ride story

Superpony Rides Again

/ Ashley Wingert / 2 Comments

Mimi earned a new nickname courtesy of Kirt Lander of Renegade Hoof Boots this weekend: Superpony. And Superpony and I completed the 50 at Man Against Horse on Saturday!

Longer ride story up in the next couple of days, but the short version is both Dad and I finished, with 15 minutes to spare, with sound, happy ponies that still looked like they were ready for more. I, on the other hand, would like the next week to recover.

It was definitely the rockiest, toughest ride I have ever done, so I’m so incredibly proud of my pony. She is all heart, and one tough little mare.

Ride photos

/ Ashley Wingert / 1 Comment

The official ride photos from Valley of the Sun. We got these as completion awards. I’m not sure who the photographer was, but she did a lovely job…if anyone knows, please let me know!


Me and Mimi. This is about 3/4 of the way through the first loop. *dutifully ignores the crusty-looking crud on the white pony*


Dad and Beamer, Me and Mimi. 2 miles into the ride.


Dad and Beamer. 3/4 of the way through the first loop. How come *his* white horse is so much cleaner than mine?

Dad and Beamer, about 2 miles into the ride. Awesome action shot!

And finally, a short video from the ride. A warning…it was taken from the back of the eggbeater-trot pony, so it’s a little shaky in parts. Those prone to motion-scikness may need to avert their eyes. This was taken about halfway through the first loop, on part of the trail that was a straight out-and-back section, which meant we got to ride through this gorgeous part of the trail twice.

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.

Valley of the Sun 4

/ Ashley Wingert / 6 Comments

Ponies don’t know the meaning of the word “quit.” At least, it’s certainly not a part of Mimi’s dictionary. After taking several months off to take some weight off my shoulders and get some perspective, Mimi and I completed our second 50 at the Valley of the Sun 4 ride on February 28 at McDowell Mountain Park.

After getting pulled at 40 miles for being overtime at Man Against Horse, combined with her movement being “off” without being discernibly lame, we took a few months off. I was very busy with school, and a bit frustrated at not having completed two 50s in a row (a RO pull at Devil Dog in June, then the OT pull at MaH), and a bit ready for a break. Mimi needed a break, too.

Time off until the first of the year was what we both needed, and we hit the conditioning trail again. I wasn’t sure of her fitness and soundness levels enough to take her to Wickenburg — I hadn’t done enough hard training rides on her to have a fair assessment. But a month later, her antics and good spirits told me she was ready — and for more than a 25. Horses really do retain a good portion of their conditioning, even during time off, as long as they have enough turnout. We were going to sign up for the 50 at Valley of the Sun.

The week leading up to the ride was typically busy for me, and I ended up cramming the majority of my packing for the ride into Thursday, with the exception of a couple of hours in the morning for school. The weather report had been steadily warming up over the past weeks, and the ponies both had large amounts of winter fluff on them, despite gradually shedding. That meant they both got a fast clip job on their necks and flanks, then a bath.

Mimi hadn’t had a bath since October (I don’t like the cold water any more than she does) and was rather colorful. Her white flanks are still a striking, day-glow yellow color from her preference for sleeping where she goes to the bathroom. *long-suffering sigh from the white pony owner*

Thursday night was a late night getting to bed, trying to get everything packed up, and then an even earlier morning Friday morning in order to be up to McDowell Mountain Park by 8a.m. to help ribbon some of the trail. We got the ponies set up at the trailer, and they spent the morning stuffing their faces while Dad and I ribboned part of the trail off bikes. I’m not the bravest biker, and the section I ribboned wasn’t the most bike-friendly, which meant I walked a lot of it.

After ribboning, we went out for a short pre-ride, and to finish ribboning the two miles of sand wash that lead in and out of camp, a section I certainly wasn’t going to try to bike through. We flushed an owl out of the bushes near the top of the wash, less then 10 feet in front of Beamer’s nose. I wish I would have had my camera out, but as it was, my hands were full of ribbons.

Thanks to an early briefing, I was able to get to bed very early, and actually slept very well for a pre-ride night. The ponies got their breakfast — alfalfa and carrots were the preferred options, but both deigned to nibble on about half of their beet pulp. The time seemed to really fly between waking and ride start, and before I knew it, we were walking up to the start and down into the wash for the first 25-mile loop. The ride would be two loops of 25 miles in length, with a one-hour vet check at camp between the two loops.

