Off to Columbus

Well, I'm off to Columbus, New Mexico. I'll be leaving right after work and hooking up with my compadres. We'll be driving through the night and I expect we'll roll into Pancho Villa State Park sometime around noon tommorow.

In a neat piece of news, the Park has arranged for horse rentals so it looks like I'm covered in this department. Cool!!! Now hopefully, the horse won't be too bad for a rental horse- they can be a real handful when they're being made to do something that isn't "normal" (i.e. nose-to-tail in a string with rental riders who haven't a clue about riding so the horse do "whatever").

I've done a bit of background reading (but didn't get too far, unfortunately)- one interesting book is called The Jaguar and the Generala: A True Story of Revolution and Revenge by Eileen Welsome. It's interesting reading and appears to be well researched and the author is a journalist/non-historian (not necessarily a bad thing). It's not too kind to Villa and portrays him as a bit of a military incompentent who succeeded in getting many of his men killed in hopeless frontal assaults (sounds like the Western Front, doesn't it?).

This is definately going to be interesting.

Post Script:

I've just found out that Pancho Villa State Park has engaged an outfitter to bring in horses for rental and there will be a three-mile trail ride included. I've also been informed that besides the Villistas, there will also be Apache scouts. This is getting better and better!!!

Columbus, New Mexico

Here's where Columbus, New Mexico is located:

Map of Columbus, NM US

The Stupid Stuff We Do To Our Horses...

Riding was excellent this weekend and for the most part Max was the picture of cooperation, even with the winds that kicked up on Sunday.

After the ride, as I was taking off his saddle, I noticed a postage stamp-sized spot on his right flank where my foot would be if mounted. Upon examiniation, I notices it was a bare spot where the hair had rubbed off and there was the beginning on a raw spot. Strange, I thought, it was a perfectly square spot and it's obviously been going on for awhile- funny I hadn't noticed it before (although it could be argued that his winter coat partially hid it and now that he's losing it, the spot was now more obvious).

After thinking about it, I concluded that it was a sput rub from my right spur. I use a pair of cheapie "Prince of Wales" model spurs that have a squared-off end so it's concievable that the square edge could rub. I also tend to grip tighter with the right foot and I do remember sometimes grinding Max's flank to urge him along.

So there it is- my idiocy by not controlling my feet better has caused an injury, albiet light, to my boy Max. I immediately put some iodine solution and some goop to keep the flies away. I also figured that it would be a good idea to immediately stop using the spurs and give Max some time to heal. I also decided to order a pair of spurs with rounded smooth ends so there's nothing to grab or rub against Max's flank.

Since I'll be out of town most of this week, it would be a good time to let this heal up. If I ride him tonight or tommorow, I won't use spurs and trust to training and my regular foot (backed up by the crop) to get the job done.

Boy, do I feel like an ass- it pays to keep close attention to what's going on with your hose. Gee, maybe one of the reasons he was being a bit pissy last week was partly due to this...maybe Max was trying to tell me something. I whisper to my horse but sometimes he shouts back- maybe I need to listen more. Lesson learned.

Riding w/ Max Update

It's been awhile since I last posted an update on my training/riding "program" with Max. As usual, the weather has been back-and-forth- hot one day, rainy cold the next followed by clear, cool and windy ad nauseum.

Needless to say, this has had an interesting effect on the horses and in my case, it's been challenging dealing with my boy Max. It almost seems that his evil twin moved in one night and the "good" Max went to Cancun for a vacation (or so it would seem). Last week, it seemed that everything was a fight- trotting, cantering, even walking at one point. Now granted he's got some arthritis for which I feed him joint supplements and the occassional dose of Bute, but most of this stuff is behavioral.

I also suspect that he resents me demanding more out of him- last year he used to get away with quite a few evasions and I didn't have the skill to call him on it and demand performance anyway (so example, dropping out of the canter whenever he felt like it). Let's just say that the riding crop and my right arm have gotten a good workout.

Saturday was interesting- he was allright until we were heading towards the barn. at one point I wanted to canter him (in a direct NOT going directly towards the barn). He saw some other horses and did his "crazy fresh horse dance" which means acting all excited and spooky at the same time- a few taps of the spurs got his attention back on me. It's kind of weird- I'm telling him that it's OK to canter but he's so excited that he forgot to actually DO it. Pretty strange.

