Everything I am doing wrong (Road to the Tevis Cup, Post # 46)

Everything I am doing wrong isn’t limited to endurance, or even to horses. Lately, it seems that I can do nothing right, in any realm! But the mistakes I lament the most and tend to beat myself up about are always horse-related. This is because while hindsight is 20/20 in all domains, when it comes to horses, I can see so much more clearly where I went wrong. More tellingly, with horses, it’s always something I should have known. Maybe not exactly (I am not after all, a vet, or, when it comes to endurance, experienced), but I should at least have known I was at greater risk of error.

Table of Contents

Some Backstory
Back to everything I am (or was) doing wrong… that resulted in our pulls at Wild West
Everything I am doing wrong, according to other people

June was a horrible month for many reasons, most irrelevant to this blog, but the two greatest tragedies directly affect my road to the Tevis Cup. The first was Fantazia’s muscle cramp at the Wild West Pioneer Ride (read my blog post about it). The second was losing my other horse, Beroni, to colic (read about it here). I make mistakes with horses all the time, and Beroni was not the first I’ve lost. I lost Fantazia’s full sister, Lady, to a broken humerus just two years ago, she was found in a groomed pasture, no explanation–other than a weakened bone from Sweeney Shoulder.

I was terribly sad when Lady had to be put down, but I did not feel guilty. There was no way shape or form I could have avoided the original Sweeney lesion or her mysterious broken humerus. But I am 100% responsible for Fantazia’s cramping up at Wild West, and there is a good chance I could have saved Beroni.

Everything I did wrong that contributed to Fantazia’s muscle cramp…

But first, some backstory

(This is really what everyone who gave me advice–see below– should have known…)

Our prior experience with e-lytes

Probably my biggest mistake was not replicating ride conditions at home. I have never elyted at home (during/as part of conditioning). I’ve meant to, but I always forget. So I never really tested what worked and what did not, not in the heat, not lately.

I did give her elytes at every ride we did this spring: Laurel Mountain, Coso Junction, Cuyama Oaks, and 20 Mule Team. At Laurel Mt, she did not drink at all from the time I unloaded her till the first trough we encountered at the ride. (Nearly 20 hours, but fortunately it was cold.) I gave her elytes for the first time then, and she drank well for the rest of the ride.

Above: Fantazia on High Alert at the Laurel Mt. ride near Ridgecrest.

At the Coso Junction xp ride (it was supposed to be at Eastern Mojave but was moved due to COVID), she drank at the communal trough the night before so I e-lyted her then. She drank well the rest of the ride. We rode the first and third days, and she cruised through both. Of course, I probably didn’t need to e-lyte her. It was freezing. it snowed on us Thursday and all morning Friday (at ride camp!). She drank well the entire time, and ate better than at Laurel Mt.

The first issue at a ride was minor

Fantazia had lost quite a bit of weight by the time we went to Cuyama. She was improving though… calmer at the trailer, drinking normally, eating more. though she still refused grain and only picked at hay, there was lots of green grass, and she’d eat that as long as I let her. Unfortunately, her weight loss probably contributed to saddle fit issues. Although we finished the first day well–I was riding with a heart rate monitor for the first time, and she was under 60 before I got off–her back was sore. This despite walking most of the second loop, much of it with me on the ground, leading.

Cuyama Oaks is a beautiful ride! These are just a few of my many pictures:

I probably shouldn’t have ridden the next day (one of the many mistakes I’ve made). Since then I have been told by many people that saddle fit can most definitely cause hind end lameness. At the time, though, I just thought I’d take it easy.

Fantazia doesn’t like taking it easy, not when she can see other horses. And every time I’d find a nice window where we could see no one, I’d go off trail and we’d end up behind people again. And barely five miles in, we ended up behind other horses going slowly (according to Fantazia) up a steep hill. So she cantered sideways, at a walking pace, behind them. With aid of my heart rate monitor readout (see this post), I figured out she had lesioned herself (high right hind) at that moment. She was lame for a while, and then not… But although by the time we were back to camp, her heart rate was down and she wasn’t obviously lame, I asked Dr. Nicholson to have a good look at her. He said, yep, there’s hitch in her giddy-up or something like that. And thank goodness I stopped. What was irregular and barely detectable when I came into camp was a clear right side hind-end lameness two hours later when I loaded her in the trailer.

My next error was attempting 20 Mule Team

Yes, it was after an extensive vet workup, and on the advice of my vet to ride. (She was never lame at the clinic, even for the computerized gait analysis.) But, I should have known! Fantazia had not yet recovered, and was pulled at the first hold. Right hind lameness again. While we waited to be trailered back to camp, the vets tried to find the problem and failed… two days later at my vet clinic, not even the fancy lameness detector could find an issue. So I gave her a few weeks off, took her to a sports medicine chiropractor, let her fatten up, changed saddles, and then started slowly training again.

