Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

March horsenews

    Jean and I and Larry and Toby Risman went along the northern half of
Iron Horse trail in Walnut Creek for four or five hours on a recent Sunday.
We tied up the horses at lunchtime in a park, and hordes of mommies and
daddies and kiddies descended on us and made much of the horsies, and we
showed them how to feed them grass. When we got back to where we?d left the
trailers a small crowd gathered there as well, although a lot more
proletarian ? this is the end of the trail where you can find chicken coops.
The first time I went along here we took a side trip along the Walnut Creek
itself and spotted a coyote with a bad hind leg. One agreeable aspect of
riding on Iron Horse is that from horseback you can see over six foot fences
into people?s back yards.

    Took Traveller up to Lake Berryessa. From the north end it?s possible
to go down a gravelled road on the east side, but it?s really harsh and I
don?t think worth the long haul.

    Speaking of gravel, I have taken to applying a mix of Betadine and
sugar to T?s soles to toughen them. I bought a little sponge-tip paintbrush
to do it with, which works great. Even shod it seems like he is much more
paso llano on soft and huachando on hard surfaces, but with the hardening he
seems to be happier ? and more four-four ? on sharper surfaces.

    Amazingly found four hours or more of new riding in the county.
Starting from Golf Course and 101 there is very nice footing north to Santa
Rosa, west along a creek to Stony Point, and south along the railroad tracks
as far as Cotati, with a nice side trip down a creek to the freeway, and a
gallop across several acres of lawn and oaks in front of an insurance
company campus, weekends only, I?m sure.

    Also have taken Taveller a couple of times south along the RR tracks
from Steele Lane to 12, then west along Joe Rodota trail to Fulton, an hour
each way of almost all gaiting, with a nice espresso stop at Railroad
Square. Much closer than Rush Creek, which is also about an hour each way.
You do have to dodge the drunken bums, but that?s easy on a horse. The
cement mixer trucks at the cement plant wash station are a bit of a
challenge, though.

    On the President?s Day weekend Traveller and I went horsecamping on the
San Joaquin south of Manteca and Tracy, just downriver from where the
Stanislaus comes in. The first day was along canals, through flowering
almond orchards, passing through a culvert under the freeway. That night we
camped in an alfalfa field, which held Traveller?s interest.

    The second day we got a lot of excellent river-bottom riding. We had to
pass behind a levee which served as a backstop to a rifle range on the other
side. It felt like a WW I trench, as shrapnel from skeet rattled in the
bushes on the right after every pop from the left, and by trying very hard I
was able to limit Traveller?s urge to fly to an extremely fast gait. But
when a grey bush (!) suddenly shocked him he shied and reversed and I
somersaulted onto the nice soft riverbottom. One hand stayed hooked over the
singlerein because I had a gut fear of him bolting up onto the levee top and
into the line of fire. He pulled so hard that one of the scissor clips
holding the rein to the sidepull broke and I could no longer hang on by just
keeping my hand hooked over the loop of the rein, but my fear of losing him
was so strong that my hand stayed clamped on the rein with a death grip. The
SporTack rein, the same diameter as a lead rope, was big enough that in the
exigency of the moment I was able to hold on with one hand while he dragged
me on my back for a couple of yards before he gave up. With the popping and
the shrapnel going on all around it wasn?t easy getting the end of the rein
hooked back up and myself back on him. In fact a couple of miles later I
realized I was having to pull pretty hard on one side just to make him go
straight. I was worried that I had somehow wrenched his neck in the spill,
but relieved to find it was only that by mistake I?d reattached the
broken-off end of the rein to the halter ring under his chin.

    Jean?s horse Margareta is a little lame, and Diedre, now renamed
Granada, seems to be more than a little lame, apparently both from jetting
around in mucky paddocks, or maybe fighting. Both of them are laid up until
near the end of the month, when Cotati Large Animal will try out their new
sonogram machine on them. I have been riding Grandiosa for Jean to get her
calmed down.

    I?m turning T and little filly Sepherade out into the next door 3-acre
apple orchard to scarf up the spring grass. Sepherade gaits everywhere, and
is still soft and fuzzy even now that she (like the others) has shed so much
of her winter coat. Trying to keep enough meat on Traveller, I?ve started
feeding him oat hay at night, instead of the orchard grass I always give the
horses on the theory that less nutritious fodder lets them spend more of the
day eating, which keeps them happier. The only trouble is that his
pasture-mate Sepherade packs on the pounds. Today I called her Pudgy-Butt.


Mike Sherrell
Grizzly Analytical (USA)
707 887 2919/fax 707 887 9834
www.grizzlyanalytical.com


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