Archive for The Gathering Place "The Gathering Place" is a web community where people can gather and make new friends, share ideas, enjoy a few laughs and learn about many interesting things together. It is a safe place where friends can correspond with each other about what they love.
These posts are taken from the archives of
The Day's Happenings: - The Gathering Place
My Endurance Riding Adventures
Apr 04, 2005
First, if you are not familiar with this sport, let me tell you what it is. Endurance riding is a long slow contest like a marathon that is done on horseback. Some of it is cross country. Sometimes we follow old logging roads, hiking trails, motorcycle trails, cow trails, snowmobile trails, jeep roads or country roads. We see a lot of really pretty places, meet a lot of interesting people and have a lot of fun. It is challenging for both horse and rider and we develop quite a close relationship with our horses. There are mandatory veterinary checks before, during and after the event for the horses and rest periods we call holds which give riders and horses time to rest and eat before we go out to do another section of the trail. I have been doing endurance for about 13 years.
In this thread I will fill you in on some of the details of my latest adventures.
Mary
The 2005 Northwest Region endurance season started last weekend with a ride in central Washington. I rode Breezy, my 14 year old Arab/Ouarter Horse gelding in the 75 mile ride. We started at 5am and rode until 11pm to get the job done. While doing the last 11 mile loop we got off trail in the dark and had quite a time wandering around trying to find it again with a flashlight. Part of the problem was that there were a lot of cow trails so it is easy to make the wrong choice about which trail to take, and part because the ride manager had not put out the glow sticks soon enough to help night riders find our way in the dark, and then they were not close enough together to see the next one after passing another. Markings that can easily be seen in the daylight are often difficult or impossible to see at night. We started the day with 13 riders, finished with 10 and we came in 8th. The 50 mile and 25 mile rides each had about 55 entries and there was also a 14 mile trail ride. The weather was cool but not very windy and not wet. Another rider made the trip with me to the ride and shared traveling expenses.
April 04, 2005
I start riding my horses early in the spring, starting in February. Where and how fast I ride depends on weather conditions and how much snow is on the ground but I try to give each horse a couple of hours a week to begin, increasing as he gets more fit and the weather is better. We start with mostly walking and then as conditions permit it transitions to mostly trotting and lots of hills to develop muscles, strengthen tendons and get the cardiovascular system in shape. We also do a few conditioning workouts with trotting and cantering intervals toward the end of the conditioning period. Workouts last from 1 or 2 hours to 4 or 5. A horse who has been used for endurance the previous year takes less work to get in shape than one where I start from scratch.
A typical ride is hard to describe because it depends on so many factors like difficulty and weather. We start fairly early, sometimes in the dark, to be able to get a lot of miles covered before it gets hot, or in spring and fall to get the ride completed in the daylight if possible. At intervals of about 15 miles or so we have vet checks and rest periods. Usually the first rest is short because the horses are still fresh and not hungry. The horses pulse is taken and must be no higher than 60 beats per minute at most rides. If a horse's pulse is not down in 30 minutes he is disqualified as not able to continue. The vet checks several hydration factors, listens to gut sounds, checks muscle tone, capillary refill and jugular refill time. These things show if a horse is getting into any kind of metabolic trouble. A short in hand trot out and back to the vet shows if the horse is sound. If the horse passes you can continue. If not, you are through for the day. Timekeepers record arrival and pulse down times and calculate the earliest time a competitor can leave to continue the event. This continues at intervals until the distance is completed and the vet checks the horse again at the finish line to be sure he is fit to continue before he is eligible for a completion. The fit to continue rule is designed to prevent last minute overriding of the horse.
The 75 mile ride we did this weekend had a 14 mile loop, vet check with 15 minute hold, 11 mile loop and vet check with 30 minute hold, another 14 mile loop followed by vet check and 45 minutes, etc. At about 50 miles we had vet check with a 1 hour rest, another loop and vet check with 15 minutes, and then the final loop with a vet check at the finish. That is from memory but it gives you the idea.
When we ride into a vet check the in timer records the arrival time, then we go to the water tank area, pulse area, vet, and then to feed the horse and take care of ourselves. Primary concern is to get some food into the horse, and the rider eats and takes care of himself as time allows. We have the option to take longer holds but not shorter. Water bottles we carry on the saddle need to be refilled, more cookies for the pocket, eat a banana or half a sandwich, tend to personal needs, etc, all while keeping an eye on the horse to see if he is looking comfortable, eating, napping, etc.
Suddenly the hold time is up and we get back on the horse, check out with the out timer and go off to do more miles. The rider is supposed to be able to rest, but if you have no help you just have to do it all yourself. It is amazing how much help a crew can be and what a luxury a few minutes to sit down on something that isn't moving can be. Or how long it can be when the weather is bad, the horse is under a stable blanket to keep muscles warm and the rider is using the horse for shelter in a hailstorm! (Been there, done that). Some rides have the vet checks and holds in camp, others have them out on the trail. Hay is usually provided by the ride management at the vet checks but some horses are picky eaters and prefer the hay they are used to. A good endurance horse eats anything but if several flavors are available they definitely have a preference. Water is hauled out to vet checks if none is available, and also to tanks at intervals along the trail. We can send a bag of hay, bag of grain, our lunch and extra jackets and stuff out to vet checks in a trailer or truck that the ride management sends out and brings back to camp.
Here is a picture of a ride camp near Prineville, Oregon.
Mary
My Endurance Riding Adventures
Apr 04, 2005
First, if you are not familiar with this sport, let me tell you what it is. Endurance riding is a long slow contest like a marathon that is done on horseback. Some of it is cross country. Sometimes we follow old logging roads, hiking trails, motorcycle trails, cow trails, snowmobile trails, jeep roads or country roads. We see a lot of really pretty places, meet a lot of interesting people and have a lot of fun. It is challenging for both horse and rider and we develop quite a close relationship with our horses. There are mandatory veterinary checks before, during and after the event for the horses and rest periods we call holds which give riders and horses time to rest and eat before we go out to do another section of the trail. I have been doing endurance for about 13 years.
In this thread I will fill you in on some of the details of my latest adventures.
The 2005 Northwest Region endurance season started last weekend with a ride in central Washington. I rode Breezy, my 14 year old Arab/Ouarter Horse gelding in the 75 mile ride. We started at 5am and rode until 11pm to get the job done. While doing the last 11 mile loop we got off trail in the dark and had quite a time wandering around trying to find it again with a flashlight. Part of the problem was that there were a lot of cow trails so it is easy to make the wrong choice about which trail to take, and part because the ride manager had not put out the glow sticks soon enough to help night riders find our way in the dark, and then they were not close enough together to see the next one after passing another. Markings that can easily be seen in the daylight are often difficult or impossible to see at night. We started the day with 13 riders, finished with 10 and we came in 8th. The 50 mile and 25 mile rides each had about 55 entries and there was also a 14 mile trail ride. The weather was cool but not very windy and not wet. Another rider made the trip with me to the ride and shared traveling expenses.
April 04, 2005
I start riding my horses early in the spring, starting in February. Where and how fast I ride depends on weather conditions and how much snow is on the ground but I try to give each horse a couple of hours a week to begin, increasing as he gets more fit and the weather is better. We start with mostly walking and then as conditions permit it transitions to mostly trotting and lots of hills to develop muscles, strengthen tendons and get the cardiovascular system in shape. We also do a few conditioning workouts with trotting and cantering intervals toward the end of the conditioning period. Workouts last from 1 or 2 hours to 4 or 5. A horse who has been used for endurance the previous year takes less work to get in shape than one where I start from scratch.
A typical ride is hard to describe because it depends on so many factors like difficulty and weather. We start fairly early, sometimes in the dark, to be able to get a lot of miles covered before it gets hot, or in spring and fall to get the ride completed in the daylight if possible. At intervals of about 15 miles or so we have vet checks and rest periods. Usually the first rest is short because the horses are still fresh and not hungry. The horses pulse is taken and must be no higher than 60 beats per minute at most rides. If a horse's pulse is not down in 30 minutes he is disqualified as not able to continue. The vet checks several hydration factors, listens to gut sounds, checks muscle tone, capillary refill and jugular refill time. These things show if a horse is getting into any kind of metabolic trouble. A short in hand trot out and back to the vet shows if the horse is sound. If the horse passes you can continue. If not, you are through for the day. Timekeepers record arrival and pulse down times and calculate the earliest time a competitor can leave to continue the event. This continues at intervals until the distance is completed and the vet checks the horse again at the finish line to be sure he is fit to continue before he is eligible for a completion. The fit to continue rule is designed to prevent last minute overriding of the horse.
The 75 mile ride we did this weekend had a 14 mile loop, vet check with 15 minute hold, 11 mile loop and vet check with 30 minute hold, another 14 mile loop followed by vet check and 45 minutes, etc. At about 50 miles we had vet check with a 1 hour rest, another loop and vet check with 15 minutes, and then the final loop with a vet check at the finish. That is from memory but it gives you the idea.
