First ride of the season – and it didn't go how I expected it to...

I know it's been FOREVER since I have updated my blog.

Here's the short version of a few of the things I was going to write about.

Bunny has been going great! After last season she had a few weeks off and then a couple months of only light riding, arena stuff and short trail rides. In the middle of December we eased back into conditioning. My goal was to do a 75 mile ride at Coyote Ridge. A new ride the first week of April just outside of Moses Lake WA.

I was really excited about this. I really like the 75 mile distance. The terrain around Moses Lake is a lot like around here so it was going to be a great place to do a 75 first thing in the season.

Bunny has just been getting better and better. She was a nice girl when I got her but she is maturing. She is more relaxed, better trained and just a real joy to be around. She still has a kick butt work ethic and riding her is just a joy.

Our conditioning went great. We did our last big ride two weeks before the ride where I rode a 22 mile hill ride. I was thrilled with her conditioning, her attitude, her training everything. I couldn't have felt better about the start of the season. There was just one little thing bugging me in the back of my mind.

That was how our last ride of last season had gone.

There was a lot of little factors that played into OR 100 not going down perfectly but in the back of my mind I was a little bit worried that Bunny might have ulcers. A couple people had talked to me at OR 100 after I pulled and said that ulcers was something they would be suspicious of.

I read up on it a bit. Looked for other signs and kept an eye on her this winter. She was being a bit of a picky eater, but then she never was a hoover machine like Quincy. Quincy ate anything, any time and if he didn't there was a huge problem. Bunny usually eats well, and eats really well on long distance rides but she just isn't quite the vacuum Quincy was. Sometimes it's hard to know what's just her and what's a problem. This winter she was leaving some of her mash for a bit till she would clean it up and I had to work hard to keep her in the body condition I would like to see her at. But there are always changing factors so it's so hard to know what's what.

I had put her on SmartDigest Ultra and aloevera and I felt like she started eating a bit better and she put on just a little bit more weight, had dapples and looked great. But at the same time the grass was starting to come in again, so hard to know what was responsible for what. I planned to talk to her vet when she had her spring tune up this next month.

So I felt pretty good going into this ride. I was going to ride conservative till near the end and then if I had extra horse I would let her speed up. I wanted to try to do everything right and see how it went.

I saw so much progress in Bunny I just can't even tell you how proud I am of her. Dean took his new horse Credence who had never been to ride camp and never been away from Dean's other horses. He was pretty amped up and unsure of things. That didn't seem to phase Bunny at all. She was calm, quite and just did her thing. She waited quietly in a crowded vet line that before she would have not been able to handle, at all. She set a great example for Credence and showed him around on a little ride Friday afternoon. She was calm in camp, ate hay and drank but wasn't crazy about her mash. Usually she licks the pan clean at ride camp.

Same thing in the morning, ate and drank well at night only ate about two bites of beet pulp in the morning.

We had the best start ever. There was only 4 people riding the 75. I let the others take off and left just seconds behind them so Bunny could see them just a few hundred yards ahead of us. She was good! She wanted to go but she listened and was pretty relaxed. We caught everyone a few miles in and rode with them till about 10 miles into the first loop.

There was a nasty bog. It apparently sprang up out of no where. You could see quad tracks and it looked a bit wet but not bad but as soon as the first horse set foot out there it sunk to it's belly. The others of us skirted around to the side only to realize that there was now a ravine, not a small one, between us and the trail. Where we were was steep, rocky and very wet, although not a bog. We could see a ways up there where it looked like you could get across to the trail. So that's what we did. Bunny stayed nice and calm and didn't set one foot wrong. Good deal because I wouldn't have wanted to go through that with a crazy horse that wasn't listening.

Photo by Cassidy Rea, Just before the bog...

As soon as we got cell coverage we called camp to warn others about the bog. After that it was smooth sailing. The others began to pick up speed. They we alternating trotting and cantering on these beautiful soft gravel roads out in the middle of nowhere. The weather was great it was just beautiful. I decided to pull back because when they cantered they were going just a touch faster then I wanted to go. It was still well within what I thought Bunny could do but I wanted to be conservative.

