Should I do 25, 50 or just not ride?

["Kathy Mayeda" <kathy_mayeda@atce.com>]

Okay - I'll might be more confused after getting everyone's opinion, but
here's my dilemna.  I have a 9-year-old gelding that I have been trying to
get sound enough to do endurance.  Okay, okay, I didn't buy him - he was a
gift.   But he's a tall guy with a tough attitude when he gets going, so I
think he could do it.

I did the 25 at Camp Far West for our first endurance ride last year and did
fine. He behaved himself well, and even started to learn to drink on the
trail! I thought it was almost too easy, so I tried the Fireworks 50.
Didn't condition myself or the horse too well, but  we did 44 miles before
the vet pulled us for a slight lameness. After the ride, I realized that my
poor guy had lost his entire topline and developed a big dip behind his
shoulders creating a helluva saddlefit problem.  I changed boarding
situations for the winter (that's another story that I won't bore you with),
so he spent the winter in his "little house" with a large paddock after
being a pasture horse for many years.  I long-lined him, did the Tteam
bandages (people said that he would be SO embarrassed), chambon, and fed him
more groceries to help bring his topline up.  This was quite a change from
the previous year because he was fat enough that people would think that he
was a quarterhorse!

Well anyway, I think I got the saddle fit issue fixed (thanks to a lovely
ReactorPanel saddle).  But the instructions for ReactorPanel that there is
some muscle building involved because of the different muscles used.  I've
had it for about a month and I love it.  And my guy no longer is trotting
with his head up and back hollow.  And I've been taking riding lessons
again - so things are looking up.

But he bucks when he does canter departs.  I had my eq. Chiro. Come out last
week because someone rode him with a big Western saddle that didn't' fit him
and put his back out again. Then I tried to address this canter problem with
my riding lesson last Saturday, and never got him to go into the canter on
the flat  without bucking.  After the lesson, we trotted and cantered up the
hills at Quicksilver for over 2 hours and he had enough go left after 3+
hours of riding.   He only bucked once while going into a canter uphill.
Any body have a fix for this?

My feeling that his cardiovascular, and leg muscles and tendons are almost
ready, but his back is not.  I thought about doing the SASO IV 50, then last
week it was switched in my mind to the 25, and now I am thinking about
waiting until I could really work on his back for another month and do an
easy 50 at Camp Far West.  I think that my horse and I are of the school
where another 25 would not help us learn to pace ourselves correctly.