When we ride into a vet check the in timer records the arrival time, then we go to the water tank area, pulse area, vet, and then to feed the horse and take care of ourselves. Primary concern is to get some food into the horse, and the rider eats and takes care of himself as time allows. We have the option to take longer holds but not shorter. Water bottles we carry on the saddle need to be refilled, more cookies for the pocket, eat a banana or half a sandwich, tend to personal needs, etc, all while keeping an eye on the horse to see if he is looking comfortable, eating, napping, etc.
Suddenly the hold time is up and we get back on the horse, check out with the out timer and go off to do more miles. The rider is supposed to be able to rest, but if you have no help you just have to do it all yourself. It is amazing how much help a crew can be and what a luxury a few minutes to sit down on something that isn't moving can be. Or how long it can be when the weather is bad, the horse is under a stable blanket to keep muscles warm and the rider is using the horse for shelter in a hailstorm! (Been there, done that). Some rides have the vet checks and holds in camp, others have them out on the trail. Hay is usually provided by the ride management at the vet checks but some horses are picky eaters and prefer the hay they are used to. A good endurance horse eats anything but if several flavors are available they definitely have a preference. Water is hauled out to vet checks if none is available, and also to tanks at intervals along the trail. We can send a bag of hay, bag of grain, our lunch and extra jackets and stuff out to vet checks in a trailer or truck that the ride management sends out and brings back to camp.
Mary
Apr 05, 2005
Endurance riding is definitely endurance for the rider as well as the horse! Sometimes we are enduring the weather, sometimes enduring the trail, sometimes enduring the horse, sometimes enduring the person or horse we are riding with, and sometimes all of that. Oh, and then there is the packing up and getting ready for the trip, driving to the ride, and afterward packing up and getting back home.
Four hours after we finished the ride this week, Breezy woke me up playing games with his water buckets and standing there shaking his head to make the snap on the lead rope squeek against the ring it clips into on my trailer tie. He was already recovered and bored! In spite of my lack of sleep and aching back I had to laugh at the silly guy.
At one ride we do a costume ride for those who like to do things like that. The costumes are judged on originality as well as durability since they have to survive 50 miles of trail. We see a few gaited horses on the trail but I have never seen the show stuff.
Apr 06, 2005
The number of people varies pretty widely from one event to another. Some of the rides I go to have 45-60 entries on two distances (25 miles and 50 miles), others have lots more. It depends on where the ride is held and what the terrain, scenery, etc is. Most of the Idaho rides I go to are on the smaller side, those in central Oregon tend to be larger. Some people will not drive far from where they live to go to a ride, others don't consider 250 miles one way a problem. The rising costs of fuel will have an effect this year I'm sure. The picture I posted showed about half of that ride camp.
Apr 07, 2005
The next ride is April 16 near Madras, Oregon. I'll be doing the 50 mile ride there on either Patch or Can Do, At this point I am not sure which one will get the job.
Apr 14, 2005
Tomorrow morning I will be off to central Oregon for the next ride. Patch gets the job this week since Can Do had a little problem about a week ago and I thought it would be better to give her a little more time to recover from whatever it was. The ride is Saturday, and we will be home Sunday evening.
Apr 18, 2005
The ride went well, weather was cool with a breeze but pretty good for riding except for about the last hour when it rained enough to get me a bit wet and chilly. Patch was very calm in ride camp Friday and we went out for a little ride to loosen him up after the trailer ride and show him the surroundings. Overnight he was tied to the side of my trailer where I could check him by just opening the door. Yes, he left some presents right where I needed to step but after all these years I expect that. About 3am he woke me up just being restless. He is used to the freedom of a pasture at night so he wanted to go somewhere!
Ride camp started to wake up about 4:30 when the 75 mile riders started feeding their horses, saddling, warming them up, and moving out at 6am. I listened to their horses and mine talking and got up to watch the start of the ride. Starts can be exciting, and one rider did get tossed but her horse was caught after a run through camp and they only lost about 5 minutes.
Patch was quite excited when we started out. I purposely gave away about 10 minutes to let the faster riders go ahead so they wouldn't be passing us on the trail. I rode with a lady and a teenager for the first loop. Their riding pace was about 5.5 (GPS reading) but they would stop to let their horses eat and then travel too fast for us. It was too exciting for Patch so he was cantering sideways and throwing his head which wastes a lot of energy and is not the safest way to travel down a cow trail. He started to settle down a couple of times and then lost it again. I stayed with them for the first 18.9 miles.
Before we came into the vet check the 25 milers were catching up with us so there was more excitement. The vet check area was too crowded and when one horse got excited that caused some others to move around. We were in a corner with fences on two sides and no place to go but none of them came too close. That could have been bad, people and other horses sometimes get hurt in situations like that. Things settled down and the pulse taker came and took Patch's pulse, 60 BPM, just what we needed to proceed to the vet line, and after that back to the trailer to complete our 45 minute hold. I fed Patch some soaked beet pulp with a little grain to make it interesting, a few carrots and of course he had hay. Usually they don't eat real well on the first hold because they are still full from overnight, and he got quite a bit of grass on the trail on the first loop. I got some yogurt, cookies and mixed nuts and milk, visited the throne room (outhouse) and it was time to go.
We linked up with another group of riders for the second loop. They were traveling at a more consistant pace and Patch settled right down to work like a good boy. 10 miles took us about 1 1/2 hrs, and we were back in camp for another vet check and 45 minute hold.
Loop 3 was 21.5 miles, we took about 4 hours doing that and finished at 5:39 pm, so 9 hrs and 39 minutes from the official start time minus the 2 45 minute holds. Not bad for a first ride.
I didn't get pictures, too busy most of the time and then when I thought of it I was wet and cold and it was still raining. Maybe next time
Apr 18, 2005
My plan for Patch is about 7 rides this season. He will get a rest while Can Do and Breezy hit the trail. Usually I go to about 20 rides a season, some of those are multiple days so I can ride 2 days or even 5 with one road trip. The next one is next weekend near Eagle, Idaho which is in the Boise area, a close ride for me, about 3 hours traveling time and I will have somebody sharing expenses. That helps both of us.
Apr 22, 2005
I'm leaving for Idaho today to do another ride. The weather forecast looks very good for Saturday but might be showering later Sat. evening and Sunday morning. That's ok, I just don't want to get wet riding. Here is a picture of Sura Can Do, the mare that I will ride tomorrow. She is a 3rd generation endurance horse, daughter of my Copper's Image who was another of my endurance horses, and half sister to Breezy. I named her Can Do because I hope she can do everything I want her to do.
Mary
Apr 24, 2005
I'm back safe and fairly sound. My weekend didn't go as planned, I hit the ground about 8 miles from the start when the horse spooked at something in the trail, something that happens really fast at a hard trot and especially going downhill! The horse ran off over the hills and canyons, and I spent the next 3 hours looking for her. She is ok, and seemed glad to be rescued from her predicament (she had stepped through the reins and sort of hobbled herself after running a few miles) but we couldn't finish the ride due to lack of time. I got a few minor owies out of the deal and might not have found them all yet. Some of the sore spots are from the hiking I did up and down hills looking for her. One of the other riders said the torch has been officially passed to me because he and his horse had parted company at that ride 2 years in a row and he thought it was time for somebody else to have a turn. I'll try not to make it two in a row! They did give me the hard luck award, something somebody gets every year. More details another day, I am up to my neck in things here for the next few days.
Apr 24, 2005
There was a rider right behind me and more a few minutes behind her so if I had needed some help somebody would have been available to get it. It is a risk we all take in this sport, and we sign a release when we enter the ride. We often ride on trails miles from any road or medical help and that fact is stated on the entry form. Things do happen but we all watch out for each other. I have assisted a few riders who were hurt or sick, and we all do that because we all know next time it could be us.
I have been asked if cell phones would work out there and would they be allowed? They would be allowed but often don't work in the places we ride in. Heck, they hardly work in some of the places we live in.
May 08, 2005
Here is another installment to add to my horse tales. I just got home from Idaho this morning, got packed up and left camp about an hour after daylight so I could get home early.
This time I took Breezy and rode the 60 mile ride. The weather was cool, windy and sunny most of the day and my face is a bit red from exposure to all of that. No, I didn't remember my sunscreen until I was a few miles down the trail, and since we made a 60 mile loop this time there was no second chance to get it. Breezy had energy to spare all day, always wanting to trot faster than I wanted to go. I had originally entered the 80 miler but decided to go for the 60 since I was tired and since Breezy had a problem with a vaccination reaction a few days before, and I was changing saddles due to some hair loss and a swollen spot on his back from a saddle pad with too much padding next to his spine. The saddle I chose puts the weight a little farther out on the rib cage and has a saddle pad that comes in 2 pieces that attach directly to the saddle. We finished the ride in 10th place out of 25 starters, a bit faster than we usually go. When he got the final vet check the vet said we should have done the 80 and told me that I would have won it because everyone who entered it got pulled (dq'd) for lameness or something else. Well, hindsight is wonderful!!
