Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 10:57 am Post subject: My Journal 2006
My Journal 2006
The First Three Posts Are Taken From the Archives of
"The Day's Happenings" - "The Gathering Place"
Endurance riding 2006 season, more adventures
Apr 02, 2006
This is more or less a continuation of the 3 threads on endurance riding from last year. So, if you aren't familiar with the somewhat obscure sport of endurance riding, go back to the older threads in this forum, then come back to this thread.
My endurance riding season started with a ride in central Washington on March 25. I'm riding with a new team this year, they finished close on the heels of the team division winners last year so we have high hopes for this season. The Trail Raiders work together very well, that's so refreshing after the past few years on another team where there was little communication and very little interaction at the rides.
On Friday the 24th I left home at 8am with Breezy in the trailer, drove about 40 miles and met 2 other endurance riders. We caravaned to the ride which was about 4 hours away. My team leader had saved me a place to park, and in another 2 hours my trailer was surrounded by other team members and their trailers. The camp next to me had a small pipe corral with my mare in it, my friend and teammate had brought her for a prospective buyer to ride in the 50 mile ride. We had high hopes for a sale the next day.
After filling out my entry form, paying my fee, and taking Breezy through the vet line for his check in, I saddled up and went for a ride with the 15 year old junior rider I was sponsoring the next day. The weather was cool and sunny, hopefully the next day it would be the same. The horses still have most of their winter coats and don't need a warm day, riders can add another jacket to be comfortable.
Two of the other team members and I went to the crew access area near the vet check and picked out a spot to put supplies for the next day. One of our members who was not able to ride was asked to be our crew leader. I placed a large plastic box there with horse blankets in it, and a nylon feed bag with hay in it to stake out our territory.
The rider information meeting took place just after dark, and the ride manager was very pleased and a bit overwhelmed because over 200 riders had signed up for the various distances! The 75 milers would start at 5am, so that means I need to be up about 4. The team has all 3 distances covered, 3 riders on the 75, 4 or 5 on the 50 and 3 on the 25. If 3 riders finish each distance we will get lots of points. Finish is the key word here, not just start.
Back in the camp area my new team presents me with a team t-shirt. After a bit of socializing around a propane portable campfire and a couple of other propane heaters where we made final plans for the ride, I finished organizing my gear, filled the hay bags tied to the trailer, refilled Breezy's water buckets, decided he looked warm under his blanket and with plenty of groceries, and went to bed.
Morning comes, dark, cold, and way too early! I dress quickly and eat my usual breakfast of yogurt, a banana, a few salted nuts and my vitamins washed down with fruit juice, venture outside and make sure Breezy still has water and hay, and make the trip to the outhouse (ooo cold seat).
I saddle up using the trailer lights, get on Breezy and find my junior who is camped a couple of trailers over, and we find our way between trailers, horses, portable corrals and other riders to the road at the edge of camp.
The gravel road that leads to the start line is just barely visible, mostly because of people on it carrying flashlights. The start of a ride can be exciting sometimes so people get up to watch, just in case. A member of the ride management team makes a list of starters to account for everybody while we all mill around for a few minutes, then it is time to start. We keep walking along the road for about a quarter mile to the single track trail with it's surveyor tape ribbons fluttering in the breeze. We see them as we pass, but they are not visible unless we are right next to them. Off we go, but it is still too dark to trot on a twisty, hilly trail with rocky stretches.
Endurance rules require that the junior riders must have an adult sponsor and stay with that person. We go at a walk for about 5 more minutes until we can see the trail. That gives the horses a nice slow warm up before we start trotting. As soon as it is possible another of our team members takes the first opportunity to pass the 10 or so riders ahead of us and she is off at a trot. She rode down that trail yesterday afternoon so her horse knows where he is going, and besides, horses see better in the dark than people do. Eventually she finished first and potentially earned us a lot of points, but my junior and I both have to finish for any points to count for the team.
The first loop is 14 miles. We ride on cow trails and jeep roads over small rocky ridges, past small lakes, past cows with small calves, and in 2 hours are back at camp. Our crew gal meets us with blankets to put on the horses. After their pulses are down to 60 beats per minute we get into the vet line, our horses both pass inspection and within about 3 minutes we're heading back to our crew area where we have to wait until our 15 minute hold is over. There is hay and some grain and soaked beet pulp for the horses to eat, buckets of water, and some carrots and apples for treats and a couple of canvas folding chairs where we can sit on something that isn't moving. But there is no time to sit, our crew gal holds our horses while we make a quick trip to the outhouse, make some tack adjustments and before we know it the timer clears us to go out on loop 2, for another 11 miles.
About an hour and 45 minutes later we are back to camp for another vet check and 30 minute hold, then go out for another loop. We are hoping to keep up this pace all day and finish the ride in the daylight, but might have to slow down and make adjustments later, it all depends on the horses.
Mid way though the day the clouds get thicker and darker, the humidity is definitely up, air is colder and we feel a few sprinkles. Time to change to a more water resistant jacket and hope it stops. But it doesn't, instead it rains lightly but steadily, but it's still not a bad day.
During a one hour hold between loops I take Breezy back to my trailer, cover him with a heavier dry blanket and one of my new teammates who has finished her ride loans me some wonderful chaps for keeping my legs warm and dry. Wow, those are wonderful! They are water resistant nylon (or something similiar) with a wool liner, and they fasten on with Velcro so are very adjustable. I want some of them, she tells me her sister made them and sells them. They go on my wish list.
We do 2 more loops in light rain and finish the ride in the daylight taking 7th and 8th places, pass our vet checks and we have team points! The top 10 finishers on every distance get bonus points and we earned a lot of them today! The team also earned points on the 50 and 25 mile rides. We are off to a great start.
My mare also finished her ride in great shape, but the rider decided not to buy her because he linked up with a couple camped nearby who have several horses they are preparing for international competitions and need another rider. They will also pay his entry fees! Good for all of them but disappointing for me because I was sure we had found a buyer.
Note: this was over a week ago. I hauled the mare home from the ride since there were no buyers on the horizon, and when I got home there was a message from another prospective buyer wanting to see her. So yesterday I made a 300 mile trip (one way) to take her back to my friend's place, the mare was ridden and bought! This is the mare that gave me the exciting flying lessons last year. The buyer likes to work with challenging horses and plans to enter her in some rides soon. I will get to see her from time to time and she has a good home.
Apr 03, 2006
I still have Patch who did about 250 miles of endurance rides last year. He and Breezy will alternate rides unless something happens to put one of them out of the game for a while. My next ride is April 15. Stand by for news!
Apr 17, 2006
Ok, here we go again. This time we're going to central Oregon, between the Cascade Mountains and the Blue Mountains. The weather has been rainy and they say the trails have deep mud in places. I decide I had better be prepared for rain. My Outback type canvas riding coat gets a wild trip through the big front loading washing machine in town, then after it is dry it gets a treatment with Camp Dry spray. I hope I won't be needing it since it is stiff and heavy. I only wear it as a last resort.