We walked for about 10 minutes, then picked up an easy trot. The sand wash lead up to one of the wide single-track trails that we turned south on and followed across the valley and gradually made our way up to one of the low ridges of the mountains — the Pemberton Trail. The trail turned into a lovely single track that followed along the top of the ridge for a while, then dropped down onto a service road that took us to the first water stop of the morning.

Both ponies drank at the stop, then we went back out the same way until we hit the Pemberton Trail again. We followed the Pemberton for a while, then got off on another trail that lead to the next checkpoint and water stop. From there, it was maybe another five miles back to camp (two miles being the sand wash that was the only way in and out of camp) for our vet check and lunch.

Both ponies pulsed down to the required 60 within a minute of coming in, including time for taking a drink. We vetted them through — all A’s for both — then hustled back to the trailer for lunch. It was starting to warm up — temperatures for the day were predicted to be in the mid 80’s — and the shade, cool food, and the chance to sit were very welcome.

Lunch flew by, and we actually ended up leaving about 40 minutes late, as I had to do some emergency fiddling with my front Renegades. Fortunately, Kirt and Gina Lander were attending the ride, and Kirt was on hand to be able to do a quick refit. The Landers have been so wonderful to work with, and I love using the Renegades. They’ve been very low maintenance, and they are so easy to use. And I can’t stress enough how great Kirt and Gina are to work with. They’ve been on hand at nearly every ride I’ve been to in the past year, sizing and fitting boots, and checking on boots at vet stops. Their level of personal customer service is unparalleled, and is just one of the reasons I hold their product in such high regard.

The extra time was nice for the ponies, though, and gave them an extra chance to snooze. Mimi had a minor meltdown panic attack when I went to electrolyte her — mental note: Make sure she’s not tied off in any way while e’lyting. No harm done, just a little bit of minor mental trauma on the part of the syringe-paranoid one. She’s very unimpressed with the whole applesauce-e’lyte mix, so I think I’m better off using the concentrated paste e’lytes in small doses. She doesn’t seem to take as much offense to those smaller syringes as she does the larger, clear ones for the applesauce mixes.

Then we were out on trail, up the wash…again. Both ponies kind of trudged out this time. I think they were both sulky about the wash, as this was the fifth time they had been through it — out and back ribboning, and out and back for the first loop. We trudged about halfway up, letting them warm up, then starting trotting as soon as it got more shallow. They both perked up again once we hit the Pemberton Trail, although we turned the other way this time and headed north to the turnoff for the Scenic Trail, a single-track trail that climbed up the side of a mountain and traveled along the top of a ridge for several miles before dropping back down and reconnecting to the Pemberton Trail.

There was another water stop a little ways after, at the intersection of the Pemberton Trail and one of the park roads. Both ponies drank well, which was a relief as the afternoon had been steadily warming up. I made it through the first loop with two water bottles, and that was sufficient, but I put my Camelbak water pack on for the second loop, and I was certainly glad for it.

We continued on the Pemberton Trail for a while, and part of the section was a service road with footing good enough to canter, which was a nice break. Fortunately, this section of the park has a few more trees, so there were more shade patches along this trail. It was easy to get into a nice rhythm on this trail of trotting, broken up by short breaks of walking to give the ponies a breather, and to give our various protesting body parts a chance to rest.

About halfway through this section of the Pemberton, we came across one of the herds of loose horses that live in the park. Some are wild mustangs, some are loose ranch horses that have been turned out. It was really cool to see them grazing out there, although I didn’t get any pictures. Mimi was a little too interested in wanting to make friends, so we hustled through that area.

The Pemberton Trail turned down a wash that we followed for a few miles before coming out to the same second water stop as on the first loop. Both ponies really sulked when we turned and had to backtrack to pick up another trail — one that headed away from camp. Both were sure we riders had lost our minds, and sulked down the trail for the next four miles or so.

I think this was the proverbial “wall” they hit, which I don’t think was bad at all. It resulted in a slouchy walk from Mimi (who earlier had been walking out at 5mph) and an incessant urge to stop and graze alongside the trail. The latter request we indulged in whenever we could find decent grass versus toxic weeds. Rule of thumb: If it grows well in the desert, it’s probably toxic. We got some good practice in the “trot when you can” principle — I could coax about 50-100 feet of trot on smooth trail out of her, then we’d walk as soon as we hit a slight downhill grade or any rocks.

Fortunately, we soon turned onto the trail that would take us home — a very gradual downhill, winding single track that was smooth and well groomed, meaning we could trot the majority of it, save for when my lower back, unimpressed with the idea of downhill trotting on an already downhill-built pony, needed a couple minute break. I hadn’t remembered riding this trail when we had trained at McDowell in the past, but Dad did, and so did Mimi. As soon as we turned onto it, she perked right up, and was happily trotting along.