Bunny let the others go with no problem! Another huge triumph. We would catch two of the riders from time to time and then let them go again when their speed didn't match ours. Through the rough stuff Bunny walked faster then them so overall we were going about the same pace just in a little different way.

Along the trail I let Bunny eat several times. She was happy to graze and not only did she drink well at the troughs she drank out of a pond and a big mud puddle. This is the horse that at first would not touch natural water with a ten foot pole.

Along the way there were farming families that lived along these graveled roads that would come out in their yards to watch and cheer us on. It was kind of fun. You felt like a celebrity or something.

We finished the first 28 miles in 3 hours and 54 minutes. On the conservative end of what I had planned for the loop. Bunny pulsed right down and vetted all A's except for B's on gut sounds. The vet just said to make sure she ate well. Sometimes after a long loop like gut sounds can be not quite as good as they would be otherwise so I wasn't to worried.

Bunny ate the entire hold but was a bit picky about it. She didn't want mash, would only eat hay and an apple my mom gave her. I didn't worry to much though because she was eating.

The next loop it was just Bunny and I and we had a great time. Just jogging along enjoying life. She drank well, ate along the trail I couldn't have asked for a better time. We took a few extra minutes to fix our reins. Bunny stepped on her reins while I was peeing on the side of the trail. The snap broke so I just attached the reins to the bit. No big deal but took a few minutes. Then we were back on the trail again.

We did that loop, 13 miles, in 1hour and 47 minutes. Again being conservative, not pushing things at all. She pulsed right down and vetted A's except for a B on skin tinting and a B on gut sounds. Just for reference, at Sunriver 100 this summer where she was a rock star she had A, A- on gut sounds she even had A gut sounds at the finish. The vet was impressed!

This time at the hold Bunny ate for about five minutes, only nibbling at alfalfa leaves and then just quite eating. I walked her around and occasionally she would take a nibble or two but that was it. I stripped her tack and decided to just hang out for a bit and see if I could get her to dig in. She wouldn't I couldn't really even get her to take two bites in a row. She looked great! Bright eye, alert, spring in her step but no interest in food except for the occasional nibble.

By this time everyone was clearing out from the out vet check. One vet was still there and we chatted. I told her about OR 100 and how I felt Bunny just wasn't right. Usually 40 miles in she would be diving into food and I would have to pull her away. She asked a bunch of questions and then said she really wondered if she had ulcers.

I hung around for about an hour and same thing, occasional nibble but nothing more. I had two main thoughts. First of all I didn't want to ride her another loop and then see her look miserable like she did at OR 100. Secondly I didn't want to ask her to go any farther if I thought she didn't feel good. I want her to enjoy this. She has a great work ethic and I know she would go if I asked but that's not what I want.

So with a bit of a heavy heart, I pulled her. The heavy heart was mostly because I had this gut feeling something, most likely ulcers, was going on with her.

Back at camp I had blood work run on her just to make sure her electrolytes weren't all out of whack or something else. Her electrolyte levels were right on. Her CK (muscle enzyme levels were a bit high but just barely) and her total bilirubin was a little high to. I chatted with the vet who saw her at the outcheck and with another vet. Both felt that in light of the behavioral things going on they would highly suspect ulcers.

Bummer. But the good news is it's treatable. I had several people come and talk to me. They told me stories of treating their horses for ulcers and what great results they had and how many miles they went on to do. I had folks tell me how proud they were that I pulled my horse an kept her best interest as the priority. Some folks came and gave me a hug. Our endurance community is the best!

So it looks like it's time for some omeprazole and I'll keep you posted on her progress. In the future I will also be using Ulcergard preventatively leading up to a ride.

Another good suggestion I got was to try not feeding her at all in the morning. Several people, including one of the vets said that worked a lot better for their horses and helped them eat better. I think I will give that a shot too.

Here's hoping and praying we can get her back to 100% so that the two of us can enjoy some more great rides together! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Hope to see you on the trail again soon!