Above: Between Cuyama Oaks and 20 Mule team, we only did a few leisurely rides, with more photography than trotting. It was only two weeks, and she didn’t need the work, but a bit more trotting might have alerted me to the fact she wasn’t yet ready to compete.

Thank goodness that she wasn’t lame on the right hind at Wild West!

Back to everything I am doing wrong… that resulted in our pulls at Wild West

Fantazia was very fit going into the Wild West ride. Just two weeks before, we had done almost the same distance (just half a mile more), but with 4,262′ elevation gain, average temperate ~85F (vs. 1,677′, average temperature ~70F for the first loop at Wild West on Thursday). Yes I went a lot slower at home: four hours rather than the two hours, 30 minutes it took Karol and me to do just half a mile less distance at the ride. But Fantazia’s training routine included “road rides” where we’d trot semi-flat, fast miles (~10 mph for 7-10 miles nonstop, except for intersections). Along with shorter, 5-6 mile hill rides–our regular loop where we trot up 1000 feet with only one stop (to go through a gate).

Fitness wasn’t the problem. It was feeding and e-lyting. And I should have known better. I did know better.

Feeding and e-lyting… CHANGES

Feed and supplements

What were the differences between the Laurel Mt. and Coso Junction xprides and Cuyama/20MT/Wild West?

What did not change:

Fantazia has been getting 6 lbs. of Purina Ultium Gastric Care split in two feedings a day, plus 2-3 cups stabilized rice bran, as her basic non-forage feed for a year now. I had been offering her equal parts alfalfa, Bermuda grass, and wheat hay (except for a few weeks when wheat was unavailable). She eats about 45% alfalfa, 45% wheat, and 10% Bermuda… or she did. (Now I am restricting alfalfa and wheat to 4-5 lbs a day and giving as much Bermuda as she will eat.) I toss a tablespoon of table salt into her manger morning and night. She’s also on pasture 24/7, but in a drought year, it’s not as appetizing as she’d like nor as plentiful as I’d like.

But!

Of course, at rides Fantazia eats very little, and when at the trailer, if anything, she prefers grass hay. She loves to eat green grass and Other Horses’ Hay (as long as I don’t take it back to our trailer!)

CHANGES

Starting in mid-March, I’ve been giving Fantazia Abler as an ulcer preventative. For the first month, she got a treatment dose. Before I started Abler, and at Cuyama Oaks, I gave her Ulcergard starting four days before a ride up to 2-4 days afterwards. In other words, her three pulls (20MT and Wild West) happened when she was on Abler and not Ulcergard. (But I am not convinced this was the cause, just putting it out there.)

Electrolytes

Starting March 1st, I gave her Ker Restore, a slow-acting electrolyte given daily. (I gave her 60 g.) After talking with the vets at Wild West, I decided to stop giving her it. (Kudos to Chewy.com: when I canceled the subscription and offered to send back my unopened package, they told me to donate it a rescue.)

At Laurel Mt. and Coso Junction, I gave Fantazia Endura-max alternating with a homemade mix (2 parts salt, 2 parts lite salt, 1 part Dolomite, butterscotch pudding and water, to my taste–not too salty). I had prepared that mix years ago, for Lady; I believe I got the recipe here. After hearing and reading that Endura-max was hard on the gut (ulcers), I bought Perform ‘N Win (which doesn’t seem to be available any more). At Cuyama Oaks, I gave her Perform N Win and my homemade mix. At 20MT I gave her Perform N Win (I have misplaced my homemade elyte).

But att Wild West, I gave her Perform ‘N Win until she cramped and the ride vets told me to use Endura-Max. In the future I will use it along with Kaolin Pectin or GastroAde as a gastric buffer.

Everything I am doing wrong, according to other people

When I shared my story on the AERC Facebook page, I received a lot of (solicited!) advice. As usual, a lot of it had to do with training or riding; some of this was good, most of it I was already doing. Much of it just revealed that people didn’t know Fantazia’s history and were leaping to conclusions. A lot of people had suggestions about electrolytes, and I knew I needed their experience. The ride vets had already told me this was most likely the primary problem, so this was not a surprise. What I hadn’t thought so much about and was very grateful to have feedback on was her diet.