She had one hilarious spook that involved her getting in touch with her quarter horse breeding and trying to bury her butt in the trail when she caught sight of a barrel cactus 10 feet off the trail and stopped fast. Fortunately, all she did was stop and do her best “bug-eyed, arch-necked Arabian” impression, which meant I didn’t end up with a mouthful of pony mane. It does make me feel good when they throw in playful spooks like that at the end of a ride, because it means they still have the energy to pay attention to their surroundings, and to bother to spook at something.

We connected back up with the Pemberton Trail (which makes one big loop around the entire park, and much of the trail involved riding from one section of it to another) and back up to the wash for the final time, down the last two miles of sand wash, and across the finish line. I think we finished around 5:30, and our goal had just been to finish before dark.

We took the ponies back to the trailer and untacked them, then vetted them out. Mimi got all A’s on everything except gait, where she got a B…the vet said it looked like she was slightly crampy in her right hind. I’m not sure whether it was that, or the fact she’s 16, and we’ve been battling fusing hocks for the last two years. I’m more inclined to believe the vet’s theory, though, as Dad had been travelling behind us for most of the second loop and said she was moving beautifully, and completely normal for her. Which is to say, she still has an eggbeater trot. Floaty, elastic Arabian we are not. But the sun was rapidly dropping, a breeze had picked up, and despite her fleece blanket, I’m guessing she got a little crampy and chilled.

Completion awards were chapsticks donated by Susan Favro from Healthy as a Horse, and our ride photographs. The photographer got a great action shot of Dad and Beamer in the morning, a good one of the two greys together in the morning, and a cute one of me and Mimi in the late morning. Dad and Beamer’s late morning one is amusing, as Beamer is giving the photographer the “evil eye.”

Given that McDowell is only an hour away from the barn, we chose to pack up and leave that evening. It takes us a couple hours to pack everything up, so the ponies got a chance to relax and eat. I was a little worried at this point, as Mimi hadn’t peed at all on the second loop. She finally peed once she got in the trailer, and it was darker yellow than I like to see it.

Continuing the saga, when we got back to the barn and turned them out in the arena to roll, Mimi rolled, but then got up, paced around a few minutes, then laid down on her side, back legs really stiff and looking very uncomfortable. She stayed that way for about 30 seconds, then got up. I lead her back to her stall, and walked her slowly around in her stall for a couple minutes. She looked stiff in her hind end, and very mopey. For such a tough pony on trail, she is very obvious, and kind of a wimp when it comes to discomforts.

After about 30 minutes, she seemed to relax, started whiffling up hay bits, then slurped up the rice bran water I poured over her grass hay, making sneering ugly-mare faces at Beamer all the while. This afternoon, she seemed totally back to normal, giving me one of her loud, high-pitched pony screeches as I walked (okay, lurched…my calves hate me right now) up the driveway. She’s definitely in better shape than I am.

Both of their legs look really good, and I’m especially impressed with how Mimi’s looked. She’s got permanent windpuffs from years of use, but I figured there would be a lot more fill and swelling after all of yesterday’s trotting. I was pleasantly surprised to see she had no more fill than after one of our moderate training rides. Beamer’s back was perfect, and Mimi’s was good except for some pressure around the stirrup bars. I’d been playing with some extra foam inserts in the front of my saddle to try to compensate for her downhill built and make it slightly more level for me, but I suspect that it might tip the saddle back a bit too much and put too much pressure on the stirrup bars and back half.

They both got e’lyted, and a pan of wet beet pulp, then I left them alone. I figured they would be sick of seeing us, but they were both cheerful and in good spirits. Me, I’m seriously crunchy feeling, and as I finish this off (Monday morning), I’m even more sore, and feel somewhat wiped out. First thought: How do people ride 100s? Second thought: Can we go down to Sonoita next weekend? :)

First of Spring 2002

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment

I was sorting through my flash drive today and found where I had scanned a ton of my ride photos taken by professional photographers and saved them. I thought I had lost them when my *$%!& computer crashed in November, but apparently I did a better job of backing up certain things than I thought (we’ll not talk about all the other pictures, and steno software realtime translation dictionary, and writing that I lost). That got me thinking about how I’ve wanted to start trying to put together stories, even vague snippets, of my early rides. This seems to be as good a place as any to start…

So for your entertainment, I present to you, Mimi’s and my first NATRC ride together. This is the First of Spring ride, held in Alpine (just outside San Diego, around El Cajon), CA, in April 2002.

