In which the ride vet tells me what all the trail work has done to my horse

 Here's the "before" picture, taken at the Renegade ridecamp early in the week, before we did a bunch of trail building, repairing, marking, re-building, and re-marking:

Madeline took this picture mid-week, at the high point of the "red loop" trail...which requires about half as much climbing as the "top loop" trail that we worked on later:

I snapped this shot the day after the ride:

During the week before the event, Fiddle worked a little less than 50 miles of trail, helping to prepare for the ride that many consider one of the toughest in our region.  Then we did 50 miles in a single day on Saturday, finishing 19th in a field of 30 starters.

She looks like she never left camp.  In fact, it looks like she spent the entire week eating!

When we vetted in the night before the ride, I expressed my concern to the vet that I had, perhaps, "used up my horse" by putting so many miles on her in the week prior.  Perhaps I should drop down to a 25?  Or maybe just leave her in camp on ride day?

He examined Fiddle closely.  He noted her heartrate (32 bpm) her gut sounds (A's), and looked for tack galls and wounds (none).  He glanced at her shoes (brand new before we left home, now showing a bit of wear) and then signed my vetcard.

"It looks to me," he said, "like you've got yourself a multi-day horse."

HOORAY!!!!

I took nearly 500 photos in camp and on the trail, so I'll post some soon...it's going to take a little while to sort through everything.

Meanwhile, you know it:   Life is good.