After a few days rest and the completion of a few more repairs and chores, Flash and I took another ride along Cypress Creek, this time passing the parking lot and going about a mile or so farther, for a round trip of just over 10 miles. When I looked at the GPS map on Google Earth, I realized that I had just about reached the western edge of Riverbend Park to the south on the other side of the road, where we used to trailer to, in order to do their 6+ miles loop trail inside. I looked more carefully at the trail, as I had heard they had added a way to go over the Indiantown Rd. Bridge without going on the road, and sure enough, I found it. From there, we can get to the tunnel under the road which will take us right into the park. It will add quite a few miles to the trip, but then again, we’re supposed to be conditioning for future endurance events, right? That will be a much longer ride, but hopefully, we’ll be able to find the time! After we got back, Jeff and I decided to finally mix the horses together, that is, our Apollo and Flash with his boarder’s horse Frost. Up to now, they’ve only been looking at each other over the fence, and at first Frost was kind of mean, running up to the fence with his teeth bared anytime one of the other horses came to visit. I saw Flash trying hard to get along with him, but he was always met with some resistance at first. After almost three weeks, though, they seemed to have settled down, and having worn out Flash on a long ride, we figured everyone would be okay, so we let Frost out. They stayed away from each other, but they were certainly aware of each other, so we watched them for about 20 minutes, and nothing happened. They all grazed in their respective corners, so Jeff went off to Publix and I went in to start Hubby’s dialysis. A while later, I went out to check on them, and I noticed that Frost’s mouth was all covered in red, so I thought he had gotten into some of the red berries around Jeff’s place, some of which I know aren’t good for horses, so I told him about it when he got back, but determined the berries he probably got into weren’t toxic. Half an hour later, Jeff came back to me to tell me that the red wasn’t from berries, it was blood, that Frost was bleeding from broken teeth! I went to look, and sure enough, several of his teeth were hanging like they were on a hinge, dropping down to his tongue! OMG! He was incredibly subdued about it, which is why I didn’t catch it, probably from shock I guess. Obviously, he had been kicked in the teeth, so I decided I’d better go check my horses for any damage. Since Apollo had bullied Flash around for six months after we got them together, I figured it was Apollo, but he was unscathed. Then I checked out Flash and sure enough, found a great big wound caused by teeth marks, so obviously he got bit by Frost and he reacted as only a horse can, by kicking him, getting in a lucky shot (or unlucky, as the case may be) that broke Frost’s teeth or jaw, we weren’t sure what. The owner came and picked him up to take him to the animal hospital, understandably unhappy, but what can you do? Horses will behave like horses, there’s not much you can do, except keep them permanently apart, which we didn’t really want to do. We were hoping they’d all get along so we could all ride together, but of course, if they don’t get along on the ground, they’re not about to get along in the saddle, at least not with ME in the saddle, thank you very much. Sorry it happened, a hard lesson learned, but it seems that Frost has had trouble before, so I discovered from some relatives that got there before the owner, which would have been good to know before… Anyway, they drove Frost away, and we settled down for the rest of the evening.

While feeding the horses this morning I got into a chat with the group that had been camping next to the covered stalls, and in particular, a woman named Nancy who also has a Paso Fino. She invited me to ride with her, but I told her I’d have to see how Hubby was feeling this morning, in case he felt up to riding. Generous Hubby said, by all means, take a ride with another Paso Fino person and see what happens, so that’s what I did. Flash was calm for about the first half mile, then after that he started getting really fussy, jumping and pulling, at times he literally was cantering in place! Not sure what got into him, except maybe he wanted to move out more, but Nancy was working on teaching her horse to just walk quietly, so I didn’t want to interfere with that. There were a couple of times I let him run, though, but evidently not enough, because he kept prancing almost all the rest of the time. What a workout! Flash worked up quite a sweat, too! We were out for nearly two hours, so it was a good workout for everyone. Nancy was pleased her horse stayed calm through Flash’s histrionics, even bumping into her a couple of times. Crazy horse, don’t know what got into him, he was perfect last week! Anyway, got him put away, then spent the rest of the afternoon dialyzing Hubby before settling in for the evening.

