Shortly after returning home from Blackwater Swamp Stomp, Sunny had a recheck osteopathic visit. I also had Dr. Ann Marie Hancock evaluate a small growth I had noticed about 2-3 months ago in Sunny's right armpit. Osteopathically he is doing well, nothing major but he was a little 'out' in a typical pattern seen in distance horses; all fixed for now with a recheck planned sometime around OD in June. Dr. Hancock thought it would be best to go ahead and remove the growth so off it came. I sent it out for histopathology. The histopathology results showed a Sarcoid (a locally aggressive common skin growth), with 1 of the 3 sections showing incomplete margins. Sarcoids tend to return after removal, especially if the margins are incomplete, meaning that on the cellular level the pathologist could see sarcoid cells to the edge of the sample. Ughhh-- that meant that the area needed to be re-cut more aggressively and Sunny also needs enough time to heal before No Frills on April 21st. I have to admit seeing Dr. Hancock perform surgery on Sunny did make me a little nauseous and light headed despite the fact that I am a small animal veterinarian and perform surgery daily -- just not on my own loved animals!! But after considering the time crunch to allow complete healing before No Frills and my personal budget and time constraints I decided to go ahead and do the second surgery myself. FYI - I do not keep supplies at home to perform surgery! But after careful preparation including purchasing the needed supplies from my supportive vet clinics, I autoclaved my surgical pack in the pressure cooker (and yes, that is acceptable and often done in medical humanitarian situations where electricity is not readily available) and set up my equipment on rubbermaid bin in the barn. My trusty vet assistant/software programmer/husband was on-board to help. Everything went like clockwork (probably due to the obsessive planning and worrying for the last week!) and Sunny now is missing a large piece of skin/tissue in his right underarm, with about a 4" row of stitches holding everything together. He gets several days of pain medicine (Equioxx) and 10-14 days of rest before the sutures come out. I expect it to heal well, with my main concern being discomfort when the limb is fully extended, pulling on the armpit skin and stitches. Skin is very elastic, so in 2 week or so he should be all set.
Of course, prior to the evening's surgery I needed to completely wear myself out and get 1 more conditioning ride under our belt before the rest and healing period. We actually rode about 23 miles on Saturday checking out the upper loop of No Frills ,with Dale and Cheyenne, which was mostly clear with about 3 big downed trees. So today we tackled another 10 mile loop. I ended up riding by myself which is nice to do once in a while. We played with all our dressage exercises while warming up. Haunches-in to the left and counter shoulder-in to the right (left bend) were the hardest today, but Sunny is continuing to improve every time we practice! While rain was forecast it ended up being a lovely partly sunny ride in the mid-60's, WOW! During the ride I played with a little interval training for the first time. I remembered reading about bringing the heart rate up to 200 and then timing recovery -- now I will need double check this.... But after galloping up the mountain (we actually only made it up to 14.6 mph, LOL) we finally reached 200 bpm and immediately stopped and stood. It took 8 min and 10 sec to reach 60 bpm while mounted with no cooling measures, etc. I will have to practice this occasionally (after double checking about interval training...) to monitor his improvement in conditioning. We only did 1 interval because I could not raise his heart rate to 200 again -- we might have reached this but my Garmin stopped reading consistently. It is hard to reach 200 bpm (Sunny thinks so too!). What a nice ride-- a little dressage, a good gallop, more and more gaiting, and plenty of replenishment in the cool mountain streams! However, back at the trailer Sunny is consistently not eating well. And this is after 3 weeks of complete pasture rest after the 50 miles at Blackwater. I have practically tried every food purchasable in our area and today he turned his nose up at grass and beautiful alfalfa after only 10 miles. Fresh grass is his favorite and he couldn't have been too tired after only 10 miles in 2 hours... He urinated, took few bites of grass and then slightly parked out and just stood. Not interested in eating anything, but I could hear his gut sounds, even without a stethescope. Everything else was normal but I thought he looked uncomfortable. I loaded up and headed home and when we reached home he was more than happy to chow down on spring grass and there was fresh manure in the trailer. I am worried about ulcers. He ate well at Blackwater Swamp Stomp but I did have him on ulcergard. He also looks more tucked up than I would like and doesn't clean up his grain. He may not clean up his feed because he doesn't like the supplement powders - salt and vitamin E. Or maybe he has ulcers. I also am going to try a textured feed, Omelene 500, versus pelleted Ultium to see if he prefers that; he doesn't like Blue Seal Sentinel. He has free choice hay and is turned out 24-7. I am going to evaluate having him scoped for ulcers. With my personality I need to know if he actually has a problem before treating or if I need to be looking for something else. For now he gets rest, love, and loads of hay :)
Sunny showing his preference for Purina Ultium versus Blue Seal Sentinel
Blackwater Swamp Stomp March 5, 2017 - 50 miles, Ride Time 7 hr 16 min, Average moving speed 7.6 mph. Total ride time 8 hr 58 min, and overall speed 5.8 mph. BAREFOOT! Tied for 14th place with Dale Weaver and Ann Wicks -- excellent riding companions!!