She would have been around 9, and we had been training for distance riding since summer of 2001. Dad’s foxtrotter mare Kelly had come down with EPM in the spring of 2001, and it was a slow road to recovery, bringing her back up to strength. We would literally trailer out to one of the trailheads, tack up, ride for half a mile out, then come back. We really embraced the idea of Long, Slow Distance training.

Fortunately, Mimi and I also had 4 years of POA show training behind us. POA shows were all-day affairs, starting at 6a.m. and usually not wrapping up until 9 or 10p.m., and we were riding all day long. Western classes, including pleasure, equitation, showmanship, reining, and trail; English classes, including pleasure, equitation, and jumping; gymkhana, usually 6-8 different events. Yeah, we were nuts. But it was a great foundation in stamina and endurance. And eating and drinking under stress. (This one was more for me, not the pony. To this day, I still have no problem chowing down on food in the middle of a ride, and it likely harkens back to my mother stuffing mini-muffins and anything she could get her hands on in my mouth as I’m spazzing out over a jumping class.)

FoS was a one day ride, and we were riding the Novice division, which was a total of about 20 miles. We were fortunate enough to be camped next to one of my best friends, Kaity, whom I had shown with in POA. Her POA Sonny is actually a cousin to Mimi, although they look nothing alike. Kaity had been riding NATRC for a couple years ahead of me, so she was able to give me a lot of tips and pointers.

The rest of the story gets kind of fuzzy, as it was seven years ago, and time has dulled some of the more colorful moments. I recall check-in being fairly easy…we had showmanship and halter training to instill good ground manners (kind of). Ride day, however, started out very interesting. Alpine is close enough to San Diego to catch the morning fog that comes in off the ocean. The trail headed out next to a paved road that wound back though some horse properties, by some avocado trees, and then it turned into a wide dirt fire road that wound its way down into the base of a canyon area.

Mimi discovered the joys of jigging 1/4 mile into the ride. We jigging down the canyon. We jigged across the floor of the canyon, whcih sort of went out, then looped back around through some oak trees and tall grass, where the ride photos were taken. We jigged back up the canyon to a P&R stop. We pulsed down, actually stood for mounting, then jigged our way the last 1/2 mile back to camp for lunch.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I went to drag myself back into the saddle after lunch, but I think it was probably something along the lines of “What am I thinking?” And we continued to jig. Down the side of a 2-lane paved road, with cars going by at least every 2-3 minutes. *sigh* We finally got off the road, onto a double-track road that sort of went up and down through a couple little hills, then onto a single track that stitchbacked its way down a very steep canyon. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was to be the start of my Tevis training and exposure to narrow dropoff trails…*grin*

And Mimi is still jigging. Inexperienced at distance and trail riding I might have been, but even I knew not to get into an argument with her on the side of a cliff, so she got to merely jig along with her head stuffed up Kelly’s tail until we made it down to the bottom, where she stopped jigging long enough to drink from the little stream flowing there.

We jigged our way another 1/2 mile or so to the second P&R check. We pulsed down, although not as well as the first one. (Hmmm, do you think the jigging is starting to catch up?) She deined to walk out of the P&R and back up the switchback trail. At this point, we caught up to Kaity, and rode with her the rest of the way back into camp, the same way we had come out for the second section. Oh, yes, and after a brief couple miles of walking, she jigged her way back into camp. *sigh*

The most amazing thing? Her back wasn’t the slightest bit sore. We both came out with first place for Novice Junior in Horsemanship and Horse. I was completely staggered, and so proud of her! The next morning, my shoulders and arms were so sore, and I wasn’t feeling quite so complimentary. But I had a six hour drive back home to nurse my sore muscles.

Man, writing that up makes me realize one thing: “You’ve come a long way, baby!” And that’s for both of us. A closer look at the picture will reveal: a Myler level 3 semi-jointed ported kimberwicke and running martingale; Big Horn barrel saddle with the horn still intact; massively stuffed saddle packs; waaaay too many rider layers; crappy paddock boots (actually, they’re a pair of nice Ariats I still own, just bad for trail riding and gaining any kind of traction on dirt). The stuffed pommel and cantle packs for a 20 mile ride still crack me up. Ironically, it took me until endurance to start realizing I didn’t need to pack half the cavalry with me. The joy of crew bags in endurance. :)

It’s pretty amazing…I remember a lot of odd details about that ride. I guess a first ride kind of burns an impression in your memory. Hope y’all enjoyed a little blast from the ride history past!