May 08, 2005
Just getting to the ride was an adventure this time. I got caught in the heaviest rainstorm I have ever been in, was slowed way down, looking for the first exit to take just to get off the freeway! Semi trucks were passing me (nutty drivers!!) and I passed a car that was sitting on the shoulder of the road, sort of felt like the filling in a sandwich. My horse has been hauled thousands of miles and I never felt him moving around at all but I bet it was deafening in the trailer with just a metal skin between him and the hard rain and hail. It was so noisy in the truck that I couldn't hear the radio. I was slowed to 45 the only time I dared to take my eyes off the road and glance at the speedometer and still was having problems seeing the road, slowed some more and hoped nobody had stopped in front of me or was still coming up faster behind me. Tail lights only do so much in those conditions. A few minutes after it started it let up, I came to an exit which was the one I needed to take, and soon the emergency announcement came over the radio that there was flash flooding in the town I had just driven past. My trailer living quarters do not leak, thank you Lord!! This was a real test. The last time it leaked my hubby calked it with some stuff that is supposed to do the job for 40 years! Even the plastic roof vent survived the pounding. The only thing I can think of to describe it was like being in a car going through one of those automatic car washes but with the added excitement and danger of the traffic. Not something I want to do again.
May 09, 2005
The Lord gets the credit for seeing me through this storm. I was praying hard and was sure to thank Him when I got off the freeway. I try to be all prayed up and ready to go in case it's my (or more accurately His) time. We never know when that might be.
May 16, 2005
This past weekend the endurance ride was in central Oregon. We are having rainy weather all over the state so part of the trail had to be rerouted. We still had to deal with a lot of mud. The rain started again on Friday evening but my horse stayed dry under his blanket. I only use blankets before and after a ride if the weather is cold or at home after a workout to allow the horse to cool down slowly.
On Saturday morning I woke up to the sounds of horses nickering, trailer doors closing, and a few voices. The 75 mile riders (about 20 of them) started their ride at 5:30am, just light enough to see well. The 50 milers left at 6:15. We were thankful that it wasn't raining and it didn't rain again until sometime after 10pm after the last rider was back in camp.
Patch did very well traveling with another horse until two very inconsiderate riders came up behind and passed us going way too fast. Riders follow common sense most of the time, warning those ahead that they are back there, would like to pass, and then they slow down until the way is clear. These two who must be new to the sport just kept cantering along and never said a word. A rider behind me shouted a warning as Patch was getting himself out of their way and my riding partner's horse went the other way. The riders cantered between us and didn't slow down at all. Both Patch and the other lady's horse were very excited after this and every time anybody else came along at reasonable speeds they reacted all over again so the last 8 miles into camp were not fun. After our vet check and 45 minute hold we started out to do the loop a second time. Patch was nice and calm but when we got to the vet check about half way through he was lame so we were pulled from competition and got a ride back to camp in the trailer. There were lots of minor lameness problems because of so much slipping and sliding in the mud.
Some ride days have a lot of not so good things happen. This week was one of those. Somebody's saddle girth wasn't tight enough, the saddle slipped, rider went off and horse went running back toward camp in a panic along the single track trail causing some other riders to part company with their horses and taking some other horses with him. One of those hit a barbed wire fence while running down hill and flipped over it getting a lot of cuts in the process. The vet had everything necessary to stitch him back together. He got better care there than if it had happened at home. Two riders had to be taken to the hospital, one with broken ribs and a collapsed lung, the other with…? One of them had a broken arm too I think.
Sunday morning the local saddle club had a nice breakfast with scrambled eggs, hash brown potatoes, pancakes, fresh fruit, an assortment of pastry, juice, coffee or milk. I look forward to it every year. This year it was raining lightly so I set up my canvas chair with a garbage bag over it to keep it dry, then sat on it to eat with the garbage bag over my lap. About 15 minutes before the awards were scheduled to start it starting raining pretty hard and I decided not to stay since I was already wet and getting cold. I was mostly packed up to leave already and it didn't take long to get the horse in the trailer and be on my way home.
May 23, 2005
Me again here and another good weekend ride accomplished with a healthy horse at the finish. We went to Washington state this time, just south of Mt. Adams which is the mountain just to the south of the famous (or infamous) Mt. St. Helens that erupted with a huge bang 25 years and one week ago, sending ash all the way to you folks on the east coast in just 72 hours!
The northwest has been having a lot of rain but we got a break for most of Saturday. 23 riders entered the 75 mile ride. Breezy and I were in the warm up area when the starter said "you can go" and we went. One horse looked like it was going to buck but the starter said "go" just in time so that disaster was averted! Timing is very important! As I said before, the start of a ride can get interesting.
Within a few miles I linked up with a rider on a large Quarter Horse who seemed to be going at about the speed I wanted. We completed the first loop of about 15 miles in about 1 hour and 45 minutes and were back to camp for a vet check and 10 minute hold. Somebody held my horse and let him eat some green grass while I ran to the outhouse, over to my trailer to grab some food and back to the horse. Time to go already!
The second loop was about 12 miles. We did it in about an hour and a half. I was getting too warm with a windbreaker over a sweatshirt but decided to keep it on just in case since it looked cloudy enough to rain. We had a half hour hold this time so I had a few minutes to give Breezy a few carrots and some hay beside our trailer and got myself another snack. I didn't quite have time to sit down but didn't have to run to the facilities this time around. My riding partner was camped just across the road through camp so it was easy to keep an eye on him. When he bridled his horse I bridled Breezy and we checked out with the timer and went off down the trail to do loop 3.
There was more climbing on this loop so it went a little slower but we still made good time, got through the vet check and had a longer and more relaxed hold. The horse's adrenaline was mostly gone by now and our departure from camp was slower for a mile or so until they got interested in the trail and forgot about eating and resting. We continued at about the same pace and got back to camp for a one hour hold about 2pm, 50 miles down and 25 to go. Breezy breezed through the vet check but my friend's horse was getting tired and his CRI was up to the point where the vet was concerned enough to want to check him before we could leave again.
What's a CRI? Cardio recovery index. Yeah, that says a lot, huh? The horse's pulse is taken, he then is trotted with the rider jogging beside him for about 250 feet, then one minute after the trot begins the pulse is taken again. A fit horse in no trouble would probably have no more than 4 beats per minute increase in heart rate, or better yet it would be unchanged or have a 4 beat drop. This one was up 8 beats. Simply put, that means we needed to slow down so he would recover on the trail or stay in camp longer than the required hold. The vet checked him again before he was allowed to leave, he looked better at the end of the hold time so the vet said ok.
The rain started, time for the outback type coat which is designed for riding but since mine is not the oiled version of the famous coat it isn't very water resistant. Best I've got however, so I use it. At this point I'm hoping not to be riding in the rain for the last 25 miles.
We started loop 5 at a walk for the first couple of miles. The rider got off and walked up the hills. We only trotted on level ground or gentle down hills for the rest of the 12 mile loop and walked as long as we trotted at intervals, taking about 3 hours to do it. The whole loop was done in a light drizzle. My outback style raincoat soaked through and my shoulders felt wet and cold. UGH!! At the next check the horse looked much better. Our horses were covered with blankets while they ate hay, grain, soaked beet pulp, carrots and apples under some trees near the vet check while we sat in soggy canvas chairs eating bananas and peanuts under horse blankets to stay dry. Of course we were already wet so I guess we were just using the blankets to hold in the heat.
After a 20 or 30 minute hold we went out to do the last 13 miles of slick and muddy trail as the rain continued. We were trying to get finished before dark but also needed to go at a moderate pace to keep the QH from getting into metabolic trouble. This loop was flatter but had a lot of winding trails so we couldn't do it very fast. We trotted where we could and walked where we had to. Thankfully we got out of the dark wooded part and on to a jeep road and crossed the large rushing creek and made it into camp about 15 minutes after dark. Both horses passed the final vet check with no problems. Breezy and I finished in 16th place. We are known for being slow but sure.
A friend who was camped next to me had thoughtfully bought me a cheeseburger before the concession stand closed. We microwaved it in the concession area and it was GOOD! We had already taken care of Breezy who was happily eating hay and wrapped up in a warm dry blanket with his legs treated with cooling clay to take the heat out of the tendons and fetlock joints, and wrapped in wet quilted pads and track wraps to prevent swelling while standing overnight. (That's similar to what human travelers get on a long trip).
Boy oh boy, did my warm trailer ever feel good and what a pile of wet clothes I had! Thank God for the furnace and a comfy bed.
On my trip home this morning I almost bagged a deer who decided to run straight down my lane of travel on a country road, dodged out across the road to my left and through a fence when I was so close I could only see the animal's back and tail. I braked pretty hard but did not swerve to avoid it since it doesn't make much sense to wreck a truck and trailer and possibly kill myself or my horse to save a deer. Putting those things in perspective before the incident occurs makes the response pretty much automatic when the time comes. My life isn't dull.
