renegades

Ride Afterthoughts

/ Ashley Wingert / 4 Comments

VotS4 was our second 50 mile completion, and I think I definitely learned a lot.

What Didn’t Work/What I’d Do Different
This was our first true warm weather ride for that distance. I’ve done other warmer rides, but they’ve been shorter distances, where you can get away with a lot more. I think I need to be more aggressive in e’lyting protocol. They each only got the one dose at lunch, and with that heat, I should have given them smaller doses more frequently. I think that might have contributed to Mimi’s cramping — basically, almost a minor tie-up due to dehydration and an e’lyte imbalance.

I’m not used to only one vet stop for that distance. I like that it makes the ride seem shorter, and breaks it up less. But you definitely have to make the time along the trail to stop and let your horse graze, if there’s any food, or carry something for them. I packed carrots along on the second loop, and then stopped and munched on those a couple times.

I need to carry more food for myself when there’s only one check. I survived out there on energy gels, a couple energy bars, water, a sports drink, people e’lytes, Motrin, and Overdrive. It’s definitely not enough, as I have been starving all day today. Fortunately, I drank pretty well.

Something is giving me quasi-shin splints, and I don’t know if it’s my tights or my half chaps. This is the second 50 miler in a row that has happened, and it’s the same tights/chaps combination. This is my second pair of these chaps, and I don’t remember having this problem at my first 50 with the chaps of the same design.

I miss my padded riding tights and need to get another pair of them. I had two pairs of Saddle Bums before I wore them out, and I still have a pair of Carousels that are still in one piece, but not very pretty anymore, and not really nice enough to take to rides anymore. (Hey, if you can’t ride fast, you have to ride pretty…)

My Vasque trail running shoes are better than my Columbias. The Columbias made my feet go numb after trotting for a while, particularly downhill. The Vasques absorb concussion better, I think, and they have slightly better arch support.

Rope reins in the morning, when she’s more likely to pull? She didn’t pull very long at this ride, but it was enough that I did get a couple blisters from the beta reins. Or maybe it’s just a function of pulling pony, and everything will give blisters to a degree. See, this is why I need to get to more rides, so I can experiment with this sort of thing.

More experimentation with the saddle pad. There must be a way to balance it without tipping it back too much. Maybe cutting back more of the extra foam insert, and shaving it down thinner?

Things That Worked
I ate really well at lunch. Fresh ‘n Easy makes good applewood smoked turkey already sliced, and Sunflower Market makes a good cold spaghetti salad. Mint-flavored waters are very refreshing.

Clean socks and a fresh shirt at lunch make you feel almost-clean. Although I would have liked to keep my Day-Glo mango-colored shirt on for the whole day versus just the morning …it’s a very distinct color.

Wearing my Camelbak in the afternoon was a very good idea. I would have been so dehydrated without it, because two water bottles on the front of my saddle would not have been enough. It was really warm for a few hours in the afternoon, and I drained all 70 oz. of the pack, plus one additional water bottle and half of a vitamin water.

I loosened Mimi’s crupper a notch from where I had it adjusted, and I didn’t have problems with the buckle rubbing, or with the back of my pad starting to scrub her loins. The saddle slid forward a bit going downhill, but it moved back as soon as the trail leveled out or when uphill.

Beamer is really growing up. I’m really proud of how well he and Dad are doing together. He handle the start of the ride beautifully, and only offered one tiny crowhop within the first three miles. He also lead most of the way for the first loop, and he stayed a lot perkier and cheerful throughout the whole ride. He never really hit a mopey, “must stop and eat or I will commence sulking” moment. We let them graze a couple times throughout the second loop, as well as giving them the carrots I was carrying in my saddle., and I think that really helped. And he really liked his hackamore on the second loop.

I felt really good during and after the ride. I felt really good about the fact I was able to manage myself on a limited regimen of Motrin, just due to some careful attention to a vitamin balance, and healthier eating. In the past, I’ve relied on sugar and Motrin to get me through, and this time, I only took a few Motrin for the entire ride, and very limited junk food – a handful of kettle-cooked potato chips, and half of a mango gel I split with Dad (sort of an upscale, lower sugar Jell-O from Fresh ‘n Easy). I’ve got some sore calves today, but I think that’s more a function of posting a trot for 45 of 50 miles, and I don’t feel any more sore than after the Wickenburg 25 in January.

Overall, the Renegades did fantastic. I had a minor problem with Mimi interfering with her front boots trotting in the deep sand wash, but that was due to a sizing error on my part, and Kirt Lander was able to fix everything for me during the lunch break, and I never touched the boots for the entire second half. Look for a separate post to follow on my very positive experience with using Renegades and working with Kirt and Gina Lander.