Shoulder-in during our warm-up. Photo by Mike Turner
Sunny and I both completed our first 50 mile endurance ride!!! Yay! :) Thank you to everyone who has supported me through this journey and special thanks to Roberta Young who mentored and transported me to the Swamp Stomp (and thank you Jen for the trailer parking!), Dale Weaver who let me tag along with him for the whole 50 miles, and Wendy Rush who let me have this opportunity with Sunny!
Back to the beginning... this week was too busy for a pre-ride post so it is an all-in-one read. I clipped Sunny the week prior to the ride with temperatures forecasted in the upper 60's (maybe even 70's)
Then, per Murphy's law, a cold front came through and the temperatures plummeted to the mid-teens with snow at home. Thankfully the ride still had beautiful weather with sunny skies and temps around 50 degrees F. The week prior to Blackwater, the 20 Mule Team endurance ride was held out west. 20 Mule Team was also a cooler temperature ride and had lots of early pulls; I carefully read all the sage advice from facebook (wink, wink) but truly did pay attention to Bruce Weary's post regarding Dr. Garlinghouse's advice on electrolytes during cooler weather. The recommendation was to pre-load before the ride and for the first part of the ride with plain salt, NaCl, rather than an commercial e-lyte preparation. The reasoning behind this was to stimulate the thirst response to encourage drinking early on in the ride. Horses may not choose to drink as readily in cooler weather (ie especially if their ride water bucket has a sheet of ice in the morning) and the increase in plasma NaCl concentration directly stimulates a thirst response. At this point the horse has not significantly sweated and does not need the potassium and other electrolytes found in commercial preparations. Simply, you want to prevent dehydration by encouraging drinking early in the ride. As the horse sweats and the temperatures warm up you start dosing with your normal e-lyte mix for the rest of the ride. Made sense to me! I also decided to administer preventative Gastrogard as Sunny hasn't been a great eater on our conditioning rides and I wanted to make sure he wasn't fighting heartburn (ie gastric ulcers) in addition to going on a long-trailer ride and riding 50 miles for the first time. I get heartburn when I run sometimes and it really is uncomfortable.. so anthropomorphizing away, I decided to prevent this for Sunny (and I took my Pepcid too!).
On to the ride. I packed up, triple checked my list, re-packaged all my stuff into containers for switching into Roberta's rig and then checked my list again. Set the alarm for 4:30 am, had both Sunny and myself fed, loaded, and on the road by 6:45 am. Stopped at the rest-stop off 1-81 for a potty break, opened the trailer door for a soda and out darted my beloved Truman (our much loved barn kitty). He ran in and out of the idling semi-trucks and finally picked one to hide under. Thankfully he did not dart into I-81 and he eagerly let me scoop him up. I backtracked 10 miles, each way, up I-81 for a weekend of unplanned cat boarding at Copper Ridge Animal Hospital (thank you CRAH!!).
Traumatized Truman
We got on the road again, met up with Roberta and I was appreciative of how well Sunny loaded into the new trailer and made another new best friend, Roberta's handsome TWH, Trace. A few hours later we pulled into ride camp. After camp set-up and vet-in, Dale and I went for short warm-up ride to check out the trail. WOW!! It was better than beautiful arena footing. Sunny decided he was actually a gaited horse and kept pace with Cheyenne's mustang shuffle in a smooth 4-beat, umm.. something very nice. WOW again!! Considering the footing and Sunny's amazing barefoot hooves I decided to go ahead and start the ride barefoot, with front renegades in the saddle pack if needed.