Spent the weekend volunteering at the Skymont Endurance Ride, my third year there as a volunteer. Fortunately, there were no injuries, no trips to the hospital, no lost horses, and only one rider was temporarily lost the entire weekend, so it was a great success! As always, Lola kept everyone in the vet check area entertained for the duration. The senior vet, Otis, who’s a funny curmudgeon of a guy, but who has a reputation for being a bit tough at times (though I haven’t seen that much!), says Lola is the best behaved dog in camp, and is the only dog he’ll let stay in the vet check area. I always make sure she’s leashed up when the horses are coming through, but once it’s clear, out comes the chucker, out goes Lola, and everyone is amused by the leaping and jumping and running out to the pond that she does. The vet check area had a big pond in it this year because we’ve had so much rain this year, so the vet check area was move a bit to higher ground, though the trot-out areas were kind of rough. Anyway, it was a great event, I once again was asked to help emcee the awards ceremony. Yesterday, I decided to take Flash for a ride to see how he would do in the woods for a longer duration, so I trailered him up and ran him down to Skymont about 9:30. Most folks were either gone or about to leave when I got there, except the organizers who were doing some clean-up. Flash was pretty anxious about all the activity, there were still a few horses being walked around, and he was all excited and whinnying about that. I managed to get him saddled, but he was still too distracted, so I ran him around in circles for a bit, trying to settle him down. He finally did, so I climbed on and off we went down the purple trail. Wendy, the woman who tags the trails, had told me purple was probably the nicest trail with the least amount of rocks, and as I’ve discovered that my Cavallo #2 boots are probably too big for Flash, even without a recent trim, I wanted the least amount of rocks for him. We passed Wendy on the trail shortly after leaving camp, and headed out the supposedly 11.7 mile trail (though my GPS recorded 10.3, so I’m not sure). Flash was pulling and pulling, and I had a hard time keeping him down to just a medium gait, he wanted to go faster all the time. I thought he would eventually settle down, but he never really did! It was medium or fast gait the whole way, with the occasional breakout into a canter. We were in constant motion, I couldn’t get him to wait to save my life! I’m thinking maybe I’m going to have to put a curb bit on him, the snaffle just wasn’t enough to keep him from pulling my arms out of their sockets. When we cantered past the eleven mile marker without a single slow-down the entire trip, I really started seeing how great this horse would be in an endurance race. I honestly don’t know if he was loving it or hating it, I only know he went like gangbusters the entire trip! We left camp at 10:18 and arrived back at 12:45, a lot earlier than I had expected. Clearly, though, with some conditioning, he would be perfect for this kind of competition. Of course, judging by the way I felt when I climbed down, I’m going to need as much or more conditioning than he is! Lola certainly enjoyed herself, she had a faster trip than usual, which always makes her happy. By the time we reached camp, most of the stragglers had moved out, and it took no time at all to load Flash back into the trailer and come home. I heard Apollo whinnying when we were at the gate at the end of the driveway, and Flash and Apollo nuzzled once he got back in the paddock. I let them into the pasture, washed out the back of the trailer, put some stuff away, and came in exhausted! Once I cooled down, I started to try to dialyze Hubby, but wasn’t able to get a good arterial connection, so we ended up abandoning it for the day. Hate to do that, but I was just not able to succeed, and after three attempts at sticking him, it was clear I just wasn’t up for it today. Better luck tomorrow, hopefully! Whew, what a day!

This summer has been such a blur, and because it didn’t really have any travel or horse camping in it, I just stopped doing my Horse Camping diary. So sorry!! But in between trips to Vanderbilt in Nashville to get treatments, surgery, training and doctor’s appointments accomplished, the summer seemed to fly by! I tried to ride our new horse Flash at least once a week, with just a few weeks missed, and he’s been coming along beautifully. When we started, he was so jumpy, and needed constant contact with the bit just to keep him from running away with me. Eventually I got him so calm that now, for the most part, he can be ridden with a nice loose rein, at least until he’s asked to kick it up a notch, in which case he gets a bit hard to settle down afterward, but even that’s greatly improved. I think he’s just about ready for Hubby as soon as he’s strong enough, fingers crossed! Today, though, I thought it was time that I see what kind of condition Apollo is in after his summer off, so I decided to saddled him up and see how he did. Much to my surprise, Flash started whinnying for him as soon as I took him out of the paddock, and Apollo even whinnied back a few times. I was a little surprised, because Apollo still nips at Flash for no apparent reason, and lately I’ve seen Flash kick back in Apollo’s directions a few times, though I can’t say I’ve ever seen him make contact (though I suspect Apollo has done so to him, sorry to say). Anyway, the whinnying got more frenzied as we headed up the driveway, but once Apollo was out of sight and hearing, it settled down a bit, though every few hundred yards, Apollo would whinny again, even when we were miles away! Apollo did great, though his walk was uncharacteristically slow, but we trotted and even cantered, too, a nice controlled canter with no jigging, thank goodness! It was a nice two hour ride, and ended with more whinnying when we got within reach. So happy he did so well, and I’m hoping that absence will make the heart grow fonder, and Apollo will be a little less hard on Flash. After a whole summer together, you’d have thought they would have learned to get along better! They stand together a lot, and Apollo really only gets aggressive when there’s food or humans around, the rest of the time they seem to stand nearby each other. I guess the herding instinct trumps their personal feelings! Since he did so well, and I really want to progress the plot here, I suggested to Hubby that if he was feeling strong enough tomorrow, I thought both horses were ready for a ride together. I think Flash would be calmer for Hubby riding on terrain that he’s gotten to know well rather than wait to get into woodland trails he doesn’t know (which always make him jumpy), and I’m hoping that after all the whinnying sessions, these two might behave okay on the trail together (well, road for now.) Hubby said he was up for the idea, if he felt strong enough in the morning. It would be his first ride in 17 months! I hope it works out!!