8 miles

Yesterday Dee and I did an easy 8 miles on the road near our endurance ride.

Q was pretty eager when it was all said and done.

Her feet looked pretty good, too. Fronts were booted because of the gravel road. She showed a little tenderness in areas where the gravel was new with her hinds, but it wasn't very often.

Strong feet on sturdy legs

Right font; her soles are finally beginning to go to a better place

Right hind; all I do with her backs is buff her toes back; the rest of the wear is all her. Not too bad being predominantly
in a pasture since April 27!

Left front, the better of her two front feet as far as quality of sole is

Left hind; once again, she does most of the work with these hind
feet.

This week she'll go back into "full" work. I quote this because so many folks in the showing community seem to consider full work to be 5-6 days a week. NO. Rest is just as important as work. "Full" to me is back into riding 3-4 days a week. She'll enter into her training regimen that consists of a day of dressage or jumping, a day of trails entailing hills, and a day of distance. If we do lighter flat rides (30 minute sessions), she may work 4 days a week, if I have time to do a lengthier session, she'll only work for 3 days.

In the past year of owning her, she has seemed to hold her baseline of conditioning really well once it was developed. I'm not in a HUGE hurry to put that base on her right now. The biggest difference in her workload now vs. these past couple months is that I will no longer be hesitant to ride her thinking "oh she should heal more". I'll heed caution for crazy things, but she's back! As long as she's fit for the end of October and the Fort Valley I & II rides, I'm happy. I've got months to get her there.

Ideally, I'd like to get a good base on her by September though and then just be steady with what we do, tapering beginning in October.

I'm very excited to get her back out on the trails working bare as she was before. It was amazing for her feet and for me. I didn't have to trim her often at all. As is, I do both my guys about every two weeks so that I don't ever have to do a lot at once. Q's gone up a whole boot size in the back. She wears size 1 Renegades all the way around, now. I think she might be able to bump up a size in the front, too, but time will tell. Hoping to hold out for some Vipers.

As usual, time will tell. Its great to be back in the saddle with those brown ears in front of me.