The Tack Change II, Virtual Trail Report, Tevis Sippy Cup, Miles 86 to 90, October 2020

Riding Journal

Awareness of the outside world. Dover catalog Fall 2020. Plus points for racial diversity. Minus points for lack of gender, size, age, or adaptive diversity.
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Blogging note. I usually post VTevis updates on Tuesday. This one got bumped back a day when the Monday post became the Monday & Tuesday posts. Other than offending my sense of order, mox nix.

Overall
Two weeks until original, non-extension, finish date. Ten miles to go. Piece of cake for IRL endurance horses. We will likely need the entire time.

Milestones
Poverty Bar River Crossing, mile 89.

Daily Log
We are doing our rides in 1/3 or 1/2-mile laps around our pasture. Link to standings, Doctor Whooves, Major Milton, All. Daily screenshots from VTevis results page.

Wednesday, October 21, 2020. Today 2.06 miles. Total 87.28 miles. Time 56 min. Pace, slow. No streetview.

Milton back in his own saddle with new configuration. Seemed to go well. Rodney bareback.

Horses alarmed by kerfuffle at the top of the hill in the woods next door. After two laps, we decided they had a legitimate complaint. Wandered back and forth on the flat section for the rest of the ride. Tried once to go up the hill off to the side. Nope. Too close. Relaxed as soon as we turned away.

Friday, October 23, 2020. Today 0.68 miles. Total 87.96 miles. Time 22 minutes. Pace, slow. Same mileage, no streetview.

Milton same saddle. Did. Not. Approve. Took him a while to decide he didn’t like the set-up? Something loose? Ended ride early. Evening ride, no time to fiddle and try again.

Rodney with new bar. Fit great.

Saturday, October 24, 2020. Rain. 0 miles. Good thing we got miles on Wednesday.

Sunday, October 25, 2020. Today 2.09 tracked +.5 awarded = 2.59 miles. Total 90.55 miles. Time 1 hour, 13 minutes. Pace, slow. No map or streetview. Program has us way farther along than we should be. ~~If Poverty Bar is mile 89, we should be just past No Hands Bridge on the map~~. I mention this because I was so impressed with how close we were to the finish … until I took a better look. Update. I may have the geography confused, but the map was definitely optimistic.

Number geekery. Rode 2.09 miles with tracker. Milton lunged for 4 minutes and rode for 14 minutes without tracker. Our pace was 28 minutes a mile, so I awarded him 1/2 mile. Rodney had 1.5 miles in the bank from when we were doing a warm-up lap in hand. Five laps in hand equals 1.66 miles. Minus .5 today. Technically, Rodney is up 1 mile. Not counting unless we need to.

Back to horses. Given Milton’s reaction on Wednesday, we hauled horses and a selection of bars and girths to the round pen at Stepping Stone Farm. If you’re going to experiment with tack arrangements, it’s nice to do in a contained space. And he liked the first one we tried. Cool.

Because of the rain the day before, we stayed on gravel, which meant many, many loops around the parking lot. Ventured up the road!

Gold stars for shipping!

Gold stars road work!

Tin stars for not wanting to come back down driveway toward the barn & trailer. This is the second time they’re done it. What’s up with that? You’d think they would want to go that way.

Successful saddle fit for horses & riders. Crosses many fingers.

Have to repeat that Rodney was a star on the road. Straight and careful. First time I’ve ridden him on a road. Thank the fates for a quiet, Sunday afternoon, dead-end road with no cars.