Mary
May 26, 2005
Probably I should have kept a diary all these years. There are some rides I remember very well, others just blend in to sort of a blurry collage in layers. Ask me in 6 months what rides I went to this year and I won't able to tell you. Heck, sometimes I can't tell you where I was last week or where I'm going next time. Actually it's worse than that. On one ride a few years ago I was thinking the vet check on the trail should be coming up soon and then started wondering what landmarks I would see before I got there. Then it dawned on me that I needed to figure out what ride I was doing. So I backtracked mentally and pictured the ride camp I left that morning and then I had the answers. I try not to get that tired anymore.
Jun 26, 2005
This weekend I went to Idaho to a ride called Idaho Spuds. (Idaho is famous for potatoes). The weather was perfect, the trails were well marked, I had some pleasant companions to ride with and we had a great day. We started at 6am when it was nice and cool. It's a mountain ride so we were going up and down all day, crossing numerous streams and enjoying views from high ridges. Some of the riders saw a bear, (not us) and some saw elk (missed them too but did see their tracks).
The 50 mile ride consisted of two loops of about 18 miles each and a 12 mile loop. There was very little repeated trail. Between loops we had 2 vet checks and holds of 45 minutes each. By about 1:30 when we were leaving to do our last loop the day was getting pretty hot so we rode slower and finished at 3:55pm.
The usual potluck before the awards was made even better by the spud bar. Big spuds, baked and cut in half lengthwise to be piled high with such goodies as sour cream, green onions, sautéed mushrooms, grated cheese, etc, made brief appearances on hungry riders plates. Endurance riding takes a lot of energy and we get really hungry. Along with the spuds was the usual accompaniment of chili, salads, finger food and a bunch of decadent desserts!! Just after we finished eating a lightening storm got going but all we got was sound effects and wind. The wind did raise up a few of those little tent things the timers and other ride helpers had been sitting under all day and sent them flying, making it exciting for the nearby horses for a few minutes. Awards were given out quickly and we all headed for our trailers expecting to get wet, but the rain fell somewhere else.
Breezy and I finished 23rd out of 38 starters and 35 finishers. We both slept very well and Breezy was raring to go when I took him for a walk this morning before starting the trip home.
Mary
Jul 17, 2005
Lots of things have happened since I last posted. I've been to two endurance rides, so I will start with the first one which was a week ago in the mountains of central Washington. Breezy was my mount for the day and my friend and her horse were with me on the trail for all of the 75 miles. We finished 2nd and my friend was 3rd. It was a tough ride, perfect weather, and the ride management had a BBQ dinner after most of the riders were finished and saved plates for us. Let me tell you, we had good appetites after riding all day.
On the way home we drove through a fruit growing area where the roadside stands had cherries for sale. I bought a 10 pound box for $10 and decorated the roadside for several miles with cherry pits! I had the box on the floor of the pickup with the AC turned on to keep them (and me) cool. My hubby was pleasantly surprised when I showed him what I bought! We ate them all week and still have a few left.
This weekend I went to an Oregon ride, again in the mountains. On the way there I drove through a valley where the temp got to 104. It was about 95 in camp when I got to the ride camp. On ride day I started out with a t-shirt, cotton button up shirt, and sweatshirt since the temperature was about 45 when we left camp. Three layers was too much by the time I got to the first vet check so the sweatshirt got sent back to camp in a pickup. We stood in the shade as much as possible while Can Do ate grass for half an hour. I kept the long sleeved shirt on although it was getting a bit warm, because I hate getting sunburned and I knew it would be hotter on the last loop.
We finished the 30 mile loop about noon and had a 45 minute hold in camp. Can Do munched hay and soaked beet pulp with oats in it while I had a sandwich and lots of water. She even took a nap but I was watching the time and soon it was time to start out on the last 20 mile loop. It was definitely t-shirt weather by then. We traveled much slower on that loop, especially climbing up the 3 mile hill in the sun. The high temperature was about 85 so not so bad. We only rode about half the ride in the heat of the day, finishing at about 5pm. The horse had plenty of energy to spare so she is in better shape than I thought.
Can Do finished the 50 mile ride in about 9hrs and 45 minutes finishing 52nd out of about 70 starters. On the same day and using the same trails alternately were rides of 100 miles, 75 miles, 30 miles and a 10 mile trail ride, all leaving at different times with the 100's and 75's leaving at 5am (just barely light), the 50's at 6, the 30's at 7 and trail riders an hour or so after them. The trail riders had their own loop so they were out of the way of faster travelers. Total of about 150 riders plus a small army of ride management, helpers of various types and the vet staff makes for a rather large ride camp and a colorful collection of characters, horses and dogs. The different distances start at different times and on different loops of the trail so that they pretty much stayed out of each other's way and arrived in more or less steady streams at the vet checks.
One of the riders had a pet that was more interesting than any of the dogs or horses, a baby raccoon! It was so cute. She said her husband rescued this baby from a house he was demolishing when it was 2 days old. The mother had been killed somehow in the demolition and there was this one baby, no sign of any more. So it is being bottle raised. She had it in a little pen like people often use for puppies and the little coon was tumbling around in it, doing somersaults and making a funny clicking sound. When she picked up the coon it sort of curled over her shoulders and around her neck and made a sound like a cat purring! It was so soft! So there I was petting a baby raccoon with one hand and holding on to Can Do's lead rope with the other while she tried to figure out what that thing was! Evidently she decided it was harmless and soon went back to eating grass.
Jul 19, 2005
There is a big hole in the ride schedule so the next ride is Aug 13 and then another one a week later. One ride had to be cancelled because the planned camping area was not available. It takes about 10 acres to accommodate all of the trailers and horses, vetting area, etc. There wasn't another area nearby that could be used on short notice (BLM has to do an impact study which takes 90 days) so the ride was cancelled for this year. The ride manager said she would request a study for next year's ride so this won't happen again. Part of the ride was to be held on BLM land and they ok'd that but couldn't get the camp study done quickly enough.
Jul 21, 2005
I keep forgetting to take the camera and this week I really kicked myself! Besides missing getting a picture of the raccoon we camped in an especially pretty place.
Aug 02, 2005
No 'maters or corn yet in my garden, but we did have fried summer squash last night! Ummm, good. I'm heading for town in a while and will get some corn and 'maters at the fruit stand. Not quite like home grown and minutes from garden to table, but sure a whole lot better than what the supermarkets have.
Aug 04, 2005
It's been cooler here the past couple of days but supposed to be in the middle 90's for the next few. The really tough guys are the ones fighting the wildfires in this kind of weather. I keep checking the fire information and as of yesterday morning the closest fire to us had burned over a thousand acres and had a crew of over 600 men working on it, but the fire along the Idaho/Oregon border was over 25,000 acres. We could see it one night but now it is behind mountains more or less to the east of us so the wind is carrying the smoke away from us. No smoky smell in the air today and visibility is good. The water from the spring overflow is running down the rows in the veggie garden and when that is done I am going riding before it gets hot. Also need to pick up broken hay bales from the neighbor's field, free hay!
Aug 08, 2005
The fires aren't that close, it's just big wide open country and we can see for 50 miles in some directions. The fire that is closest to us (15 or 20 miles to our northeast) is smaller now. Last evening we were getting smoke from some fire more to the northwest.
It's still hot but yesterday stayed under about 95. One day recently it was 110 in the greenhouse with the door open and fans going, and I was trying to keep things watered and the floor wet down to raise the humidity. Yesterday I was outside most of the day irrigating the garden and weeding as I went along the rows making sure the water went where it needed to go. Every half hour or so I came to the house to cool off. We are sure enjoying eating out of the garden! Cucumbers and kolrabi are producing now. We also have summer squash coming out our ears! (I know, it looks funny)!
This morning I went up into the neighbor's field to pick up another load of broken hay bales. A hot, sweaty job even before the day got hot. I should ride Patch before it gets hotter. It's still under 80 in the shade.
Mary
Aug 16, 2005
Our rules require that riders under the age of 16 ride with an adult. It's partly for their safety, partly to teach them good riding habits and how to care for an endurance horse which is very different from caring for a horse who just does easy trail rides. We always have a good bunch of junior riders and many over the years have grown up to become sponsors of their and other's children who compete in endurance rides. If a junior starts out with a sponsor who gets pulled (lame or sick horse or rider option) another adult can take the kid. The management has to know who is riding with the junior.
A few years ago there was a teenaged girl who was doing her first 100 mile ride, starting out with her mom. All went according to plan until the 25 mile point when her mom's horse was lame. She got another sponsor and rode another loop. That sponsor also got pulled for some reason so some riders on a shorter distance who happened to be going out to ride the loop she needed to do next took her until their mileage was up. Then one of the ride managers took her through her next loop with a horse that had already done it's mileage for the day, and finally another person rode with her on the last section. That day there were 5 people who started the 100 mile ride and this girl was the only one who was able to finish it. We work pretty hard to take care of our juniors and make sure they have every opportunity to finish.
Aug 17, 2005
When I was a kid I would spend all day on my horse, going down the country roads, through gates when I could open and close them, and loved to explore. What's over the next hill? Where does this trail go? What could I see from way up there? Sometimes I was alone, sometimes with my sister or a friend but it didn't matter as long as I was on my horse.
Endurance riding is something like that. It gives me whole days to ride, see new trails and old ones, ride with friends, meet new people, challenge myself and my horse, and is the biggest confidence building experience of my life.