Friday morning I finished my last minute packing and house chores, and am headed down the road with Patch in the trailer at about 10am. The weather is nice for my trip but when I arrive at the ride camp a few hours later the wind is blowing and I can see some kinda ugly clouds on the western horizon. Once the paperwork is done, I go for a quick ride and right away we get into a little squall with rain and hail, so I am soon wet and don't ride long. The purpose of this is mostly to loosen the horse up after his trailer ride. That done, he gets his warm blanket and hay bag and is happy. I change clothes and we go get into the vet line to check in.
At the ride information meeting the ride manager said the forecast for tomorrow is temperatures near 50 after a night in the 30's, no rain forecast, it sounds pretty good.
My team picks out a spot near the vet check for supplies for the next day. All the team members present are riding, we have 3 each on the 25 and 75, and 5 on the 50, including me. The 25 mile riders will crew for us after they finish their rides but we will be on our own for the first vet check. After some socializing with the team, checking Patch's food and water supply, I get to bed about 9:30.
I wake early, nearby riders are getting ready for a 6am start for the 75. I listen for rain and don't hear any. Good. Horses whinny, I hear voices, a trailer door bangs, Patch is moving around making the trailer move, that's comforting because I know he is still there. (Once I lost a horse in the middle of the night and didn't know it until morning, but that's another story).
About daylight the alarm rings, and I crawl out of the sleeping bag. I dress quickly, check Patch's feed and water, do the usual quicker than quick outhouse visit, eat some breakfast, saddle up and decide that with the misty drizzle I should wear my rain suit, a rubberized nylon jacket and pants, and gloves would also be a good idea. The rain suit is lighter than my rain coat. I can always change later if I need to since all the vet checks are in camp today. Before we head down the trail the rainy mist has changed to small snowflakes. Hmmm, this was not in the forecast. Somebody says it's 30 degrees. Brrrr.
Horses and riders mill around near the starting line. Somebody is taking down our numbers. And in a few minutes they're off!! We wait and watch for a minute. Some riders leave at a canter, most at a trot, some like us, try to start at a walk. Patch is excited, he wants to pass all the horses ahead of us. This is a big ride and there are about 70 riders on the 50 mile ride. It takes a lot of miles for that many horses to spread out so the first 20 miles is a fight all the way with Patch often cantering sideways on twisty cow trails through the sagebrush and juniper trees. He is wasting a lot of energy, both his and mine. My hands are numb for most of the first couple of hours and I keep hoping he will not hurt himself being so nutty. Now and then he shows brilliance by trotting like he is supposed to for several minutes at a time and my hands get their feeling back. The trail has muddy places where a horse could pull a shoe or strain something. We try to go through those at a walk, or at least a slow trot.
About 2 hours after the start we're back at camp for the first vet check and I grab a blanket out of the plastic team box to cover the sweaty horse. Although the sun is shining the wind is blowing at about 15mph, the temperature might be up to the upper 30's by now but it is not warm. Of course, Patch and I have both been working hard and are warm enough for the moment. There are a lot of horses in a small area, I have to keep watching them while Patch eats a little hay and (hopefully) relaxes. One horse near us is making small excited circles around his rider who is also trying to get him to relax. Horses are coming into the pulse and water tank area, others are heading for the vet line, still others are coming through on their way to the timer to see if it is time for them to leave, and volunteers move through this whole mess taking pulses. Other people walk through with blankets for incoming horses, or a flake of hay. I move Patch to a quieter spot and wait for his pulse to come down.
First pulse check after I have only been there about 2 minutes, his pulse is 68, a couple of minutes later it is 64, then on the 3rd check it is down to 60 and we can get in the vet line. He passes and we go to the trailer since we have a 45 minute hold.
I tie Patch in his nighttime spot on the sheltered side of the trailer, put a heavy blanket on him, then go inside to get myself a snack. When I take off the rain jacket I discover that my sweatshirt is wet, so I change to a dry one, eat some mixed nuts, yogurt, a banana, drink some carrot and orange juice, check the horse, visit the outhouse, warm up a little more, and soon it is time to go. The rain jacket goes back on, just in case.
Patch walks calmly out of camp. Ahhhh, good. I'm riding with a man on a mule and his wife who has a big chestnut Thoroughbred looking horse. I rode with them on most of the first loop. I lead this small group and Patch is calmer than when I have been following. All is calm for a few miles until we catch up with a small slower moving group, then he gets excited. We find a wide place in the trail and pass them but then another group who are moving faster catch all of us. Patch is excited again. Darn. Eventually they go on, ahead of us and out of sight and Patch is calm again. A few miles later other riders pass us and Patch wants to keep up with them. We slow down and let them get far enough ahead so that Patch kind of forgets them. Calm again. And so it goes for the rest of that 20 mile loop.
While all this is going on, the weather is getting worse, the wind is up to about 40 mph with higher gusts. I'm pretty good at judging wind speeds and the man riding with me is a pilot, so he is even better. He says 40 mph with gusts probably near 60. Wow! Just like home! Heading into this at a trot is lots of work for the horse. The big bank of clouds over to the west is getting closer, and the humidity is up. It starts to rain, then hail (thankfully it's small hail but it hurts!) and by the time we reach camp it is snowing hard. The rain suit was a good choice and I'm glad I put it on for the 2nd loop, just to be a windbreak I thought.
Tarps are flapping noisily in the wind, dust and snow are blowing, blankets won't stay on the horses, ah, such fun! The blankets have buckles but with saddles on the horses we are just tenting the blanket over the horse and can't fasten anything. They look a bit like camels.
Patch's pulse gets taken about 3 times at about 2 minute intervals, finally it is down to 60. The vet line is short this time and we see the vet, and are headed for the shelter of the trailer again to wait out our 45 minute hold. Buckets and other small items have blown around from one campsite to another, and one of the neighboring trailers has lost an awning that was sheltering their cooking/patio area. A few other items are out of place but my camp is ok. At the upper end of camp a plastic outhouse is on it's back, a casualty of a wind gust.
This is the kind of day when I am doubly thankful for having a furnace in the trailer living space. I have another wet sweatshirt under the rain jacket. That one gets hung up on an improvised clothes line next to the first one. I rummage around and find another dry one. It's harder to get warm this time. Another snack of nuts, another banana, two cups of hot cocoa, some jerky and we head for the timer's table again. I'm warm enough for now.
Loop 3 is 10 miles, some of it a repeat of the first 20 we did today. We had been hoping the wind would improve trail conditions in the muddy places, but with the rain, hail and snow they are worse than before. We take almost 2 hours doing the loop. Two horses pass us, Patch gets excited again. We slow down and let the horses get some of the fresh grass growing along the trail. For most riders, having a horse eat while going down the trail is a bad thing, but with the distances we do, an endurance horse eating a bite here and there is a good thing. We want to keep a lot of food moving through the horse because the gut needs to keep working while the muscles are demanding so much energy.
About 2 miles from camp other riders catch up with our little group. I decide to go on ahead and try to position Patch halfway between the group ahead and the group behind. My riding companions understand what I am doing and do not speed up, the new riders stay with them. We get a bit too close to the group ahead but when they turn off to see if their horses want a drink at a stock tank about 100 ft off the trail, I let Patch speed up and go toward camp. I can see the whole trail to camp, there is nobody between us and the finish line. Patch is enjoying the moment and so am I, so I let him go at his big ground eating trot to the finish line.