Renegade Hoof Boots

/ Ashley Wingert / 6 Comments

There’s been quite a bit of talk of late about the Renegade Hoof Boots going around – they’re becoming a lot higher profile, and are now readily available to the public. With this, us Renegade users are getting a lot more questions about them, so I figured now might be a good time to sit down and write up and in-depth post about my experiences with Renegades.

First off, I want to say that I’m not a distributor for Renegade, or a farrier, trimmer, or any person with “proper” hoof trimming, balancing, shoeing, not shoeing, etc. I’m just a regular horse gal that knows what I know through experience limited to my own horses, so I shouldn’t be considered an expert in the field. It’s all been trial and error testing, and all I can hope to do is pass on some of my experiences to other people. I have no monetary interest in Renegades, save for I love these boots and I want them to stay in business, so the more people that get interested in them, the better!

I started looking into the alternate shoeing/barefoot/hoof boot direction right about the time I started distance riding, and played with alternating between boots and shoes for about four years. At the time, I was competing in NATRC, which doesn’t allow any type of leg protection over the coronet band, which meant if I wanted to use boots, I had to glue Easyboots on.

Well, Mimi’s alwys been somewhat Easyboot-challenged. Even foamed on, she has the ability to lose them. I believe I’ve permanently lost three or four boots over the years because of this, and had countless other come off, only to be retrieved and crammed back on again. Lather, rinse, repeat, and you see why I was becoming frustrated.

Then along came endurance, and the ability to take advantage of these wonderful things called gaiters. Which opened the door to using Epics, and when they came out, Bares. They worked quite well for a time, especially the Bares, but I could never get the fit dialed down quite tight enough on the front Bares, so they would always fill up with sand, and every so often, they’d get heavy enough that the gaiter would tear, and off goes the boot.

And we were constantly plagued with gaiter rubbing problems right under her fetlocks. I believe I bought out all the local Walgreens of their moleskins in an effort to combat the rubs. Temporarily solvable at rides with copious amounts of vetwrap, but that wasn’t exactly practical for every time I wanted to go ride. Still, they worked well enough I kept experimenting, and she was much happier with those than shoes.

And then along comes Renegade. Dad had been using them for awhile now, ever since they became available, and he’d been having good luck.  Up to this point, I hadn’t tried them because I thought they were too big – the smallest size they made were 0s, and Mimi needed 00 for her fronts, 000 for her backs. Tiny feet.

On a whim, I grabbed one of Dad’s size 0 boots (Beamer’s hind boot size, 1s in the front) one weekend after riding, and as an experiment, stuck it on her foot. It was a little sloppy, but with the adjustable cables and velcro closures, I was able to tighten it down around her foot so that it actually fit! We were in business!

All of this was only a few weeks before the Man Against Horse race in October of last year (2007). I picked up the phone and promptly placed an order for a new pair. Granted, they were too big for her back feet, but I would keep using the Bares on the hinds, and the Renegades on the front. We did the 25 mile LD at that ride and finished, despite Mimi’s hock fusing issues showing up at that ride, and then in January, we did our first 50 at Land of the Sun using the same Renegade/Bare combination.

Renegade now has size 00, which are actually too small for Mimi’s front feet, but fit her hind feet great, so we’re in Renegades all around, and have been since February.

To break it down into some pros and cons:

Pros:
-Super easy to put on and take off. The straps are velcro, so they’re really easy to adjust and get just right.

-Adjustable, recessed cables. The cables are recessed, so they don’t bang on rocks and start to fray, thus eliminating the “sharp, pokey cable” problem.

-Lower profile on the pastern. Because of this, I haven’t had the rubbing problems I had with Easyboot gaiters, which bumped right up against her fetlock and rubbed the underside.

-Fairly long-lasting. The longest we’ve gotten out of a pair of boots is ten months out of a pair of hind boots…maybe 1100-1200 miles??? A lot of training miles, I know that, which I’m not as good at diligently tracking.

-Flexible. They really wrap around the foot nicely without trapping it in place, which I believe allows more hoof flexion and shock absorption.

-Worry-free. In the last three years or so, Dad has only ever lost one boot, in a deep, deep sand wash when Beamer stepped in a hole with his front foot, and pulled the boot off with his back foot. Would have pulled a shoe if he were shod. In the last year I’ve been using them, I only lost one, when the side cables inexplicably snapped at the Devil Dog ride in June. I still haven’t figured out why they snapped at that point, the only conclusion is the boot possibly got torqued in an odd way. But that’s the only time I’ve ever lost one, and even then, it was still around her pastern by the captivator strap.

Cons:
– The velcro fasteners are the “weak spot” if you ride in terrain like where I ride. We have a lot of sand washes, and the sand can wear down the velcro quickly. We usually replace our velcro straps every three or four months, and Renegade sells replacement straps. If you’re creative and have access to a heavy-duty sewing machine, you could probably even make your own straps, but I find them easy and cheap enough to just buy premade.

