Re: Long Leaf (long)

["Tina Hicks" <hickst@nichols.com>]

Glad to hear Angie finished - I pulled at 20 miles with sore
heels - I'm thinking. Tony has pads on so it's not a sole
bruise and nothing shows up on his legs and he has low heels
anyway - you do the math :). At any rate, I really hated it
cuz he's turning into the endurance trooper - after 4 
years, starts sanely, drank after 10 miles (the first check
was at 20 miles), could have gone in his halter after about
12 miles - has all the makings of good, competitive 100 mile
horse - if I could just exchange his feet I'd be in like
flint :)

The vet I trotted out under had either never vetted an
endurance ride or was just very inexperienced as she picked
up his left front, pinched the tendons and says ever so
calmly, "could be a bow that just hasn't shown up yet"
????!!!!! A BOW???? WHAT????? I just said uh-huh and went
back to my trailer to decide what to do. As Glenda says,
sometimes you don't wanna be an adult and have to make a
decision - it's a much easier cop-out to just say the vets
pulled me :). At any rate, after watching him trot out 2
more times and deciding tho it was ever so slight it was
*there* consistently, the next check was out and not
thinking Ruth would have a trailer there (and she didn't),
and knowing I would have 80 more miles to try to squeak by
each check and there was plenty more hard packed roads I
opted to go home with a slightly off Tony rather than a lame
Tony. 

I don't regret it for a minute - them's the breaks but it
still sucks :))

Then I was a real party-pooper and went home early - only
the 2nd time in 3 years of doing this but glad I did. 

**THANKS** so much to Glenda and Mitch for coming up to crew
- she made all this wonderful food to pump into me Sat. nite
and I had to go and pull at 20 miles :)

Congratulations to Laura whom I rode with for the first 20
miles and was a really neat partner - drove all the way from
Kansas to make this her first 100 and congratulations also
to Angie who was stressing about this ride after the LR
pull.

Now I'm thinking of my shoeing options - full time pads are
not good so I'm thinking of bar shoes (protects the heel)
with rim pads to get a little more protection on the sole
without full pads but that doesn't protect the frog, or
Equithotics on the front only. I've found E-boots to just be
too darn slippery for the SE where in one ride you may have
mud, grassy pasture, gravel, and sand and anyting in
between. Course my e-boots are worn flat - that could make a
difference :)

Many of you know I used Eq. all the way around for more than
a year and loved them except for the traction problem on
grass or in mud - which we have a lot of. Supposedly, Eq. is
now saying front only is the way to go and helps the
slipping problem. *But* what about for a ride that's all
grassy pasture like the KY Stampede ride - do the studs in
the Eq. work for that? Changing shoes every week is not an
option I'm afraid :).

Roger????

Comments/suggestions/advice welcome.

Tina & Tony
hickst@nichols.com
SE region