We are done, a teammate is waiting with a blanket, Patch gets a few bites of hay, passes the pulse criteria and we see the vet. He passes the vet check sound and healthy, and we are done! 2 teammates come in right after us. The team has points on the 50.
One of the 25 mile riders from our team had a lame horse so we didn't get team points on that distance. We also got no team points on the 75 due to 2 horses with a problem, one of those was lame at 65 miles. Our remaining 75 mile rider was a junior division rider who needed a new sponsor, so one of the riders borrowed a sound horse that had only done a 25 and went out with the junior on the last 10 mile loop. They finished the ride at about 10pm. This team works together!!
The ride management supplied chili dogs, and my team had baked potatoes and chicken wings, so I ate well after the ride but still had problems getting warm with so much wind and the temperature dropping, so I went to bed early. I discovered that my jeans were also wet under the rain pants, a fact I didn't realize that until I took off the rain suit which I wore all evening to be a windbreak. No wonder I felt so cold. I have to find a rain suit that breathes, this was a cheap one for sure, but it did keep me dry on the outside and was fine until I quit riding and was standing around not generating any heat.
That's all the adventure for now. I hope you've enjoyed the ride. I have a few sore muscles, so somebody sit in a hot tub for me for awhile, please.
Last weekend there was a ride in Idaho, about 3 hours from home, and so I took Breezy and went to ride, even though none of my teammates would be there. On the way to the ride camp I kept thinking whether I would enter the 50 or the 75. I have done the 75 there several times, but I had heard that the new ride manager had made a lot of trail changes and found new hills for us to climb. By the time I entered the ride I had decided to do the 50 mile ride until I knew more about the new trails.
I saddled up and go out for a short ride. I saw some of the new trail I knew that 50 miles was a good choice. Way up on a plateau there was a big band of sheep, a couple of horses, and a sheep herder's wagon. One hillside almost appeared to be moving with so many sheep grazing across it. A couple of thousand sheep all together is quite a sight.
After heating up my dinner on the camp stove, I organize a few things for morning, then shortly before dark we all get information about the ride. The ride manager tells us about the joys and hazards of the trail, the order of the loops we would do, and we get information from the vet about the hold times. After a bit of socializing at a friend's trailer I give Breezy more food and water, plus a dose of electrolytes so he will be sure to drink plenty of water overnight, adjust my watch for the change from Pacific time to Mountain time, set the alarm clock, and go to bed.
The alarm rings, it's still dark. I expect it to be light, hmmm, now I wonder if I set the clock correctly. When I go outside the 75 mile rider camped next to me is about to get on her horse, she confirms that the time was right. Ok, good. I wish her a good ride, make a quick trip past about 6 trailers to the nearest outhouse and then watch the 75's leave without having any second thoughts about the distance I have chosen for the day.
It's a chilly morning because of the wind. I am glad for the furnace in my living quarters. The yogurt, banana and juice are all cold, so I make a cup of hot chocolate, ahhhh, something warm! I hover over the heater for a few minutes.
The camp is stirring when I saddle Breezy, many riders are already on their horses, warming up for a fast start. Since I do slow starts, we usually warm up as we start the ride at a walk and slow trot. Breezy is very cooperative that way, unlike Patch. A friend and I have decided to ride together and take most of the day, visit, enjoy the day and the scenery.
Loop one is marked with pink surveyor ribbon tied to sagebrush along the trail. We travel up a sandy draw between the hills, and it soon gets quite steep and takes us to the top of a hill. This is a ride with no trees, just big grassy hills with sagebrush and some tall weeds. Sage rats are numerous and so are the badger holes, often in the middle of the trail, so we have to be very watchful for them. A badger hole is about 8 inches in diameter, so if a horse steps in one it could result in a broken leg.
In 2 1/2 hours we have gone about 18 miles and are back at camp for the first vet check. This is a smaller ride than last week, so there is much less confusion in the pulse down area and around the water tank, and there is no vet line, so I just take Breezy right over when his pulse is down. He passes easily and we go to the trailer for a 30 minute hold.
Although it is sunny, Breezy is covered loosely with a blanket to keep his muscles warm so he doesn't stiffen up in the wind. He eats hay and some soaked beet pulp with oats while I eat another banana, juice, salted nuts, some dried fruit, and 2 oatmeal cookies; then make a fast trip to the outhouse, fill the water bottle I carry on the saddle, and it is time to go out to do another loop. We check out with the timer and follow orange markings down the road and up though a draw on a cow trail. Soon we are way up on the top of a hill and can see some mountains with snow in the distance in one direction, and the greater Boise area in the other, and more mountains in the distance beyond that streak of civilization. There is nothing but other riders, a few cattle, sunshine and wind with lots of space as we follow the ribbons along a jeep road, then a cow trail, then another road, going up and down hills that seem endless.
The day is getting quite warm for the horses who still have part of their winter coats and are not used to the 60's. I had traded my jacket for a vest at camp, and while it feels a bit chilly up on the hilltops with nothing to break the wind, in sheltered places I also feel too warm. When we come to a water tank, I use the sponge I carry on the saddle to put some water on Breezy's neck, shoulders and chest. We alternate walking and trotting for the last couple of miles into camp. Now we have done about 35 miles, have another vet check and a 45 minute hold.
Breezy gets more beet pulp and oats to go with his hay, he rests and looks around at other horses coming and going on the various loops. At this point some of the 25 milers are already finished with their ride. They started about an hour after we did. Some of them are walking their horses around camp, letting them eat grass and relax. I eat, drink a bottle of juice, fill the water bottle on the saddle, rest and watch the clock.
The third loop is marked in blue, it's 15 miles. We go out in a different direction, up a draw between hills, and soon are way up on top of another hill, probably 5-600 feet above the camp. There is another nice view from up there. We hear a bell dinging as two other riders approach. One of them is a rider we passed on the last loop, and the bell the rider has tied to her horse's breast collar is something neither I nor my riding partner want to hear for the next two hours. We got tired of it in about a minute on the last loop, so we speed up just a little to get far enough out ahead of them so we don't hear it.
This loop has several miles of flat road after we get down out of the hills, so we take advantage of it and get about a mile ahead of the rider with the bell.
Now we hear shooting, some guys are out shooting sage rats. As we approach their truck they get in and drive away from us along the same road we are following. Their truck gets sideways while they climb a steep hill but they do make it, and then when we get to the top of the hill the horses spook at their truck. Thankfully they go on and eventually turn off on another road. We hear more shooting, bigger guns, and hope we don't go there. Soon we turn away from them. The horses relax, they didn't like the shooting, and it was not real comforting for us since we couldn't tell in which direction the bullets might be going.
We see riders getting closer to us and speed up again for a mile or two just to keep from hearing that bell dinging. It's about 3:30 and getting pretty warm in sheltered locations. Water tanks along the trail are a welcome sight, the horses drink, we sponge them again and continue along the jeep road. We slow down for the last couple of miles into camp while watching to be sure we keep ahead of the horse with the bell. I don't know how the rider and her riding companion could stand it for 50 miles.