Pre-Ride check. Photo by Melissa Limzi
Fire next to ride-camp. A little scary at first, until we learned that it was a controlled burn.
The next morning I followed my electrolyte plan (and actually had pre-loaded the previous night in addition to salty mashes for the past few days) and dosed Sunny with 1 fluid oz of plain salt mixed with 1 oz of Magnalax as a tasty carrier and buffer. Sunny seems to actually semi-like the Magnalax flavor and did not object to the electrolytes and even kept eating afterwards. We dosed another 1 oz of NaCl at the courtesy stop 12 miles into the first loop, and again at the first hold. After that I switched to 1 oz Enduramax with Magnalax for the 2nd hold and after the ride. I also sometimes 'dose' him with a carrot instead of an electrolyte syringe just to keep him on his toes ;)
I also stuck with my warm-up plan, following what we do at home and on conditioning rides. I started with a circle or 2 of shoulder-in and counter-shoulder-in in-hand, and then asked for a few steps of shoulder-in on a straight line. I asked for neck flexions initially and again before mounting. Sunny has really learned that the neck stretches feel good and means it is time to relax. After mounting, I basically repeated my in-hand warm up with neck stretches, shoulder-in, counter shoulder-in, and added in some renvers on the circle and travers on the straight line. We also walked out on a loose rein, then started with some trot transitions, working especially to maintain relaxation amidst the growing adrenaline in the air as the start time came closer. I like doing a small amount of the slow lateral work prior to the ride to make sure we stretch and warm-up the whole body, not just the straight-line 'go' muscles! It also helps to keep Sunny focused on me and not all the other horses warming up around us.
Sunny and I started mid-pack with Dale and Cheyenne. Roberta had loaned me her rump rug which was definitely needed with the below freezing temperatures. The start was nice, the horses were eager to go but still easily rate-able. Amanda Humphrey's team videoed the start and captured us too, check out Sunny's gait!
Sunny was strong the first 12 miles of the first 24 mile loop. I had to keep re-balancing him, keep him at a reasonable pace, and continue to insist on lightness to the rein. He thought it would be fun to gallop and catch up with all the other horses. As Roberta preached (per Julie Bullock, DVM) don't go faster than 10 mph on the first loop. We tried.... but we definitely had some nice canter stretches that pushed that a little. Actually, we did do a good job of keeping under 10 mph for the first 12 miles until the courtesy stop, sort of the first loop (or so I told myself!). This ride moved a lot faster than we can condition at home due to the differences in terrain. The ride was flat with beautiful footing, home is very steep and rocky. I was hoping that the slower conditioning on steep climbs would adequately prepare him and balance out with the faster speed on flat terrain.
Blackwater Swamp with Ann and myself -- Sunny loved the water and I had to change into dry socks after the first loop. Photo by Dale Weaver
Turns out I was right! We passed each vet check with flying colors, reaching pulse before I could get him untacked and presented. He was a little skeptical when I re-tacked him after already riding 24 miles (and even more so after 38 miles!), but he was game and eagerly followed Cheyenne and Tink back out on trail. By the 3rd loop he still had plenty of go but I could tell he was getting a little tired. Initially, he offered a beautiful collected canter on the turns around the fields; I swear I could feel him elevate his forehand and almost pirouette the turns. He even offered a few flying lead changes when we approached a turn in a counter-canter, I told him he was the best horse in the world and we kept moving along. During the 3rd loop he was like -- nah, I'll just slow to a trot for that turn, so much easier.. LOL! I also felt the same way during the 3rd loop ;) I re-pulled my groin muscle less than 3 miles into the first loop when I used it to balance myself on sharp turn, and while Sunny passed the vetting with flying colors, I was clearly lame. Luckily the no-drug rule does not apply to the humans so 2 Aleve later I was good to go. Interestingly enough on the 3rd loop I felt a small pop in the area of the pulled groin muscle and since then it has stopped hurting-- maybe all the riding re-adjusted me?? (I originally injured it while cross-country skiing in January).
Decompression... What a great ride! Fantastic management, trails, and friends. Sunny found his rhythm with a balanced, loose rein 10 mph trot. My tack and management plan worked. I picked up my cat on the way home. My muscles keep getting more sore as the day passes. Tomorrow I finish unpacking and Sunny has an osteopathy appointment then a few weeks of rest. I can't wait for No Frills and all the rides in-between.