Over the past 15 years I have seen lots of awesome scenery, made friends with people who live all over the world, helped a lot of people (a couple of those incidents were life threatening and God just put me in the right place at the right time). I've also tried to spread the joy of the Lord without being obnoxious about it, and had some positive results from that too. Our riders are as much of a cross section of society as you would find anywhere else, so there is often an opportunity to put in a good word about the Lord and plenty of people who need prayer.
About 15 years ago I was a member of a mounted drill team. We had a new member who mentioned that she was going to an endurance ride. I was going to ask her about it but never saw her again. After a few weeks I decided to see what I could find out about it and soon connected with an endurance rider who worked at a local veterinary hospital which specialized in horses. She told me when and where the next one was and so I went out there for the day and asked a zillion questions. At the end of the day I knew I wanted to try it.
People do endurance riding for a lot of the same reasons other people run a marathon.
Mary
Aug 22, 2005
Below is a photo of the Weiser River Trail (old railroad now a hiking and horse trail) where my endurance ride was this weekend. Patch, my young gelding, did very well and was a good boy (not spooky or nutty) all day. We finished the 50 mile ride in 14th place out of 22 starters and 17 finishers. The weather was very hot without much shade along the trail. Last year (when this picture was taken) was cooler because the ride was held about a month later). Scenery along the trail goes from boring to interesting, to spectacular. Railroads make very gradual climbs and descents so the feeling is that it is flat but that is part of what makes it difficult. Having no variety makes horse and rider use the same muscles without much relief except when we go from a trot to a walk. The surface is rocky, worse in places. This photo shows one of the good places.
Mary
One of the many trestles. This one is fairly low, maybe 15 ft above the water, but some of them are about 50 ft high. By the time we got to the highest one which is also one of the longest, the horses were used to them. We rode over them at a walk. Next year I will try to carry the camera so I can get a picture of the high bridge.
Mary
Aug 22, 2005
Here is some scenery along the Weiser River from a section of the trail that we have ridden in previous years but did not ride this year. They keep rebuilding more of the trestles so we keep moving north every year. By next year I think we will be at the end of the line. The railroad hauled logs to mills back in the days before good highways and logging trucks. We still see spikes and steel plates for joining sections of rail together as we ride along, but most of the railroad ties are gone. You can see the railroad grade to the right of the picture.
Mary
Aug 23, 2005
More people should leave their couches and TVs (and I should add computers) and go out to see the world around them.
The next ride will actually be 3 rides in 3 days over Labor Day weekend. My plan is to take all 3 horses and give each one a
Aug 26, 2005
Maybe I am nuts for not keeping a journal of all this. It seems like a logical thing to do but life just seems to get in the way. Some of the adventures have been unforgettable, and others, well, I'd just as soon not remember. Every year I think I am at least going to keep a list of which rides I went to, what distance, what horse, placing, and a running tally of my horses' and my miles, but I don't manage to do it so keeping a journal is really way out there. What I meant was that I don't seem to be able to keep track of anything! The statistics wouldn't mean much to you but if I could keep track of them they would be helpful to me.
Mary
Sep 09, 2005
This past weekend (Labor Day weekend) I took two horses and went to southwestern Idaho to take part in a 3 day endurance ride. Friday I left home about noon, met friends along the way and we arrived at the ride camp about 5pm, set up camp, got entered and our horses vetted, ate dinner which the ride managers provided, got information on the first day's trail, and went to our trailers to prepare for the ride. I put my brand new set of easyboots on Can Do since the trail for the first day would be very rocky. By then it was dark and time to make sure the horses had enough food and water for the night and get myself to bed.
Saturday morning, 5:30am and still dark. I'm already up, dressed and eating yogurt, banana, juice, vitamins and a string cheese stick while my horse stands quietly right outside the door. My fanny pack was filled last night with a sandwich, power bar and more string cheese. The new camelback water reservoir is full of water and ready to put on like a vest and go down the trail on it's maiden voyage. Quite a few of the riders use them instead of water bottles. Mine is the 50 ounce size, way better for hot weather riding than a 16 ounce bottle.
I saddled Can Do as soon as it was light enough to see, then warmed her up on a lunge line for a few minutes and got on. We started calmly at a slow trot down the road a few minutes after the faster riders. Can Do has a lot of energy and wants to go faster. I follow some other riders to try to keep the speed under control but it's still a challenge.
We went down a rocky road, up a sandy wash that carries water when it rains (very seldom), and on to a jeep road which we follow for several miles across a flat and down into a narrow canyon where the vet check will be in a wide spot next to the creek. Our horses get a drink and I take off a couple of shirts because it is already getting hot. We ride at a walk up the canyon crossing the creek about 30 times in 3 miles. One of the easyboots looses a buckle but it stays on because the tightener cable is under the buckle bracket. I checked on it periodically all day and had to use needle nosed pliers and a lot of oomph to get it off after the ride.
We follow a road up a hill for about 4 miles and about 3000 feet, then follow a series of jeep roads down to the vet check where we have to stay for about an hour. Can Do vets through just fine, eats hay, takes a nap while I eat my sandwich, drink lots of water, refill my camelback and find a potty spot behind some bushes.
Hold time is up and we go down the creek for a mile or two, skirt around an irrigation reservoir with a muddy shoreline (sure trouble if the horses get into that goo) and climb back into the desert plateau. After a few miles we go down a hill, follow the access road along a historic irrigation ditch, ride through a very old homestead ranch that supports several families, climb another hill and eventually find ourselves back at the starting point. As I am getting off at the finish line somebody looks at my horses feet and tells me I have lost an easyboot. Later somebody found it just outside of camp, minus the buckle. I have never lost an easyboot buckle and today I have lost 2 from brand new boots. Something wrong here.
Can Do passed the final vet check but had a sore spot on her back, so no second day for her. I present Patch to the vet for the 2nd day's ride and start getting ready again, put easyboots on his front feet, pack my lunch, etc.
That was day 1. Day 2 later.
Mary
Sep 10, 2005
Day 2: I'm already half awake when the alarm rings. Start time will be 7:15, same as yesterday. After a quick breakfast, same foods as yesterday, I carefully step out the door shining the flashlight as I go to avoid stepping in gifts Can Do leaves me overnight. She is standing tied to the trailer with her tail about 6 inches from the door. The outhouse, even in the cool of the morning, has that air about it. I don't linger long.
Can Do's back is being doctored with a poultice which I replace before I leave for the day. It will take a few days for the soreness to go away even with doctoring. She will have the freedom of a small pen for the day at my friend's trailer. Patch used it yesterday and paced the fence all day. I think he might wish for some of that energy before the day is over.
We start a few minutes after the faster riders since there is no point in starting down the road with them only to be passed in a minute or two leaving me with an upset horse. He is excited enough anyhow without that. Today we go down the rocky road just a short ways, then through a gate and onto a single track trail for a few miles. Patch is still pretty excited. I keep telling him he will get his money's worth today, we'll be doing 55 miles with a mountain in it. He doesn't listen now but eventually will get the picture.
The trail goes over some hills, through a sandy wash or two, crosses a big wash where there was a flash flood a couple of years ago, and on to a gravel road for a few miles. Only one pickup passes us before we get to the first vet check at 12 miles. Patch is still excited trying to dance around in a circle, eat and watch the activity in the vet check while the pulse taker tries to listen to his heartbeat. It takes 10 minutes for his pulse to come down to 60 beats per minute and then our 40 minute hold begins. The riders I came in with have already left when we finally get to leave the check. It's getting hot already and is only about 9:30.
Patch travels along at a nice trot by himself for several miles and then we catch up with another rider and he gets excited again. This is something that I hope will correct itself with miles and experience. Meanwhile I just have to be patient. Although he is prancing sideways and throwing his head again I feel perfectly safe up there.
We are getting closer to Toy Mountain (no toy, believe me). The trail has been climbing gently ever since we left camp this morning. My riding companion is a man on a gray mule named Reba. He opens gates! (chivalry is not dead) and there are quite a few of them. He gets off his mule, hands me the lead rope, goes to open the gate, I lead the mule through and wait while he closes the gate. My horse is used to mules and they get along fine unless there is food involved.
The trail climbs, and climbs, and climbs. Great views from way up there and I enjoy them as we go along. After about 4 miles of the really steep stuff we get to 6500 ft where we have a view into Oregon and Nevada while standing in Idaho. The vet check is about 8 more fairly easy miles at our 34 mile point. Patch is nice and calm, the mountain has been my friend and mellowed him out. He passes the vet check and we have an hour hold. Ride management has brought alfalfa hay and grass hay, Patch is happy to eat some of each plus finish off some soaked beet pulp with grain that another horse left. It gets to be like a smorgasbord sometimes, all those different flavors, plus carrots and apples if I remember to bring some. Today I didn't think of it but somebody else did and he got the leftovers. Somebody holds my horse while I fill the camelback and find a spot behind a bush. Then it's time to leave to do the last 21 miles.