At 4:30 we finish the ride, pass the vet check and are done for the day. The bell rider must have slowed way down because she finishes about half an hour later. I take care of Breezy which includes putting ice boots on his legs for about half an hour, then applying a clay poltice to his legs and wrapping them with some pieces of an old mattress pad and then long strips of material we call track wraps. You've all seen these on the legs of race horses. The clay pulls the heat out of the legs over the next few hours, and is refreshing to the horse. All this controls stocking up over the next few hours while the horse stands by the trailer resting. Stocking up is the same sort of thing that happens to people's legs and feet on a long plane or car trip.
There is a potluck before the awards are given out. We learn that one of the 75 mile riders has a lame horse and wants a trailer ride back to camp since she is on a road where they can reach her. She has ridden about 70 miles. I know what she feels having been in the same situation a few times, mileage almost finished but no completion. She is the rider I talked with in the morning before the ride started.
After awards I socialize with other riders, pack up most of my stuff and go to bed early. Just after daylight on Sunday morning we are on our way home. Fifty miles was just right, 75 would have been too much yesterday.
On the way home, about 2 miles from camp, I passed a dog musher who was just hitching his team to a 4wheeler (motorcycle) to give them a workout before the day got warm. The dogs were excited, straining to start working before he could even get all of them hitched together. Pulling a 4wheeler with a man on it over the hills out there could surely make a competitive team for some big race like the Iditarod in Alaska! I wonder if he goes there?
The Archive Posts Have Been Completed.
New Posts Start Here
After 6 weeks of no reports but plenty of rides I will try to fill the gap with a (possibly) abbreviated version of the rides I have attended.
On May 13 Breezy and I were off to central Oregon again to ride in one of the oldest endurance rides in the northwest. The weather was nice and warm and my teammates had saved me a place to park. I got Breezy set up with hay and water, visited with my teammates for a few minutes then went to fill out the paperwork. Along the way I ran into a few friends and stopped to visit, so by the time I got back to the trailer Breezy had finished his hay and was taking a nap.
I saddled him and took a half hour ride up the big hill along the first few miles of the trail. When we got back down the hill the vet line was much shorter than it had been earlier. About dark we gathered for the ride information meeting, then a bbq and finger foods dinner with the team and organizing some things for the vet check out on the trail and the one in camp. One of my teammates is a guy who loves to cook and he doesn't skimp on the amounts! Ummmm, good!
Morning. It is almost light, the 75 mile riders are stirring, I stay in my warm bed and listen to the sounds of ride camp. When horses start moving around warming up I get up, dress quickly and go out to watch the start. Some of the horses are pretty lively but nobody gets bucked off. They trot toward the big hill behind camp and I have an hour to get ready to go.
While warming Breezy up a bit before we leave I team up with a friend for my day partner. Jen has a new horse, one who was at the barn with other horses that she has ridden on endurance rides, but the owner of this horse had just disappeared without paying the horse's board bill for several months. Jen was able to buy the horse for the amount of the board bill. He is a beauty and seems to enjoy his new job covering miles of endurance trails instead of going round and round in an arena.
The day starts with a bit of frost on the ground but quickly warms to around 65 or 70 degrees. Trails are very good, not muddy and not dusty. We make good time up over the big hill, down a very steep hill where we get off to lead the horses down, then along some farm fields, up more hills, finally arriving at the outcheck about 2 hours later. We get into the pulse line, then into the vet line and over to a quiet area where the horses eat hay and some beet pulp with grain, carrots and apples in it. Somebody holds my horse while I make a trip to the outhouse and then it's time to tighten the cinch and get back on the trail.
We're half way through the 25 mile loop at this point, and now the trail takes us out of the pine trees and out into the Crooked River National Grasslands and several miles of flat jeep roads, then a gentle climb back to camp. 25 miles down, 25 to go.
After a vet check and hold of about an hour we start off to do the same loop over again. We really don't mind, the scenery is spectacular. The only bad part is the steep downhill, but with 25 miles already behind us, our horses are not quite so energetic and there are less horses on the hill. So instead of the 10 horses that went down the hill in a group this morning, there are only 2 of us. Nice! As the day goes on the groups of horses get farther apart. I like that.
We get to the vet check which is almost empty in contrast to the crowded conditions of this morning, get immediate attention from the pulse takers and the vets, go over to our resting spot and the horses settle in there to eat. We snack on V-8 juice, string cheese, a few cookies, fill water bottles again, visit the outhouse and it is time to leave.
The ride back to camp is peaceful, warm, and very nice. The horses have plenty of energy and we move along at a steady pace, arriving back at camp about 8 hours riding time after we started. The vets say our horses look great. We are done, sunburned, and tired enough for the day! We had enough finishers on the 25 and 50 mile rides to get team points but nobody on the 75 this time. Next week will be one of our major efforts!
Breezy is happy to be back at the trailer with his hay bag, unsaddled, legs cooled and wrapped, and I am happy to join my teammates at yet another team barbeque. One of my teammates has brought along a litter of puppies since there was nobody at home to take care of them. Another one of my teammates will be taking one of the pups home after the ride. They get a lot of attention as you can emagine.
The next morning we gather at about 7am for a cowboy breakfast for 200 people, followed by awards for yesterday's event. Half an hour later I have everything loaded up and am on my way for the 6 hour drive home.
On May 19 I headed to a ride in the foothills of Mt. Adams in southwest Washington with Patch in the trailer. The sky looked threatening when I left home and by the time I got to LaGrande, about 40 miles from home, I got into a lightening storm with heavy rain. The semi ahead of me disappeared, I slowed down, put on my flashers and took the first exit off the freeway. 20 minutes later the storm had passed and we continued our trip. About a hundred miles farther we got into another one, not as bad but still impressive. At least I could see the vehicle ahead of me at 45 mph, with flashers going, mine were going too. They are a good safety feature.
The weather forecast for the ride tomorrow says scattered showers in the morning and clearing by afternoon. I have my rain gear.
Ride camp is in a grassy field with a few mowed strips for "roads" and walking. The team has saved me a parking place, all I have to do is locate the group, so I ask a couple of people and am able to drive right to it. Patch is happy to get out of the trailer and eat some of the grass. I walk him over to a water tank, he doesn't drink, is just interested in green grass which he hasn't seen much of for months.
My feet are already wet, in fact my jeans are wet almost to my knees, and we get another light shower.
After I get a hay bag hung up, and 2 buckets of water next to the trailer for Patch, I go to fill out my entry form, visiting with friends along the way in both directions, so it is almost time for the ride info meeting by the time I get my camp stove set up and spaghetti heated. The meeting doesn't take long, it's raining quite hard, then it quits about the time we all head for our trailers. There is time for some socializing with the team before I check the horse again, brush my teeth and get to bed.
During the night there are more showers, but by the time I get up in the just barely daylight it has become a misty drizzle. My riding shoes are wet before I even saddle the horse, definitely a day for riding in rain gear but I don't bother changing my shoes.