-A bit more creativity is needed in attaching them to your saddle. With the gap between the boot and the captivator strap, the boot can flop around a bit more when clipped off somewhere. I find getting creative with zip ties has been working well.

-The grip on the bottoms may be a bit too aggressive for some gaited horses. Dad’s foxtrotter was particularly susceptible to this, and she did best in smooth shoes because of her extreme sliding action of her feet when gaiting. However, I know some gaited horses are doing very well in them, and competing in endurance, so that could come down to an individual horse issue. Again, that’s one of those “personal experience” things.

-When the grip wears down after almost ten months of use, the bottoms can be a bit slick, traction-wise, going down hills. I noticed Mimi is a bit more tentative right now, taking slightly smaller steps because the boots can slide on the right terrain. But then, we need new boots and are just holding out until Man Against Horse in October. Again, personal preference…I have a pony that likes a bit of grip, apparently.

-Cost. They’re not the cheapest, $170 a pair, I believe, but I think the benefits are well worth paying slightly extra!

I’ve had to really reach to come up with cons on these boots. This is just what I’ve experienced with them, and I hope this helps people who are curious about the boots! I lvoe them and think they’re a great product!

More heat…

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment

Is summer over yet? We’ve been lazy of late, and only rode today instead of both days of the weekend. I went ballroom dancing Friday night (I feel all graceful now! And yay, my foot held up!) and got home really late, and it was supposed to be miserable, weather-wise, on Saturday (it was) so we only went out today.

I don’t think the ponies were thrilled with the idea. Mimi decided that tripping and threatening to fall off the edge of the trail twice (not drop-offs, but still…downward slope…) was a good way to express her displeasure. Hmmm…not. And her back Renegades are completely smooth and tread-bare, so she was slipping quite a bit on downhills.

But I just need to hold out until the first weekend of October, which is Man vs Horse weekend. I already talked to Gina and she and Kirt and going to custom-fit Mimi’s boots at the ride. I’ve got 5 size 0 boots for her fronts, and the 2 back 00s, so I should have enough to get me through, even through 4 of the 5 front ones are loosing chunks from the toes.

The game of catch-up

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment

Life jsut gets in the way sometimes, and when that happens, my blogging is the first thing that goes. School is keeping me super-busy right now, with trying to make some semblance of income as a second priority. (Got to be able to afford the horse in order to go to rides…) Major highlights from February – April:

  • Mimi’s now got Renegades all around! Kirt and Gina, after much harassment on my part :) came out with 00 boots, which fit Mimi’s hind feet (actually better than the fronts!). So look for her sparkly-gold feet out on the trail! Although if she’s in pony-power-trot mode, it might just be a goldish blur.
  • We unfortunately had to miss Sonoita in March. The timing was such that Mimi, rather unexpectedly, decided that she needed her hocks injected about a week before the ride, and the fact was, I didn’t have the money to be able to take care of it that soon and still afford the ride, etc.
  • I’m going to Tevis this year!!! Not riding…crewing! Jim and Cindy Brown agreed to put up with me and my overabundance of enthusiasm for all things Tevis :) after I found out Jim decided to ride Tevis this year and promptly offered my crewing services.
  • It’s hot here in AZ…low to mid 90s already. my new mantra is “Good Tevis Training.” I think my father is going to throw something at me next time he hears it. :) Hey, like I said, I’m obsessed. I have a year and three months to be ready for Tevis 2009. As long as I have my 300 qualifying miles and a sound pony, we’re going next year. Anyone up for robbing a bank with me so I can acquire the funds? Thank goodness for kind offers of friends’ properties to stay at ahead of time.
  • Found a lovely new trailhead to ride up in Pine. There’s a trail that goes all the way to the top of the Rim, about 2000′ in 5 miles. Now that is what I call good Tevis training! *ducks*
  • Next ride is in Williams in June. *Please* don’t let it get cancelled. however, entry forms are online this year, which they weren’t last year, so that makes me hopeful. AZ fire season, please hold off until July. Please? Williams promises to be a good ride…and GTT (hey, I warned you I am obsessed). Apparently elevations are from 6500′-10000′!!! Wow!!! That’s a whole stinkin’ lot of climbing…I may regret my enthusiasm. Maybe even I will be getting off to lead. Ack. I need to find someone who has done the Devil Dog ride in the past and find out what the trail is like?!?! Last time this ride was held was back in 1990! And apparently they’re goign to be using the majority of the same trails. Previous rides have been won in about a 6 hour ride time, so maybe it’s not as hard as I’m thinking? Of course, that was 18 years ago…a lot has changed since then in terms of vet criteria and ride speeds. Hmmm.

If I think of anything else critical, I’ll post, but for now, I think those are all the major highlights.