I ride out alone but catch the man on the mule in about 2 minutes, before we reach the first gate. The ranchers in this area have their cattle out in the hills and are nice enough to let us go across their land but we have to keep the gates closed. We climb some more of the mountain for a few miles before we come to an old stagecoach road which we follow for many miles on the decent back to a sagebrush plateau. The ride management has put out some water tanks and hay at a jeep road crossing at 47 miles. We spend a few minutes there, Patch says he won't share his hay with the mule. I move him to another pile and both munch happily. From there it takes about an hour and 20 minutes to get back to camp, we trot a while, walk through rocks, trot more, walk again. The day is in the 90's, my camelback is empty before we reach camp and I am glad I had a lot of water today.
The easyboots stayed on since I was using some old ones. Patch passed the final check ok but has a sore spot on his back. It is in the same place as Can Do's sore spot so I know it is the saddle and will have to use a different saddle on both of them. Patch's back is not as sore as Can Do's but I won't be riding him for a while. We are always making adjustments so this is just another bump in the road so to speak. Our travel time for the 55 miles was under 9 hours, we were allowed 13 1/4. Nobody took all the time but there were riders finishing a couple of hours after us.
Mary
Sep 10, 2005
We started down there where it is green.
We climbed the mountain you see in the distance.
On the way back to camp we passed this. It is a lava flow making a rock wall about 50 feet high between the hills with an opening in it that a horse can walk through, then high canyon walls beyond it with a creek bed (usually dry) running through it for a mile or so.
Mary
Sep 12, 2005
Day 3: I'm up at the usual time, eat some breakfast, check and feed the horses, refill their water buckets, go watch the start of the ride and meet the volunteers to catch a ride out to the vet check. Today I will be doing my part to make sure the riders don't have to wait for somebody to take their horse's pulse when they ride into the vet check. I ride out to the check with one of the vets. The 50 mile riders will come through the check twice, and the 30 milers once. We get there half an hour before the first riders.
Between flurries of activity we visit and tell stories of riders, horses and other rides. The day is sunny but cooler than the two before. Another of the volunteers lives next to the ride site. She and her husband have built a business training and selling endurance horses and also sell saddles. I tell her my tale of woe with my saddle making both horse's backs sore and she recommends a saddle that is adjustable. Later in the afternoon she and her husband come over to my trailer and fit a saddle to Patch. I go for a short test ride, then we put the saddle on Can Do (carefully but she still protests a little) and it fits just the same as it did on Patch! Her back is too sore for me to get on her so we just put the saddle on and check it for fit. Horses, like people, have different shapes so one saddle doesn't fit them all. I just happen to have two horses with very similiar backs, so hopefully one saddle will be right for both of them. I'll sell the other saddle to help pay for this one.
Later I go to the vet check in camp just to sit in the shade of a canopy and visit while the last few horses come through. Later we all gather to eat and visit while awards are given out. I pack up most of my stuff and walk the horses before dark. It's been a relaxing day.
The next morning I'm up just as it is getting light, take care of the last few things that need to be packed away, walk the horses again and load them into the trailer. Along the way I stop and have a real breakfast. Four hours later we are home. Can Do and Patch run around happily with their heads and tails in the air celebrating their homecoming with Breezy who is happy to have them back in the pasture.
I will be leaving in the morning for another one so stay tuned.
Mary
Sep 18, 2005
After rushing around to get everything in the veggie garden, yard and greenhouse watered, I finally was on my way to the ride about noon. It's about a 6 hour trip counting a couple of quick stops. Along the way I ran into a pretty good rain shower and evidence of hail beside the road a few miles farther. Brrrr, that looks cold! I'm glad to have missed the hailstorm. Showers are hanging from dark clouds in the distance but I figure since I am going west and the showers were traveling from west to east that I'll get to the ride site in the Oregon high desert 40 miles east of Bend and not get a drop. After all, I have been to this same ride about 10 times and never once been rained on. We never know what to expect in this location, anything from a day that starts at 15 degrees and ends up cold and windy to something over 100 degrees, but never rain, after all, chances of being rained on in a climate that gets about 6 inches of rain a year are kinda remote.
After finding a place to park and getting my horse fed and watered I go to enter the ride. Vetting the horse is next, he passes the entry exam so I saddle him and go for a quick ride around a 4 mile loop to stretch him out a bit after the trailer trip and before the ride information meeting which will start about dark. About half way around the loop it starts to rain, I decide to keep going since I would get wet either way and there are a couple of nice little hills to climb by going the way I have chosen. By the time I get back to camp I'm soaking wet and seeing lightening in the distance. Breezy is quickly unsaddled, covered with a wool cooler and water resistant stable blanket and I change to dry clothes. It's dark and time to go to the ride information meeting, then it's off to bed after a quick warm up of my little living quarters at the front of the horse trailer.
During the night it gets pretty cold and so do I. After turning over and over and putting it off a few times, I crawl out of my not quite warm enough sleeping bag into the cold trailer and turn on the furnace, crawl back in and wait to get warm and sleepy. It takes time. I didn't think to look at the clock and lay there wondering if it is the middle of the night or close to time for the alarm to ring. That's like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Morning. It's still dark but I wake up to horses whinnying and the sound of hooves outside. Breezy is restless, I can feel the trailer rocking a little as he moves around, always a comforting reassurance that my horse is still there and not one of those making hoofbeats outside on the road! The 75 and 100 milers are warming up their horses for a 6am start. By the time I get dressed and out the door they are already gone. In the dark I wouldn't have seen anything anyhow.
Brrr, well at least it is above freezing! The temperature of the plastic seat in the outhouse almost convinces my behind that lack of frost on the ground is only a formality! I check to be sure Breezy has hay and water, then go back inside the living quarters to eat breakfast. Yogurt, string cheese, vitamins, juice. Oops, forgot the bananas. I eat dried fruit instead and a handfull of salted nuts. A rider from the neighboring trailer knocks on my door, she hadn't seen me and knew I should be awake to be ready for my 7am start. Nice of her. I missed the start of a ride a few years ago when the alarm didn't ring so I know it's something that happens.
Breezy is saddled and I get on. COLD saddle, more goosebumps! Do I need gloves? No, just hold the reins with my jacket sleeve over my hand for a few miles. It works ok and gloves will only be something in the way needing to be tied to the saddle strings later if I take them. It's amazing how quickly riding at a fast trot warms both horse and rider, the only downside is the wind we create is often very chilling on a cold day.
We start down the jeep road out of camp at 7am going right toward the sun that is just about to peek over the hills, then turn south just as it comes up. It's nice to have a bit of warmth without looking right into it. Today there is no dust thanks to the rain. Breezy is happy to be going down the trail, he is wanting to pass every horse in front of us. No, Breezy, I don't want to race, I just want to complete 50 miles with a sound and healthy horse. He's not convinced.
The trail is marked with gypsum arrows on the ground pointing the direction we are to go at intersections, an occasional sign, and a few surveyor tape ribbons. Since there are few places to get off the trail, this works very well for this ride but bothers riders that are not used to it. Often we go several miles without any further markings to indicate that we are still on the right trail. No problem for me, I know the trail quite well.
The first vet check is at 17 miles. We walk in the last 1/8 of a mile and Breezy's pulse is down to 60 as soon as the pulse taker checks it. Next we see the vet and are passed to go. This check is a stop and go, meaning there is no required hold, so as soon as the vet passes him, I'm back on the horse and we go. He sees horses ahead of us, (we can see for miles) and wants to pass them all. We quickly catch up to a couple of them and I put him behind them to slow him down. In less than an hour we are at camp for another check and a 45 minute hold. Breezy has hay, water, and a little bit of whole oats, vitamins and some alfalfa pellets for a snack. He watches other horses come and go while he eats.
I eat a sandwich, drink some water, fill my water bottle and tie it to the saddle. No need for the 50 oz Camelbak today, a 16 oz water bottle will do just fine. The jacket comes off but I keep the sweatshirt. It's sunny but not all that warm. We start off on loop 2 for the 2nd half of the ride.
The course is shaped like a bird with it's wings spread out. Ride camp is at the head. Loop 1 is one wing that joins loop 2 at the tail. We came down the body to ride camp and go out on the other wing which is loop 2. After about 17 miles we come back into the outcheck (vet check out of camp) and go through the vetting proceedure again. Breezy passes ok and we have a 15 minute hold so he can rest and eat some hay. My water bottle gets a refill, Breezy eats some hay and very quickly it is time to go the last 8 miles to camp. We cross the finish line at 2:11 in about 23rd place! that's fast for us to be finished in a little over 6 hours and in the middle of the pack of 50 starters.
I pull the saddle off at my trailer and go to get the completion check. None of this will count if he doesn't pass, but he is looking great. His pulse is down to 52, he is sound, has good gut sounds and good hydration factors. So now I wonder if I should have entered the 75 miler instead of the 50.
We go back to the trailer, I give him more hay, a fresh bucket of water and put on the ice boots for half an hour. It feels good to sit on the running board of the trailer and drink more water, eat a little and just rest in the warm sun. 30 minuts later the ice boots come off and I apply clay to Breezy's lower legs to keep pulling the heat out of joints and tendons, then wrap them with wet quilt wraps and track wrap which will stay on until we get home.