Some really good advice

What I took home from a wealth of information given by dozens of people with more endurance experience than me was that I need to cut back the alfalfa and take a good look at the overall mineral balance of what she eats and is given via syringe. Assays for selenium and vitamin E levels are particularly important here. I also got a lot of advice that was not directly related, but I still very much enjoy reading it.

This link will take you to my first post, but I recommend going straight to my post on Endurance Vets Q & As. Dr. Susan Garlinghouse gives a more succinct reply, with references to papers she wrote ages ago. They are still available on the AERC website:

The most important here is Beating the Metabolic Pull Part 1: Hydration.

But Beating the Metabolic Pull Part 2: Gut Motility and Beating the Metabolic Pull Part 3: Energy Balance are also very useful

Dr. Garlinghouse also recommended I read the basic bones of calcium metabolism and watch the webinars she has given.

And this is why I say I should have known better:

I had attended all the Webinars in person, and I have read all those articles… more than once!! Clearly, either I wasn’t paying attention, or I haven’t been using my head these past several months.

I was paying attention, but my head has NOT been in the right place for months now, due to personal circumstances. I knew this… and yet I still thought I could train a horse for Tevis, for the first time. Well, I couldn’t. Because all of the errors I’ve made, I shouldn’t have made.

More or less, I was following Dr. Garlinghouse’s advice. I feed Ultium Gastric Care (not upon her recommendation, but rather because of discussions on the Equine Wellness and Nutrition Group Facebook page. I tried to give Fantazia ground flaxseed, but she doesn’t like it. As for feeding and e-lyting at rides, I’ve tried to follow Dr. Garlilnghouse’s advice for the most part, but got squirrely about which e-lyte I used.

I had given up on decreasing the quantity of alfalfa in Fantazia’s ration. I was so focused on getting and keeping weight on her, I hated to see her leave forage. (Now I am being mean.)

More things I was doing wrong, and advice from Dr. Garlinghouse, given on the Endurance Vets Q & As page.

Wrong:

1. Syringing fat at a ride. I’m not really clear on why this is a bad idea (I do it to make sure she gets her usual 2-3 cups down her). As I understand from Dr. Garlinghouse’s explanation, the fat just isn’t doing anything beneficial for the ride. Instead, I should syringe fiber and carbohydrates.
2. Giving lots of different feeds (beet pulp, oats, etc) instead of focusing on the Ultium gastric care
3. Having a horse that’s a picky eater… Well. I know. And if I had a lot more money than I do, Fantazia would become a brood mare and I’d get another prospect. But this is not an option.

Suggestions for improvement:

1. Selenium and Vitamin assays
2. Blood panel, but training not CBC (yes… I didn’t know how to call it in English!)
3. Scope for ulcers, treat for hindgut ulcers
4. Don’t ever syringe oils! (I don’t! Dr. G mentioned this because I said I might try extra virgin olive oil, but I meant as feed topdressing.)
5. Take her to multiday rides… Of course, I already have, but Dr. G had no way of knowing, because the xprides were not AERC because COVID.
6. Consider dressage lessons, get her balanced, do 10m circles to calm her… Dr. G has no way of knowing I grew up doing dressage, showing dressage, taking dressage lessons at every opportunity. It is true that I have not taken regular lessons in years, but I did clinics in Oklahoma to make sure I was riding balanced. (This because both the horses I was riding then preferred the right lead which was so weird I thought I was doing it. But no. I have been assured I am balanced.)
   *** I discovered at Cuyama Oaks that circles are a Bad Idea with Fantazia. But Dr. G couldn’t have known this…

Why it’s always complicated to ask for advice online

Mainly, you simply don’t have the time or space to share the whole story with people. (Of course, most wouldn’t read it anyway, since they cannot be bothered to read even a short post. See my post on How to discourage questioning in an online horse forum.)

No one knows my background with horses. No one knows my regular warm-up routine (I do it at home and before rides). Only the people who have ridden with me know that, actually, Fantazia is not usually crazy, and she’s never out of control. Her worst moments are when I decide to fight with her/impose my will (i.e., circles result in worse anxiety)…. I just have high standards when it comes to horse behavior.

People give you advice on every tangential aspect of horse ownership, no matter how specific and careful you are when you word your question.

I don’t mind. I learn so much even from the comments that are not relevant to my original question. But I do think people could be gentler with their criticism in general, but especially with newbies (people who state outright that they are beginners). Not everyone has grown up with relentless “education” on riding!

(I cannot count the number of times I ended up in tears during a riding lesson or at a show as a child/teen. At some point, you learn to simply listen and accept everything… while only keeping what is useful. But it takes years.)

So feel free to share more advice here! No matter how critical 😉

Resources

AERC Education page with lots of information: Care and Feeding