently those are not the horses he wants). We settle in with another group, as I really don’t want him passing this group. Somehow we need to find his head. He’s acting like a toddler that really didn’t get enough sleep. He’s in full-on get ahead of these guys. It’s hard just to get him to sit with them. This is very much unlike him.
After a few miles of this, I’m starting to get tired from pulling him back. I hop off to walk. We walk for probably a good 2 miles, then I hop back on and feel like I’m starting to get a horse instead of a tired toddler. Before too long, we’ve completed our first loop of the 50, with the last couple miles being fairly flat. He picks up a nice trot and we head for camp. Now he’s really starting to listen, like he normally does. When I say slow, he slows down… except when we cross a dry rock bed, while we’re still halfway in it, he takes off as if we’ve already crossed it. Apparently he’s not fully in tune with me yet.
We get back to camp, and he pulses down immediately! That’s quite a nice change. We head back to the corral… and he continues pacing and screaming for a buddy. He doesn’t eat for 50 minutes. At this point I’m pretty worried about our chances of going on. I pull him out of the corral to see if we can get him eating something. He immediately starts grazing, and continues to eat every bit of grass we can find for about 20 minutes. Then we head to the water, where he downs a good at least 5 gallons. I take that as a sign that we’re ready to get back out there. I saddle up, hit the vet check, and we’re on our way for loop #2. Now this is the Einstein I remember! I pretty much don’t need the reins at this point. He’s listening to my seat and leg cues. He picks up a nice steady trot, and we’re on our way! Up to The Great Wall of Utah. They’re really not kidding around. This is definitely one of the most difficult trails. Loose shale, and walking along a narrow ridge with drop-offs on both sides. The views are pretty awesome… and I realized I left my phone back at the trailer. Oh well. Hopefully words will do it justice. Anyway, we go up and down, and around, and through, then back up… and uP… and Up… and UP… and UUP… and just to change things up a bit, we go up even more! Oh yeah, did I mention I get off and walk when the hills are like this? Yeah, that was quite the burn! Once we get up to where we’re going, now we have to go down… and wow did we go down. Einstein was shaking his head at me going you’re absolutely crazy wanting to go down this steep hill. But he came with. It was almost uneventful… except on one of the steps down, I stepped in a hole. I heard quite a pop in my knee. That’s really not what you want to hear. So I limp my way down the rest of the hill and hop on for the remainder of the journey back to camp.
Upon arriving back in camp, they check his pulse, and he’s already down again. We give a nice trot out, and we can now finally relax and recover! At this point Einstein is eating anything and everything, and drinking like crazy! His p*e is a bit dark (yes, as an endurance rider, you have to watch your horse p*e), but it’s a learning curve for a horse to learn to take care of himself out there. I did all I could to make sure he had food and liquid available, but it was up to him to actually eat. I think at this point he finally realized that with food and water being scarce, he better eat and drink.
Now one of his buddies arrived, and he was quite happy and content… and we had a GREAT night of sleep.
Saturday morning, I nurse my injuries (sprained knee from that hole), and just generally relax. Get Einstein out for a couple walks.
His buddy goes out for a 40-mile ride, and he’s surprisingly alright with it. He buddy would go on to win the 40-mile ride before heading home that same night.
Saturday night into Sunday, he’s still calm and relaxed, even though he’s back to being alone. We get another fantastic night of sleep. This time I realize I didn’t do enough prep the night before, so I end up leaving 5 minutes late again, but Einstein was with me during the whole process. Super relaxed the entire time. I definitely had his head today.
We get out on the trail, and it was like I was riding a perfectly trained horse (although he’s far from it). We didn’t use the reins at all. He picked up a nice steady trot and we ended up catching up.
The first loop was just gorgeous. One I haven’t done at Strawberry before. We trot where needed, and canter where we can. On the hills, I got off and walked. He ate and drank well. We came into the vet check in front, and he pulsed down right away.
After an hour of solid eating and drinking, we headed out for loop 2… and wow were we in for a CLIMB. After a few miles of zig/zagging our way through sage brush, we headed up an incredibly steep hill. I decided to try out our new tailing skills we’ve been working on. Not 100% perfect, but pretty good. We tail, and I even get him up to a trot tailing.
Wow, this hill is even longer than I remember! After a few miles, we finally make it up to around 9500 feet, and pretty well level off. There wasn’t much food to be had, so anytime we would go by a patch of grass, I would have him grab it. We’re still working on the fast-food thing. Then we finally run into a running stream. He stands there and drinks for several minutes. Then we continue on down the trail. With right about 4.25 miles left, I know it’s all downhill from here, so I jump off, loosen the girth, remove the bit, and start the long jog back down to camp.
That part was fairly uneventful, except for it was super hot in that canyon right near the end. And the water that is usually there when the ride happens in June was long-dried up. Not a drop of water in there. We finally drop down out of the trees onto the road. Only a mile to go, I drop down to a walk (I’m really not much of a runner) and we walk the last mile into camp. He’s pulsed down… and I look tired. He does a nice trot-out and we’re done!!!
To make the weekend even better, we had a couple firsts:
First 100 miles in a weekend for Einstein.
Both of our first ever 1st place finish!
We both took a few days off after that one. I could barely walk for a few days. Looking forward to our next one, whenever that will be.