As we ride toward the start line I team up with a couple of possibilities for riding partners for the day, but a few miles down the trail I decide they are going too slow. Patch needs a faster group, so we strike out alone and after a few miles catch up with somebody. It's going to be a long day, Patch is fighting me to go even faster, trotting sideways, and giving my arms a workout.
The trail for the day is 3 loops, each about 15-17 miles. They will total up to 50 eventually. Today there is also a 75 mile ride, and a 25 mile ride, and a trail ride for folks who just want to walk or go slower than the endurance horses. They use one of the loops that we will use later, but will mostly be out of our way by the time we get there. We all watch out for each other, they get out of our way so we can pass safely and we slow down when approaching them so we don't scare a horse out from under somebody.
Vet checks are all in a grassy meadow at camp today. One of our team members who isn't riding is crewing for the team. She meets me with a blanket to cover the horse so he doesn't chill, goes with me through the pluse area and trots my horse for the veterinary inspection. He passes. One down, two to go. We have a half hour hold. My teammate takes Patch over to eat in the crew area while I go to the trailer for a snack, make a quick trip to the outhouse, grab a couple of forgotten items and hot foot it back to the crew area. It is time to go. My clothes are wet under the rain gear but not as wet as I would have been without. Anyhow, I'm warm enough and that is good.
The second loop is much like the first, mostly old logging roads with a few single track trails thrown in and a couple of creek crossings with water to the horses knees. Patch is still wanting to go faster and I am still wanting to go slower. Although we are in the foothills of Mt Adams, the overcast prevents us from seeing it. I believe the elevation is 12,000 plus, there is still plenty of snow up there, some of it never goes away. It is between Mt Hood in Oregon, and Mt St Helens of exploding volcano fame, (May 18, 1980 I think).
Showers continue for most of loop 2 and then suddenly we have sunshine. Vet check again, same teammate helping me with Patch. I feel like I'm in a sauna under the rain gear, the rain appears to be over so it is time to get rid of it. Patch eats grass, 45 minutes pass quickly and we are on our way again. We get a glimpse of about half of the mountain with clouds covering the top.
The sun warms things up, including horses and people! By the time we finish the 3rd loop my clothes are dry and my shoes are still wet. A different teammate helps me with my horse at the finish, one more veterinary check to go, he passed easily and gets a completion. My other team members also finish their rides. We have 100% completion on the 25 and 50, and we have a rider in the 75 but no posibility of team points there.
The mountain is fully visable now, what a sight! And where is my camera, at home on the computer desk!!
Somebody comes running into camp to say that a rider has come off her horse about 1/2 mile from the finish line. Quite a few of us go out to assist, including a nurse and a student nurse. The rider is very shaken, needs to lay down for a while. I untie her jacket from the saddle to cover her since there is a breeze and she is on wet grass. Suddenly a corpman who lives nearby and is home from Afganistan appears with his medical bag. He asks her some questions and then tells her "Ma'am, I'm sorry I can't help you, you haven't been shot". We all laugh, including the patient. I hope this young man becomes a doctor, he definitely has great bedside manner!
The rider is helped to her feet, shaky but able to walk unassisted. All this time she has been saying she wants to finish the ride. I told her "you'll finish. There's nothing in the rules that says the rider even has to be conscious". Rider and horse continue on foot to the finish line with an entourage that would make the President proud! One of my helpful teammates takes the horse and the vet card to the vet for that final check and gets the completion while the rest of us take the rider to her trailer.
It's May 26 and we're off again, this time to a 3 day series in southwestern corner of Idaho, just a few miles south of the Snake River. Breezy and Patch will both get to go down the trails before the fun is over.
I have pre-entered the ride, reserved a corral, a friend is saving me a place to park near her, I don't have to hurry on my drive to the ride but I've been hurrying all morning, well, really all week, to get ready to go. The drive takes about 4 hours and the weather is pleasant.
Getting my camp set up is quite easy. Unload the horses, tie Breezy to the trailer, take Patch and find our reserved corral in the row of pipe corrals, give them both hay and water, then go pick up my entry information. Socializing with friends along the way takes longer. I saddle Breezy and go for a short ride, then get him vetted in for the first day's ride, put easyboots on his front feet, eat some dinner, go to the ride information meeting, then back to the trailer in the dark to pack my lunch for the next day, organize my gear, take a horse blanket to the pile of gear that is going to the vet checks tomorrow, and check the horses again. Whew! It's bed time.
In the morning darkness on my way to the outhouse I take more hay to Patch, carry more water for him, and clean the corral of the night's accumulation. The morning air is chilly, I sit in my trailer by the furnace and eat some breakfast, then venture out again to saddle Breezy and get him moving around to warm up. I'm riding with a friend named Tonya who broke her foot last week and has it casted and vet wrapped for extra padding. Yesterday she cut away some of the cast so her foot would fit into the largest stirrup she has. She thinks with enough ibuprophen she will be ok. Two other friends ride in our little group.
Today we are riding to the Snake River and will follow it for a few miles before heading back to camp. It's a 60 mile loop. The trail goes up through a small canyon after leaving the little valley where the ride camp is located, then goes for miles across a sagebrush plateau, down into another valley, through a large cattle ranch, along a big irrigation ditch, across a highway and we arrive at the first vet check about 15 miles into the ride, it is at the same place where Can Do dumped me last year when the airplane flew over. No plane this year.
The wind is blowing and it's starting to rain. After getting the horse vetted through I grab a flake of hay, find a sheltered place next to a horse trailer to park the horse for a few minutes, and untie my rain jacket from behind the saddle. I'm glad I sent a blanket out for the horse, but I'm having trouble keeping it on him even in that sheltered spot. We only have a 15 minute hold here, there is just time to refill the water bottle I carry on the saddle, make a quick pit stop at the plastic throne (outhouse mounted on a small trailer that goes from one vet check to the next), and soon we are on our way. The rain showers are short and finally quit coming but the wind still blows hard so my rain jacket is now just a windbreak.
About 5 miles later we decend into the Snake River canyon and ride past boulders with Indian petroglyphs on them, past the remains of a rock house, and later past an old orchard where there are signs of a homestead. As we ride along we see a few fishermen on the riverbanks and a boat on the river. The canyon walls have horizontal stripes of different kinds of rock, every layer a different color. The river has carved it's way hundreds of feet down through all that and I try to emagine the violence of the formation of this land. Later we climb up out of the canyon next to a steep wall and get a closer view of the layers of sandstone, volcanic rock, some layers where the roundish river rocks are imbedded in the other materials, it is just fantastic. There are a few wildflowers but mainly today I am looking at geological features.
Soon we start seeing plastic post signs that have the Oregon Trail symbol on them. We can see ruts from wagon wheels in places. I try to visualize teams of horses, mules and oxen pulling wagons, and tired pioneers walking beside them. Believe me this is no highway! A 4 wheel drive vehicle would have trouble on some parts of it, especially where we decend a steep hill through a narrow canyon where the wagons would have been going up the hill. They probably unloaded everything and hand carried the wagon contents up the hill to make it possible for the animals just to get the wagons up there.