Then we passed by trainer's place and another horse (a very large Freisan) was running around in the arena like a maniac. Max immediately thought some was wrong and began to start backing up...more correction (sigh). By the time I got back to the barn, I was exhausted.

Last Sunday it got so bad that he didn't even want to walk- that ended after a brief "discussion" and we proceeded to warm up. Later at my lesson, he actually did pretty good until he had a temper tantrum- that also ended pretty quickly and we got back to work. Jeeze, does it ever end?

However, Monday was completely opposite- he was energenic, ready to do anything, no questions asked. In fact, he was getting a tad TOO hot but I didn't get on him for that. We did the usual trotting, leg-yields and some running laps at a canter around the track. I deliberately didn't push him too hard and we took extra time to walk and cool down at the end. The Boy couldn't have done it better and he got a good bucket for his efforts.

Last night it has just rained and the footing was pretty questionable (plus it was simply too cold- I just didn't feel like dealing with it) so I turned him out and mucked out the swamp that's normally his stall.

Hopefully things will dry up this weekend and we can do some training with no issues. I guess the moral of the story is that everyday is a different day...:-)

Indian Wars Era Living History

Here's a couple of pictures that I recently came accross of myself at Ft. Laramie at the General Miles Marching and Chowder Society (GMMCS) annual event in 1997. The GMMCS is a living history group devoted to portraying the history of the Indian Wars era infantry soldier during the era 1867-1891 and it's composed of mostly National Parks employees. It's a pretty hard-core group with strict authenticty standards and this was the first event of theirs that I attended.

Your uniforms and equipment are inspected and if everything is up to snuff, you are made a full member. I managed to make the cut at my first event- there were some others who had varous deficiencies that had to be made up at the next event. For my first impression, I chose to do Co. K, 18th US Infantry circa 1867/68. I was able to use all my Civil War stuff, for the most part, and the only major item I needed to get was an 1866 Springfield Rifle (aka the "Second Allin Conversion"). Of course, since then the prices have gone up signficantly on the M1866 so this would most likely be a much more difficult impression to do today.

The GMMCS holds one event a year, usually the fourth week in September at some significant site and they rotate field and garrison events. In 1997, it was a garrison event at Ft. Laramie, Wyoming. It was pretty awesome and we actually got to live in the barracks and sleep on the oh-so-comfortable bunks (painted in a puke lime-green color- no wonder why so many men deserted!).

I'll have more later- here's the pictures:

Crazy Weather (or My Horse is Being a Pain in the Ass)

Wow!

From warm Santa Ana winds that were blowing early Saturday and now today, it's raining and considerably cooler- can the weather get much more weird? Saturday was worthless for riding- Max was incredibly pokey and really didn't want to do anything (I suppose the warm weather combined with his winter coat didn't help any!).

I mostly wound up doing arena work and working him at a trot alongside his "girlfriend" Chenault (A 9-year old Thoroughbred mare who can be a handful). Normally we go out on the trail together but my friend was having problems with Chenault so we opted to do arena and track work. We did about four laps of continuous trotting and then rand some patterns in the arena- Max got to "chase" his girlfriend (and never catch her or overshoot her for some odd reason...:-)). Also, because of the winds, all the horses were acting edgy and otherwise carrying on like idiots. I decided that it was day for some close-in arena work. However, it was time to get Max's shoes re-done and a hoof trim and he was good for that- stayed nice and still for the farrier with no issues.

Sunday was a tad better although we had to have a few "discussions" on why it's a good idea to do as I say- Max was on a different program. However, he cleaned up his act for our lesson and was the picture of the perfectly cooperative horse.

Monday...we'll I'm giving the boy the day off. I'm sore from the past two days and it's wet and rainy. Just not fun riding weather. Besides, I have stuff to catch up on here at the house. I wish Max could run a vaccum cleaner or scrub dishes! Now that would be a sight! :-)

Road Trip!! On to Morro Bay!!!

Well it's official- Max and I have reservations for camping at Morro Bay for August 16-20 so it looks like we'll be going on the road. Hooray! Now hopefully we can get some shorter trips in between now and then so Max will have as much preparation as possible. Max was good going out to Juniper Hills in January but I want to do everything to make sure things are a success- the last thing I need is for Max to have a melt-down.

The camp site is located at a place called Montana De Oro which is one of the California State Parks in the San Luis Obispo region. The website is at:

http://www.slostateparks.com/montana_de_oro/default.asp

This promises to be a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to introducing Max to the beach...now Max will have an opportunity to go surfing!