endurance, horse

Introducing Amira!

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If 6 horses are good, 7 must be better!  Today we brought home a 6yo, 15hh chestnut BLM Mustang mare named Amira.  On 2/15/2012, Amira was captured as a yearling from the Stone Cabin Horse Management Area (HMA) located in Nevada.  Here is a link to the information about Stone Cabin HMA. She lived in the holding pens until October of 2015 when she was processed for an internet adoption and shipped to Rhode Island.  She was only started under saddle about 8 months ago by local trainer Jeremy Reid.  We watched Jeremy compete at the Mustang Makeover in 2015 and we were impressed with his talent.  From what we have seen of Amira so far, he did a good job.  Amira went to a new home where she continued to get training, although life commitments led the owner to offer her up for sale.  Amira lived at Outback where we boarded our own horses in the past, and she even had the stall that Precious once occupied.  Anna kept remarking about how similar Amira and Precious look, although Amira has a few inches on Precious (maybe 10″).

Although Amira is 15hh, she has a very narrow build.  Our primary objective with Amira is distance riding and she will fill that niche as a possible mount for multiple family members.  With that said, she is Anna’s horse and Anna will be doing the majority of the continued training with her, including lots of trail work, dressage, and jumping.  We have big goals this year of doing a lot of distance riding and everyone is looking forward to our ride schedule.

It was late when we got home, so I don’t have any pictures from our farm to share, however, I did steal some from her sale ad.

If you want to follow along with the adventures of Amira and the rest of our herd, you can always subscribe via email on our website.

kids, marriage

Christmas Lights

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Last night we drove up to Amarante’s Winter Wonderland in Dayville.  We are new to this local attraction and just learned about it this year.  In its 11th year, Amarante’s is a local house that has 160,000 lights, 43 inflatable holiday characters and 36 Christmas trees.  They were nominated for “The Great Christmas Light Fight” show on ABC and won the competition.  For our local friends, it’s a nice family outing (I recommend Sirius XM channel 70 as your tunes to/from the display).

kids

Happy Thanksgiving

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We hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving with family and friends.  Ken and Liz (Rob’s parents) joined us in CT this year and brought the Powell family pineapple turkey decoration to put together with the kids.

In 2011, Rob and Chris Calhoun first served together at the Nautilus.  Since then, we have shared Thanksgiving (all of them?) together.

“Black Friday” was spent relaxing. We took all three dogs to Hopeville State Park for a short walk.  One good thing about cold weather is it tires a puppy out pretty quickly.

Afterwards, we all rode the horses.  The only pictures taken were of Amanda riding Devil.  While Amanda and Devil have worked together before, there is a growing likelihood that this will be a more regular pairing.

Amanda and Devil

After spending hours outside in the chilly weather, we all gathered around our first fire of the year to drink some cocoa and warm up.

The first fire of the season

Happy Holidays everyone!

 

dog, Uncategorized

Rusty Red Waggin’

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Our new Brittany puppy, Rusty Red Waggin’ came home yesterday night.  He has had a busy first day meeting Mack and Turbo.  It was a rainy day, but finally cleared up enough this afternoon that they could run around outside for a while.  Mack was happy to have another dog in the family.  Turbo was more skeptical, but finally decided it was ok.

Today is also Vicki’s 12th birthday.  As usual, she demanded to bale her own cake.  Anna bought her a new cake pan that is a 3-D cupcake.  It is baked as 2 cakes and then assembled and decorated.  She made a unicorn cupcake, complete with fondant ears and horn.

 

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WGHA Turkey Trot

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  • This morning I loaded up 4 horses and 3 kids and headed up to Goddard Park in RI. Rob is underway on a submarine and could not join us today. The West Greenwich Horseman’s Association had their annual turkey trot and we rode a 6 mile loop. Amanda fell off in the warm up ring when Huey decided to catch up to Dakota with a canter, but otherwise it was an uneventful ride. She got back on and immediately wanted to trot so no harm there. Goddard is located on the Narragansett Bay and offers a little beach riding out of season and beautiful views of the bay. All the horses eventually went in the water at the beach. I rode Mojo today since Teddy blew out an abcess last week, and he was good, albeit a bit of a brat when he doesn’t get to lead. We will have to work on that. Lunch, turkey and trimmings, was great and we came home with raffle prizes like cookie cutters, sweat scraper, grooming block and a safety led light. Good day.

horse, Trimming Blog

Shoes for Dakota

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Four years ago, Dakota joined our family and I pulled his shoes off the day he arrived.  Since 2005, none of our horses have been shod.  I am one of the few hoof boot dealers in the area and for this is my 6th year in business as a Barefoot Trimmer.  Today, my title official changed to Farrier.

Anna and I have had great success with hoof boots and my personal experience is what gives me the credibility as a boot dealer.  After everything I have learned and my years of experience, why would I nail shoes on my horses?  The answer is simple.  I want to learn more.  I have seen hooves that were in horrid condition from years in shoes, but I have also seen horses that had feet that looked great.  I’ll be honest, there have been occasions when I wished I didn’t have the hassle of dealing with boots, but there have been times when I was convinced boots were an advantage. The bottom line is, I don’t believe shoes are evil and I also don’t believe that shoes with proper farrier care is harmful to horses.