The second vet check is at a large ranch in a valley with green irrigated pastures and hayfields. Black angus cattle support this operation that surrounds a large private lake, has several houses for the ranch hands, and is pretty much on it's own out in the middle of nowhere. We have a one hour hold here, 2 kinds of hay and fresh green grass for the horses, water bottles and a few rider comforts (outhouse included, a welcome sight after many hours since the last one). Breezy eats, then naps a few minutes, and soon we are on our way back to camp, about 11 more miles.
Breezy passes the final vet check and I take him to the trailer, unsaddle him, take off the easyboots, apply clay to his legs to help remove heat from the tissues and keep him from stocking up. Breezy goes into the corral, Patch comes out, and we go to vet Patch in for the next day.
My next task is to put easyboots over Patch's shoes on his front feet (it's rocky country and the front feet hit the ground harder than the rear feet). Most lameness caused from rocks effects the front feet. Some riders easyboot all four.
Before I know it the dinner bell is ringing. The ride manager has arranged for a cowboy chef to provide dinners for the riders and anybody connected with running the rides. Extra dinners are available on a pay per meal basis for people who just came with friends or family. After dinner today's awards are given out, information given for the next day's ride, and we all head for our trailers to prepare for the second day.
to be continued....
Last edited by Mary on Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
Today is the 2nd ride of the 3 day series in Idaho. Patch is my mount for the day and we will be going 50 miles, going more or less in the same direction as yesterday's ride. We have a little cloud cover and the temperature is warmer than yesterday morning. The day is supposed to be in the 60's. I tie the rain jacket to the saddle just in case, since there is no 2nd chance to get it once we leave camp.
The ride starts about a half hour after daylight, so I get to saddle Patch without using the lights on the outside of my trailer. I've been thankful for lights when I need them, but natural light is easier to deal with having no shadows, and I am also glad not to have to use battery power to see. My furnace starts on battery power, so I conserve lights in favor or having the furnace when I need to use it.
Patch is excited! He stood around all day yesterday and his energy level is way up there. We mill around with other riders near the start line, give the ride manager our number, and do a quick trot past the vet as we leave. He can call us back if he sees lameness but says "ok" as we go by and we are on our way down a road with a lot of rocks. There are a lot of rocks almost everywhere in this area so we will deal with them all day.
The trail markings take us off the rocky road after about a mile and now we are in deep sand for about another half mile, climb a hill on a cow trail and follow a jeep road across a desert plateau toward the rising sun. It's quite a picture with the horses ahead of us (some about a mile ahead already!) putting dust into the air and the sun shining with a red glow through it.
Today we have 2 vet checks on the trail again, the first is about 15 miles out, and the second at about 40 miles. Tonya, my riding partner from yesterday is with me again, her broken foot is no worse for having ridden 60 miles yesterday and she is happy about that. she came here hoping to ride all 3 days, and now she expects to. Actually she says riding with the cast is easier than walking with it, so getting on her horse was a relief.
Our horses pass vet check 1 with no problems, we cover them with blankets and they eat hay while we eat a snack and refill the water bottles on our saddles. The hold at this check is half an hour, so we relax a bit and watch riders come and go. One horse doesn't pass the vet exam and is loaded into the trailer for a ride back to camp. He is done for today but could go tomorrow if he looks sound since each day is a separate event. Lameness usually doesn't cure itself that fast.
It's time to go, and we check out with the timer and go down a gravel road, then a jeep road without rocks or gravel which is very nice. There is lots of green grass out here in the hills due to spring rains, and wildflowers everywhere. Lupine, phlox, miraposa lilies, the ever present dandylion relatives, and several others. Again we are going to the Snake River, but will be a few miles upstream from where we rode yesterday. Along the river there are a lot of bushes with big feathery looking pink blooms that look like Smoke Bush that people have in their yards. It's probably the same thing since most shrubs have a wild counterpart somewhere.
The ride manager has marked a place where our horses can get to the river for a drink. Patch is kind of concerned about that much moving water, but after Tonya's horse drinks he gains confidence and gets a pretty good drink before getting nervous about it. We follow the river downstream for a few miles and then take a trail leading back up to the plateau and eventually arrive at the second vet check where we have about a 45 minute hold.
I like 45 minute holds. Not too long, not too short. At this point in the ride the horses are hungry and they have enough time after the vet checks them to get a good meal and sometimes even a little nap. Riders have enough time to relax after eating and making that outhouse visit. The ride management always has water available so riders can refill their water bottles, tanks of water for the horses to drink all they want, hay for the horses, and sometimes they also have people snacks like those little packs of cheese and crackers, apples or cookies.
The trip back to camp takes us up a gravel road for a mile or so, across the paved highway, and then along jeep roads and a couple of cow trails to ride camp. The vet in camp checks the horses, they are sound and healthy and we are good to go for tomorrow. Patch has some interferance marks on his rear fetlocks, so I will add some interferance boots for tomorrows ride. They will provide some cushioning if he hits his fetlock (ankle joint just above the hoof).
A friend who didn't ride today took Breezy for a long walk during the day so he wasn't just standing in a corral all day. When Breezy and Patch see each other they whinney happily. Patch gets unsaddled and cleaned up so that he is ready for tomorrow. He munches hay and snoozes, watches other horses, and is happy to be home. Home for a working horse isn't necessarily where he lives, it can also be beside the trailer with his hay bag and water bucket where he doesn't have to work. I put the saddle pad in the sun to dry as much as possible before tomorrow's ride, it is a fluffy synthetic that looks like wool and it dries quickly.
At about 6pm the dinner bell rings, we get a nice dinner, the ride manager gives out the day's awards and then we get information about tomorrow's trail. It's dark when we head for our trailers to finish preparations for tomorrow, carry feed and water for the horses, and sleep.
Day 3 of the ride series has a weather forecast for thunder showers late in the afternoon, but good weather for most of the day. Ok, I'll take it!
Today all the vet checks are in camp. We will be riding 2 20 mile loops and a 10 mile loop to get our 50 miles. It seems so simple to be returning to camp twice during the ride, no lunch to pack, and no forgotten item will have to be done without for more than 20 miles, or about 3 hours.
We start down that rocky road again but then turn off it after about 1/4 mile, cross a creek and follow a cow trail into the hills. Today we start out on the opposite side of the valley, so will see new stuff today. Patch has interferance boots on his hind legs to pad his fetlock joints if he hits himself with his hind hooves. He had some marks there yesterday, but usually he does not have a problem with it. I think it might be from traveling in soft sand, the feet don't stay where he puts them.
I think Patch has as much energy as yesterday. He definitely has just as much adrenaline. We have our usual conflict with him wanting to go faster, me wanting to go slower. After about 3 hours we are back at camp for the first vet check. The vet says Patch took a couple of funny steps before smoothing out to trot the 125 feet to the turn around and back. He writes a note on the vet card, Rt. Hind? and lets us go.
We walk to the trailer for our half hour hold. Breezy greets us from his corral as we walk by and I'm sure Patch thought he was done for the day. Patch gets a bucket with beet pulp and grain, it's all wet and sloppy. He loves it and sounds like a pig. I eat some canned pineapple, string cheese, crackers and juice, make a quick trip to the outhouse and it's time to go back out for the 2nd 20 miles.