The rest of the afternoon and evening is spent visiting, watching horses come and go, walking Breezy a couple of times, and eating. I stay up until 9pm when it gets to be too much work to stay awake. When I walk away from the propane heater I've been sitting near in a tent then I wake up again! Brrrr. My trailer furnace quickly heats up the space and I turn it off just before getting into my sleeping bag. But turning it off was a mistake, because during the night I wake up cold again. Crawl out, turn it on, crawl back in, wait, sleep.
Soon after daylight I scrape the ice off the windshield and head for home. Brrrrr.
Mary
Sep 19, 2005
The last ride this season is Oct 29th. It is in the same general area so will likely be so cold it will make me wonder why I am there! Sometimes I can't get to that last one because of bad road conditions on mountain passes between here and there. Now there is a break in the schedule, then Oct 4-8 I'll be going to a 5 day series in Idaho where the 3 day ride was a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, I have plenty of garden related stuff to keep me busy.
As for DH letting me take time off to play, well, he has always believed that people should take time to do what they want to do, and he has gone on a lot of hunting, fishing and other kinds of trips so he doesn't mind at all. He did a lot of his trips while our kids were growing up and I was holding down the fort.
Mary
Oct 12, 2005
The 5 day ride series turned into 4 days for me since I went a day late. Even though it is a 5 day event, each ride is a separate event, so a person can skip days if they choose to do so.
I got a late start driving to the ride site so arrived after dark, put Patch into a rented corral and fed him and Can Do who was tied to the trailer. The ride information meeting was just ending so I asked a few basic questions and picked up my entry form and vet card from the office, talked to one of the vets who agreed to check my horse in the morning just before the start time.
Can Do was very restless all night and kept me awake a lot. I got up to check her several times, gave her more hay and made sure she still had water.
6:30am, alarm rings, I turn it off, turn the furnace on and crawl back in the sleeping bag for 5 minutes while my small living quarters warm up. Ummmm. After I'm dressed and have eaten my banana, yogurt, handfull of mixed nuts, vitamins and juice I check the horses again on the way to the outhouse. Brrrr, cold seat! I pack myself a sandwich, fill the Camelbak reservoir with water, organize my riding gear and saddle Can Do. About 15 minutes before the 7:30 start time we find a vet to check her and are on our way a few minutes after the official start.
Before long we catch up with a friend named David and another rider. David and I have ridden many miles together and baled each other out of a few scrapes so we agree that riding together today would be good.
About 15 miles into the ride we cross a paved highway and go up a gravel road for about half a mile, then are to turn left onto another road and it's about 2 more miles to the vet check. Just as we come to the intersection I look up to my right and there is a low flying small 2 engine plane on it's glide path to a nearby air strip. Can Do looses it, spooks to the left, bucks, tears the reins out of my hand and runs through the field ahead of us. I jump up, pretty much unhurt except for bloody fingers and watch as she runs over a pile of irrigation pipes toward a pivot line (big irrigation system on wheels). She makes a U turn at the pivot line and comes back toward us over the irrigation pipes again, then suddenly turns and goes through an old barbed wire fence. She hit it squarely and the fence, posts and all went flying like it was ribbons and match sticks. If it had been a good fence she would have flipped over it.
This horse isn't gonna stop until she wants to. She runs across the road, through an irrigation ditch full of water, and off across the desert, changing direction a couple of times when she came to gulleys too wide to jump across. This took her away from the highway (thank you God!). David followed her and kept her in sight but didn't chase her which would have made her go faster. I started hiking in the same direction.
After a good walk I saw her standing next to another fence but after going down through some gulleys, by the time I got there she had moved. I see tracks and follow them, then a few minutes later I see her. David is there with his horse riding in slow circles around her. When I approach she watches me and he gets her reins, then just stands there thinking maybe she would jerk away and run if he tried to lead her.
Amazingly, she hardly has a scratch! We see power poles in the distance and decide to go straight for them because they probably follow the road. We guessed right and saved a lot of walking. When we get to the road a car pulls up with a vet and 2 other people in it. The lady we had been riding with had gone for help at the vet check. The horse is checked over by the vet, somebody ties my broken rein back to the bit, I get back on and ride to the vet check where the same vet does the official check, I trot her and she is sound!
After a short hold we proceed over grassy hills and eventually down a very steep trail to the Snake River and follow it for several miles past some Indian Petroglyphs and back up a long steep hill. The geology in this area is amazing. I'll post some pictures taken a couple of years ago. We also follow the Oregon Trail for a few miles, then come to a large cattle ranch where the vet check is set up just outside the main ranch gate.
We are now about 45 miles into the 60 mile ride, the vet checks her over and she passes. He does want to see her trot again before we leave, so I let her eat a few minutes, walk her a few minutes, let her eat some more, etc, until it is time to go, we trot out again, she looks ok and we head down the trail for the last 15 miles.
It's almost dark and getting quite chilly when we get back to camp and the finish line. A different vet checks her at the finish, she passes and I take her to the trailer, unsaddle her, put a stable blanket on her so she doesn't chill, make sure she has hay and water, then go to eat dinner with the other riders in the yard behind the ride manager's house. Spaghetti and garlic bread, green salad and cake! Lots of calories that will get burned tomorrow. We use up something close to 4000 calories a day doing 50 miles.
The awards for the day are given out, the information meeting held for the next day, and I head for the trailer. Feed horses, carry water, pack lunch, fill Camelbak, set the alarm and it's time for bed. One down, 3 to go.
First picture is our first view of the Snake River. Yep, it's waaaaay down there!
Mary
My friend David passing the ruins of a rock homestead house along the river.
One of the petroglyphs. Some of these rocks are the size of small cars and are a different type of rock from the canyon walls, having probably been deposited by a traveling glacier.
Mary
Oct 12, 2005
Beyond that rocky hill is the trail that will lead us up out of the canyon.
Mary
Oct 17, 2005
Second day. I'm up before dawn with the usual routine of getting myself and the horses fed, visiting that cold palace of necessity (thankfully it's not as cold this morning as yesterday) and eating my breakfast. I take Can Do for a walk, she is stiff from her wild escapades of yesterday but soon warms up and I have to hurry to keep up with her. I decide she's ok and put her back in the pen. While I walk her Patch gets very excited. Oh boy, just what I didn't need. I decide that hereafter I will take her for her walks in the evening and possibly avoid this problem.
Start time is a little later this morning, 8:00 since we are only doing 50 miles. I start getting Patch ready for the day. Nearby and just out of sight is a very excited horse who whinnys about every 20 seconds. Patch won't stand still so I am saddling a fast moving object this morning. I manage to do it without loosing the saddle pad or the saddle! The bridle will be a challenge though, it is even at home. So I devise a plan.
Patch continues to dance from side to side. I put the bridle in the living space to warm up the bit for a few minutes, get a handfull of horse treats and take a deep breath.
First step, get the halter off his nose and fasten the poll strap on his neck without letting him get away. I give him a treat and do this while he chews it and looks for another one. I have the bridle by the poll and as I get it into position with my right hand between his ears I slip him another treat with the left hand. He chews and I slip the bit into his mouth before he knows what is happening. He knows I have more treats so does not toss his head. Another treat. While he chews that one I get the bridle over his ears and the throat latch fastened and give him one more for being a good boy. Whew!!
I walk him around, tighten the girth again and start looking for something to stand on to help me mount. The excited horse is still having a fit and whinnying but Patch can see him now and maybe thinks he's just a nut case by this time. Other riders are walking or riding their horses in the area and Patch is watching them and dancing around me in a circle. A nearby trailer has a step stool near it so I use that and have somebody hold his head.
We proceed to the start area and link up with two other riders who want a slow and sane start. Patch knows this is going to be fun. I give the start official my number and we trot past the vet for a final ok on our way down a rocky road. Patch settles down and walks like we were doing this at home. My riding partners are Max, the man with the mules that I rode with about a month ago, and his wife, Lisa.
Today's ride takes us up a sandy wash from the rocky road and across a sagebrush plateau just as the sun is coming up on our right. We can see the big hill we will climb later, the red rocks and soil glow in the sunlight. It's chilly but there is no frost so my hands are warmer today. After a few miles we ride through the area where the vet check will be but nobody is there yet. The jeep road turns down into a deep canyon, it's downhill for about a mile. Part way down the road is almost washed out from flash floods. In the past the vet check was at the bottom by the creek but the ride manager had to move it up the hill this year.
The canyon walls are several hundred feet high in places and almost straight up. The trail winds between them and crosses the creek about 30 times in the next few miles. We walk the whole distance because it is too rocky to go any faster. Since there has been some frost the leaves of the bushes and trees along the creek are various shades of gold, green, red and brown. Sometimes the branches of the trees are too low and we have to duck to miss them. Trying to do that and watch the scenery produced a few surprises. Ouch. Patch is a little taller than the average endurance horse which doesn't help at all with low branches.