Which brings me back to Dakota.  I had considered learning to nail shoes for a long time.  In fact, that was original objective in 2005 when I started asking questions of our farrier at the time.  I am fortunate to have a friend who I believe is one of the best farriers around.  I bought Mojo from Vikki Fortier and our friendship has grown ever since.  Recently, I decided to start using my days of leave from the Navy to spend time working with Vikki to learn about shoeing horses.  So tonight, I nailed my  first set of shoes on a horse.  I know I have a lot to learn, but I am committed to learning.  There are flaws in the job I did on Dakota and I know that:

-The medial heel is too long.

-My nails do not all come out at the same height.

-My clinches are not all the same size.

I am fortunate to have 6 horses here at home that I can work with to improve my skills.  I will continue to sell hoof boots and I will continue my business as a trimmer, but if you see us at a ride, don’t be surprised if you notice the sun glinting off some shiny shoes as the horses trot by.

 

fitness, running, Uncategorized

Marine Corps Marathon

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Today, I ran my first marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon. It took me 4:16:07 which was in the top 15% based on the number of starters (~30,000).  

Since I started training back in the spring, I lost 20 lbs and feel great. I highly recommend the book “Primal Blueprint” for anyone struggling with weight.  

Anna and the kids joined me on the trip to Washington DC. We did a little sightseeing yesterday at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History after attending the race expo.


We had an apartment that was right on the marathon course at mile 23 and also where the Family Expo was held. Anna and the kids didn’t have to run around all over town trying to see me. 

The race started at 7:55. I left the apartment at 6 and took a bus to the Pentagon.  Everyone else slept in.

There was a lot of walking from the bus stop to the start area. We saw Osprey fly overs, parachute jumps with the American Flag, and lots of people. 


Once the race started, I bumped into one of my co-workers, Steve Wright. We didn’t stay together long because we had different pace plans. 

My training for the marathon was all heart rate based. I limited my training runs to a 140bpm heart rate. On flat ground, that equated to about a 9:45 pace. I knew I could increase the heart rate for the race, but I wasn’t sure how much. I had been warned by friends to start in a higher pace bin than I needed. I started at the 3:30 group, but even then, my first two miles we about a 9:40 average. It started to open up after 3 miles and I ran my best mile of 8:07 for the 4th mile. By the half way point, my pace was under a 9:00/mile, which was perfect. 

The only catch was, the temps were rising. It was in the mid 50s when we started. By the half way point, we were in the upper 60s. By about the 18 mile point, we were over 70F and I fell off my ~9:00 mile pace and couldn’t keep up with the 4 hr pace group.

The last 8 miles were definitely tough. There was basically no shade. At every water station, I drank a cup of Gatorade and 3 cups of water. I was walking some and running some. I still maintained a pace in the 10:00/mile range, but I had 4 miles over an 11:00/ mile. 

I finished at 4:16:07, with an average pace of 9:46/mile. According to Garmin, i burned over 3000 calories and had an average heart rate of 169 bpm.

Overall, I am pleased with the results. I definitely left it all out there and didn’t have anything else left in the tank. I am totally in awe of my friends who race Ironman triathlons and do a marathon after the swim and bike phases. 

Marine Corps Marathon lived up to its reputation of being family friendly and a great first marathon. I’m not sure if there will be a 2nd…

horse, kids

WGHA Fall Fest

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It was a warm and humid Fall day today.  Alex and Vicki spent some time at Horse Power Farm working on cross country jumping with Duchess and Dakota.  They learned about correctly riding step-ups and step-downs and then did some course work.  Ann is great at pinpointing little things that will make a significant improvement and tweaking that without getting bogged down.  Duchess was significantly over jumping a jump that frightened her and then challenged Vicki with a few other things, but in the end, they had a good day.

Here are some videos:

Vicki and Duchess part 1

Vicki and Duchess part 2

Vicki and Duchess part 3

Alex and Dakota part 1

Alex and Dakota part 2

After the lessons, we dropped off the horses at home and then headed out to the West Greenwich Horsemen’s Association Fall Fest.  It is a fun potluck dinner and annual awards banquet for the summer hunter pace series.

A part of the Fall Fest is a pumpkin competition.  This year, there were 6 entries.  Amanda and Vicki both put a lot of time into their entries and tied for 2nd.  The voting is silent ballot by all members present.  The Pirate Ship won this year.

This year, Alex, Vicki, and Amanda won the Junior division in the series and came home with customized jackets and ribbons almost as big as Amanda.

 

horse, kids

Save Pachaug!

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Pachaug State Forest is being considered to become home to a new State Police gun range.  While I am a big fan of guns, I am not a fan of the negative impact this new training range would have on the largest piece of forest left in the state.  This morning, NEATO held a trail ride to help fund-raise in opposition to the gun range.  Anna was feeling a little under the weather and opted out of the saddle time.  So I took Mojo, Alex on Dakota, Vicki on Duchess, and Amanda on Huey and we did a 14 mile loop through the woods.  I was a great fall morning with temps at 40F when we were loading the horses on the trailer.  We met up with friends and Jennifer Broome joined our clan for the ride on her Nakota, Tex.  This was also Amanda’s longest ride ever (by mileage, not time).  She and Huey may be ready for a limited distance endurance ride (25 miles) next year.

 

The story of our lives with horses. And goats.