Part way through the loop I think Patch is traveling just a bit unevenly, he seems to be pushing harder with one hind leg than the other. It feels like the weak side is the right, but it might just be my imagination. The rider who is with me today says she can't see anything wrong when we trot ahead of her, but admits that she isn't very good at spotting lameness. A few miles farther we pass somebody who can tell us, I ask her to look as we go by, she calls out "right hind" as we pass. So, now that is not my imagination.
It takes an extra hour or so for us to walk the few miles to camp. Patch doesn't understand the change in pace and letting everybody go on ahead of us. He prances sideways every time another horse comes by, then after they are out of sight for a few minutes he walks calmly until somebody else comes along.
When we arrive back at camp we get checked by the pulse taker, then the vet checks him and confirms what I already knew, he is consistantly lame on the right hind. The vet thinks the problem is in the muscles, not the fetlock. And so we are out of the ride. No credit for 40 miles, we have to finish the entire distance to earn any credit. We take our time getting back to the trailer, there's no reason to hurry now.
After unsaddling, removing the easyboots, rinsing the sweat off the horse with a hose, putting clay on his legs, and cooling myself off in the shade I consider going home today, but have one more dinner paid for, and besides, I'm a bit tired. It's a good chance to socialize with other riders, the vets, and the people who have endurance riding related businesses and brought their wares to display and hopefully sell. I pack up a lot of things and am still thinking I might leave after the dinner.
Just as we all assemble for the dinner in the ride manager's back yard we feel a few raindrops. We hope it is not going to get serious but I hang my extra shirt on a chair under the roof just in case, and before I can sit down with my full plate the rain has started along with a few flashes of lightening. The squall goes right over camp. Dinner and awards go on with everybody under the shelter of the porch roof and the open dining hall, both with metal roofs that amplify the sound of hard rain. The ride manager calls somebody's name for an award, people point to the person who hasn't heard a thing and they go to recieve it. Over and over. Lots of smiles, pointing, nodding, and lots of noise from the thunder and the rain pounding on the roof. Kind of a unique situation out there in the desert where the annual rainfall is something like 5 inches.
As soon as the festivities are over I go to check the horses, they are calmly eating hay like nothing happened. I put blankets on both of them, resupply them with hay, carry more buckets of water and go to visit with my friends who are parked next to me. The rain continues although not as hard as before, and soon it is dark and we all welcome the sleeping bags and pillows.
The next morning I'm up just at daylight, take the horses for a walk through a frosty landscape, load them into the trailer, scrape a hefty covering of ice off the windshield, and head for home. I'm glad the ride didn't include today because it would have been less pleasant with frozen fingers than the nice temperatures we had for the past 3 mornings.
After a quick bounce at home for a couple of days (home on Tuesday and leaving again Friday morning) Breezy and I are off to a fairly easy ride in southwest Washington state. We will be in the same general area as the Mt Adams ride a few weeks ago, but farther east. I hadn't planned to go to this one, but since it is another one of those major team efforts I decide to join the fun and get some easy miles. Breezy looked very good after the first day of our recent 3 day event, and so I got into fast forward mode, got the laundry done, trailer cleaned and repacked and we are on our way!
The team has saved me a good parking place, close to water tanks, vet check area, and outhouse. Well, not too close to that! We are camped at a rodeo grounds, have the use of a large metal building for our ride meetings, and a group from a local church is cooking hamburgers! They will be busy all weekend feeding this gang of a couple hundred people.
At the ride information meeting we learn that loop 1 will be 40 miles with a vet check about in the middle. We will have a 10 mile loop at the end. We also have riders on the 25 mile and 80 mile rides, so we have the opportunity for lots of points. The weather is supposed to be nice, high temperature not uncomfortable, it's going to be a great day for riding.
We will be following a lot of jeep roads today but also a lot of single track trail. Although the ride is near a major mountain we will not be doing a lot of climbing since we are on a plateau.
The alarm rings after I have been awake listening to some of the 75 mile riders getting ready to start their day. I get dressed and go out to watch the start. They soon disappear into the trees without anybody taking a flying lesson. I busy myself getting my breakfast eaten, giving Breezy a bit of beet pulp with grain and vitamins, get him saddled and we ride slowly to the start line.
Today I haven't made plans to ride with anybody, but will just see who is traveling at a speed I like and ride with them. For most of the first loop it turns out to be a couple who originated in Germany and are fairly new at endurance riding. The miles pass quickly, the trails are not dusty, not muddy, not too rocky. One water crossing gives us some problems with getting out of the water and up a steep bank with slippery mud from so many horses adding water to it as they come out of knee deep water. My riding partner's horse looses an easy boot in the mud, he looks for it, gets down on his hands and knees and reaches into holes a foot deep or more but can't locate it.
We have a short hold at the vet check out on the trail, there is lots of grass available for the horses to eat after we pass the veterinary inspection. Breezy is looking great. I eat some sting cheese and cookies that I carried in a fanny pack, refill my water bottle, visit the outhouse and we are on our way again.
The vet check in camp is a very busy place, horses everywhere! surprisingly there is order in all of this and a flow through pattern. Somebody is keeping us all moving in the right directions. After sponging Breezy at the water tank, and getting through the pulse line we get in the vet line which is moving quickly with 3 vets checking horses taking about 2 minutes per horse to check for metabolic problems and lameness. Breezy passes ok and we go to the trailer for about 35 more minutes (we have spent about 10 minutes in the vet line).
Breezy eats more soaked beet pulp with whole oats, alfalfa pellets and other horse favorite goodies in it. I refill the hay bag and make myself a sandwich. My team members fill me in on progress of the other team members and it all looks good. Soon it is time to go.
About a mile from camp we see an ambulance crew loading a stretcher with somebody on it. We are too far away to tell who it is. It turns out to be a lady whose horse balked at crossing the irrigation ditch, threw her and then stepped on her leg, breaking it. Somebody had already lead her horse back to camp.
We have mostly single track trail for this loop. It goes up and down hills but nothing is steep and we manage to trot on most of it. The footing is mostly good with a few rocky places where we walk. Before we know it we are back at camp and the finish line. Breezy passes the vet inspection and we are done.
The 25 milers got us points, so did the 50's, and the 80's are still on the trail. There is lots of food at the team potluck, we have a couple of those instant canopys, and lots of folding chairs. The sun is still shining, we relax and eat, swap stories, laugh, and wait for our teammates to finish their last loops. All were in about an hour or two after dark, a first place, a second and another top 10 finish, all earning bonus points besides the regular amount for the distance. Glow lights on the trail guided the riders who rode in the dark so they didn't miss turns.
I take Breezy for a walk and decide to turn him out in the rodeo arena. He loves it, trots around, rolls, trots around some more, rolls again, 3 times all together, all by himself. After he explores all the corners I catch him and take him back to the trailer. He gets another full bag of hay, fresh water, a blanket, and we are both ready for sleep.
