Tuesday and Wednesday were windy and not ridable.

Thursday – March 11

So after losing two days to weather (ok Tuesday wasn’t seriously bad, but Belle seemed tired, but Wednesday was 45 mph with gusts to 60 – it was a brown out around the ranch.) So this morning, the group ride was only two of us, but we set out for a nice walk. Unfortunately, about 30 minutes out, I got the call from my vet’s office that he was on his way to pregnancy check two mares. So, we hustled up a bit and got to the ranch just as he pulled in. So our ride was limited to 45 minutes and 2 ¼ miles. But Belle was very good, and even tolerated being left tied to the rail while I assisted the vet. AND the good news is, we got one mare settled – this will be my young stallion, Louie’s first foal! So, I am excited. I snapped a couple photos of Belle standing at the rail, and noticed that she has dropped some weight. I will start giving her some grain and pellets to augment her hay. She is in a group pasture situation, but she is also one of the top dogs, so generally she should be getting enough to eat. But I will also start throwing more hay out there, just to be sure.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Collecting Data

I wanted to get out the gate early, but life conspired against me. I tied Belle to the rail and gave her a bucket of pellets and a little grain. I need to introduce the extra calories gradually. But she seemed wound up and paced around the rail more than she ate. I finally put her out in the main ring for a 10-minute free lunge. If I can find a way to hook the Garmin on her while she runs around the ring, I would Love to know how many miles we actually accomplish with that work. I am estimating 1 mile for each 5 minutes of canter work. I did push it up to 10 minutes, as I had realized that my dream of getting two hours of riding on the trails was quickly dissolving. The hay came, and then UPS brought a package, and then my students showed up, but they were slow getting ready, etc, etc. Finally, at 1:50 pm, we hit the trail. I had another student at 3 pm, so it was going to be a shorter ride than I hoped. But we went out and saw some trails I haven’t ridden on in years. Nice rolling sand dunes that gave us some up and down work combined with deep sand. I was thrilled to discover that my GPS fits into a little pouch on the purple water bottle carrier which is nearly perfect. I could wish that it had a clear front so I could check it without having to take it out, but at least it is easy to bring along. Our walk is a steady 3 mph. Our trot seems to be just over 8 mph. The canter is harder to judge – I think it was around 13 mph. Belle even conceded to flat walk a few times, which let me check the data. Unfortunately, I had not recharged it, so the battery died at 42 minutes – when we had covered 3.2 miles. We got home at 3:05 – so I am estimating that we did just over 5 miles.

Then I wanted to check her heart rate with the new stethoscope. I had practiced on a couple other horses yesterday, and finally figured out the exact spot on the left side, just behind the elbow, where the heartbeat is easy to detect. I started listening to Belle, after the ride, but the sound was faint. Slow and steady, but hard to hear while trying to time with the watch. I am trying to count the beats for 15 seconds, then multiply by 4. Belle kept moving around so I couldn’t get a good count. I gave her a sharp tug on the lead and yelled at her, the 3^rd time she made me lose count, and MAN did I get to hear the sound of a Pounding heart then. The volume Jumped up as did the rate! It dropped right back down, but it was a lesson in how stress Immediately affects heart rate. Belle will have to learn to stay calm in race conditions if we are going to have her pass any vet checks. When she settled, I was able to clearly count 12 beats in 15 seconds, a rate of 48 bpm, not bad after a good work out. I am going to start checking her heart rate and then see how quickly she returns to normal resting rate of 32 – 40 bpm.

At least she came in full of energy and not really even sweaty, so we are coming along with our fitness. Monday, I am determined that we will ride for 2 hours or more, and see how many miles we can cover in that time. It will probably be 8-10 miles – based on what we did last week. I am thinking about carrying the stethoscope to do a heart rate check after a hill climb.

So far this week we have managed to ride a total of 3 hrs 10 minutes and covered over 11 miles. If I can get in a ride or two over the weekend, we will be doing well.