In the morning I get a good breakfast from the concession stand, more food for less money than I would have gotten if I had stopped at a cafe on my way home, and it saved time too since I was waiting for the awards presentation to start. Before we are through with the awards we have a hard rain shower for about 5 minutes. Another tin roof, very noisy, but it is over quickly and the sun comes out again.
I finish packing, take Breezy for another walk, load him in the trailer and am soon on my way home. Breezy doesn't keep track of these things, but he is very near another milestone in his endurance career. He is just glad to be heading home, as am I.
We're off to another ride in the mountains of central Oregon. Breezy had a couple of weeks off and is ready to go again, and if we complete this ride Breezy's lifetime mileage will go over 6000 miles. Not many horses have done that.
The team has a spot for me to camp near them, and it doesn't take very long to set up and get the paperwork filled out to do the 50 mile ride. The vet line is long so I decide to saddle up and ride the first part of the trail. We go about 3 miles uphill on a jeep road and then ride back to camp, that's enough for a warm up after the trailer ride and to check and make sure he isn't going to have a tie up problem in the morning. When I get back there is no line anymore.
The fellow team member who loves to cook is not at the ride so we are pretty much on our own for dinner. Shortly before dark is the ride information meeting, they tell us about some trail changes. The 50 mile ride will consist of a 30 mile loop with a vet check with a 15 minute hold, then 45 minutes in camp, followed by a 20 mile loop with a vet check and 30 minute hold. I will send a few things out to the last hold.
The team has enough people to get points on the 30 mile ride, the 50 and the 100 if we all finish.
At 5am the 100's leave, followed an hour later by the 50's and the 30's an hour after that. We let the faster riders take the trail ahead of us and start off at a walk, no hurry, we have 12 hours to do this. I'm just a bit chilly with my 3 layers of shirts, however it is going to be hot so I can put up with that for a while. I want to get quite a lot of the miles done before the heat slows us down. I'm sponsoring 2 juniors and two other teammates join us so we 5 go trotting happily down the trail together. Breezy is feeling good, and seems to have forgotten that in previous years he always thought there were monsters out here. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, they might look just like a log, a stump, a rock, or anything else his little brain can dream up to keep himself entertained and keep me alert.
There are a lot of horses at the first vet check. The first stop is the water tank, Breezy doesn't drink but he does get sponged to cool him, and we proceed to the pulse area. A couple of minutes later we are in the vet line. Everything goes quickly and since we have only a 15 minute hold here we can be on our way as soon. I take off the sweatshirt and tie it behind the saddle, top off my water bottle and get somebody to hold Breezy while I use the outhouse. The 12 miles back to camp goes quickly.
The vet check in camp is a very busy place but with 3 vets the line moves right along. It's just like the line at the bank where you get the next available teller, we get to the front of the line and get the next available vet. Breezy passes again and we shortcut across camp to our trailer where he is happy to eat soaked beet pulp and grain, plus all the hay he can get down in the 35 or so minutes we have left. Of course he has no concept of time. I hurry to make a quick sandwich, refill my water bottle, drink a bottle of carrot and orange juice, take a salt tablet and visit the plastic throne. UGH! on a hot day the air is not pleasant in there. I'll swear that a plastic outhouse is at least 10 degrees hotter than outside on a hot day.
The 2nd loop starts out with the same climb out of camp that all of us did this morning, but it is different with the heat. We walk most of the first 3 miles, then the trail divides and we take the other fork. Although I have done this ride many times, we are now on new trails. As we ride along I try to keep mental notes of about where we are. After a few miles we are back on a trail that I recognize. I calculate how far we have come based on time, and soon we come to a pond beside the trail and I know we are less than 1/4 mile from the vet check.
This vet check is in a nice meadow with lots of pine trees, so there is some shade. The water supply is from a spring a up the hill, gravity flow through a couple of hoses. It is very cold water. I let Breezy have about 10 swallows, then pull him away from the tank. He gets a few bites of grass while I sponge him out of a bucket and we go to the vet line. He passes and we go back to the water. In the few minutes since he got the first drink the water in his stomach has warmed up, so now he can have all he wants. We find a flake of alfalfa hay under a tree and he settles down to munch. I eat some string cheese and a granola bar that is in my fanny pack refill my water bottle and wait for time to pass.
The trail out of the vet check is an old logging road that goes up, and up, and up, for about 3 miles. It is steeper than the climb out of camp, and we are in full sun for most of it. Hot. We walk except in the few places where it levels off briefly. At the top of the climb we have a nice view and a nice welcome breeze. Ahhhh. But we also have some deer flies, so we put the horses into a trot because the flies will have to keep up with the horses before they can bite them. It is fairly level for the rest of the trip back to camp.
A mile from the finish we see a pickup with some guys from ride management. They ask us if we had seen a horse without a rider or a rider without a horse. No to both questions. At the last water tank about 4 miles down the trail somebody's horse got stung by a bee, bucked the rider off and took off at a run. The horse had been seen by another rider right in the area where we were, but that rider hadn't been able to catch the horse. She gave up the persuit when the horse was running toward a highway (hoping it would stop if she wasn't chasing it), and rode into camp to report it and get people looking for horse and rider. Hopefully the horse would follow other horses into camp. The rider apparently wasn't hurt, but was still out there on foot trying to find her horse.
We continue to camp, unsaddle our horses after we cross the finish line since the vet wanted to see them without tack, cool them off at the water trough, pass the pulse criteria (60 beats per minute or less) and get into the vet line. One of the juniors' horses was a bit lame because of a rock wedged in the shoe, they removed the rock, trotted again, she still looks lame. She can bring the horse back in an hour for a recheck. They go to their trailer to try to ice the foot in a bucket of water. It's tricky because the horse doesn't want to stand with her foot in a bucket, but food under her nose distracts the horse enough so that she tolerates it. The team sacrifices a lot of ice from our ice chests and the horse stands with both front feet in buckets. They do both feet so that they will both feel the same and the horse will trot evenly.
Breezy is healthy and sound. He has his 6000 miles and couldn't care less. He is hungry! Oh the other hand, I am very happy about it.
The junior's horse is taken back to the vet for a final look, and she trots out sound! Team points!
I spend the rest of the afternoon and evening visiting with friends until my trailer is cool enough for sleeping. One of our team's 100 milers has been pulled because of a lame horse, so there went the 100 mile team points. The 30 milers all finished ok so we have some points there. All in all it was a pretty good day for the team.
Several of the riders who rode the 30 mile ride and a few people on 4 wheelers have gone out looking for the missing horse. The rider returns to camp, gets on her other horse and joins the search. The missing horse has been seen but is scared and disappears into the trees and brush again. Night falls, she hasn't been caught.
The next morning more people are looking for the horse. The sheriff has been notified and some horse club people come from the local area to search. Finally the horse was found on Wednesday without saddle or bridle but unhurt except for minor scrapes. She had spent 4 nights alone in the woods in the mountains and was very scared, uncatchable until her owner and pasture buddy came to where a hiker had seen the horse. During the time she was missing she had backtracked on the trail to the last vet check, then crossed the highway into a boggy area where tracking was difficult. She didn't know that the trail she had been on went to camp since she had never been there before. I'm glad the story had a happy ending.
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