After we leave the canyon we follow a road that goes winding up the mountain for about 3 miles. It's a great place to trot and so we make up for some time we lost walking through the canyon. We turn down hill on a jeep road that goes through a herd of cows and past a water tank. Several riders are at the tank, some are just leaving and our horses get a good drink. One of the riders isn't watching carefully and her horse gets his bridle hung up on the edge of the water tank. She quickly dismounts and thankfully the horse is not fighting, just standing patiently with it's head in an akward position. The rider slips the bridle off and the horse is free but with reins still over it's neck. All is well, she puts the bridle back on and is ready to go again.
The road leads through several gates and more or less steadily downhill. When we get in sight of the creek again it gets very steep so we decide to get off and lead them down the rest of the way. Patch is in the lead of our little group but he can see other horses and doesn't want to stop. I quickly get off and find the footing very loose and unstable, and also discover that my legs aren't very cooperative. I loose my balance when Patch gives me a playful nudge with his nose and take several steps backward down the steep hill. My lifeline is the reins but the horse is also moving down the hill. After a few anxious steps I get myself stopped!
We proceed the last few hundred feet down the hill, slipping and sliding to the creek and since it is shallow I cross quickly on foot hopeing not to get too much water in my shoes. There is a nice log on the other side that I use to get back on while Patch is busy watching the other horses making the crossing.
Now we ride up the road past the washout to the vet check where I'm surprised by David (yesterday's riding partner) who is all set up to crew for me. He hands me a bottle of water and points me to a folding chair. All he needs is my vet card and he is off to check the horse through for me. Wow, what a luxury! Patch passes just fine and is happy to eat some hay while I eat my sandwich. David's wife, Jenniffer is also there on her hold, she is doing the 30 mile ride on a slightly different trail. She leaves to ride back to camp and her finish a few minutes before I'm allowed to leave.
Hold time is up, I get back on Patch, link up with the couple on their mules and we head back down into the canyon. Part way down the hill we meet a lady who is having trouble getting her horse to go, he is missing his buddy who has been pulled (DQ'd) at the vet check for lameness. We help her get going and she rides with us the rest of the day.
We ride down stream this time, more great scenery with canyon walls and numerous creek crossings and then past a large reservoir where there are more cattle and lots of gnats that want to get into the horses ears and into my eyes. Having been warned to stay away from the shoreline we pass the mile long side of the reservoir up in the grassy edge where every step we take stirs up more gnats. We try to hurry but there are too many rocks and there is often no trail to follow, just some surveyor tape tied to clumps of grass or laying on the ground after curious cows tried to eat them. The ride manager told us not to worry about markings in this area, just keep the reservoir on the right and turn when we got to the jeep road at the end of it.
Finally we come to a jeep road where we can make up some time at a trot with occasional walk breaks where there are more rocks. The jeep road takes us over some hills and down toward an historic ranch, along a maintenance road that follows an irrigation ditch leading from the reservoir to the ranch, and then through the ranch itself and up a steep rocky road on the other side of the valley. After this we follow cow trails over a few more hills and into the sandy wash that leads to the road into camp and the finish line.
Patch gets through the vet check just fine after a few excited minutes from finding himself back at camp and having Can Do greeting him from her pen. Two days down, two to go.
The picture shows the road from the vet check that leads down into the canyon with the creek in it. Above and to the right of the rider you can see another road which is the one I walked down when my legs didn't want to work.
Mary
The trail leading through the canyon.
Yes, there really is an opening in that wall.
After climbing up out of the canyon we go down again.
Here's the part where I walked and lead the horse. It's much steeper than it looks.
Mary
Aloe
That is Oregon, right? I would have never thought that Oregon would be that dry. I know there is a dry side of the state, but that is Mojave Desert dry in your pictures.
Mary
Oct 18, 2005
It's south western Idaho, south of the Snake River. Yep, really dry, maybe 5 inches precip annually. Parts of Oregon are like this. Most people think the whole state is like Portland with 35+ inches of rain, but actually about 2/3 of Oregon is considered desert.
Mary
Oct 19, 2005
Day 3 and 4 run together in my mind since I'm writing this about 2 weeks after the rides. Patch is my mount for day 3. I use the same sneaky treat strategy on him to get him bridled but saddling was a snap because he was more relaxed, he was eating some grain (why didn't I do this yesterday?) and we didn't get him all excited before the ride by taking Can Do for a walk, plus there is no screaming neighbor horse this morning! We followed some nice trails but nothing as spectacular as the last 2 days. Patch has more than enough energy all day but is pretty well behaved, maybe having learned a thing or two. About 30 miles into the ride I decide he can do another day since he hasn't shown me that he is the least bit tired. We pass all vet checks and are ok'd to start the next day which will be his 3rd. The ride dinner is BBQ'd chicken, baked potatoes, salad, and chocolate chip cookies! I make sure the horses have enough hay and water for the night, set the clock and go to bed.
Day 4. It's Halloween costume day! Even though Halloween is still about 3 weeks away, this is tradition at this ride because in the past the ride series was held later in the month. Start time is 8:30 to give the riders extra daylight time to fuss with costumes. I enjoy them but am not into it, so I watch some riders in a neighboring camp decorating their horses. Not every horse tolerates costumes and this family has two of their own horses plus a borrowed one that isn't too comfortable with being dressed up.
The costumes are judged on originality and durability. It might look good at the start line and be mostly not there after 50 miles. A little experience and some luck hold most of them together. Some of the horses don't know what to think of the clothes other horses are wearing, but they get used to it. One of the vets used to wear a tutu just to be in the spirit of things but it scared the horses and kept their heart rate up so he ditched it. Good sport tho, and he was certainly unique!
All the vet checks are in camp today, we are riding 3 short loops, well, a 20, a 10, and another 20, but compared to the 60 and 50 mile loops these feel very short. My riding partner is a pumpkin and has tied some feather boa things into her horse's mane and tail to resemble squash vines. Her riding helmet has a stem fastened to the top and some long pipe cleaner looking things looking like squash tendrils hanging down over her shoulders. She won't win any prizes but has dressed up to please her 4 year old daughter who giggles because her mom is dressed up funny. Another good sport!
The pumpkin and I ride slowly all day because we are both on horses that we didn't intend to ride a 3rd day. Another rider catches us a few miles out on the last loop and the 3 of us agree to tail end as a trio. We finish a few minutes before dark with Patch prancing happily after we top a rise and see camp a mile away, and just in time for the dinner and awards. Although some of the riders stay in the meeting area after the ride to socialize, I go to the trailer and start packing for the trip home. I sleep well knowing that I don't have the alarm set and only have a couple of water buckets and hay bags to collect in the morning before loading the horses and heading home as soon as it is light.
Photo: A couple of well dressed riders and horses. These little girls are sisters and their mother rides in costume with them every year. They always have such great costumes and they win the family division every year. They start planning for next year's costumes on the way home to Alberta, Canada.
Mary
Oct 24, 2005
The next ride was a week later in the western foothills of Oregon's Cascade Mountains, a real contrast from the desert rides since this was in a heavily forested area and without the nice weather.
We arrive at the ride site about 5pm, find a place to park 2 rigs in the large grassy field which is already looking pretty full. My friends Eva and Tom have traveled with me so they park next to my trailer. They've each brought a horse and they carry pipe corral panels on their trailer for Eva's horse. Tom will borrow the side of my trailer for his horse so their two horses will be able to see each other and not be worrying, whinnying, not eating, or dancing around all night wasting energy.
After I get entered into the ride it's time to get the horse vetted and then saddle up and take a short ride. I go downhill on a rocky road, then just ride that long hill back up to camp. I always ride Breezy like this the evening before the ride since he has tie up problems (muscles lock up) and I want to be as sure as possible that he won't be doing that the next day. He seems to be ok. Light rain has started to fall by the time I get back to camp. I put Breezy's water resistant blanket on him and take my can of beef stew next door to get it warmed up, then sit in a folding chair while we all eat. Eva has brought soup for them and also has cheese, crackers and homemade bread. It's a good meal, sure better than eating a cold sandwich.
The information meeting is next and by now it's raining harder. The forecast warned us and I'm wearing a rain jacket and pants. Thankfully the meeting is a quick one, just the basics that we need to know. Back at the trailer I set Breezy up with a second bag of hay and another bucket of water for the night. I feel under his blanket, he is toasty and dry.
The rain continued all night along with gusts of wind. I wake up several times, listen to the storm and go back to sleep until the alarm rings.
Surprisingly, we are getting a break in the storm just when we need to saddle up and get started, but I know I will need the rain suit even if it is just for the dripping trees and the wet brush we will be going through. Eva and I let the faster riders start ahead of us, watching from across the field where we are warming up the horses, then ride past the start official, give her our numbers and head down the road at a walk. 1/4 mile later we get to where the jeep road goes through a gate and now we see what the real trail conditions are. Muddy and slick, with rocks in it that can't always be seen. It's gonna be a long 55 miles.
The first loop is 20 miles. It's a combination of jeep roads and single track trails with quite a bit of climbing and decending, slipping and sliding and lots of rock that has been added to the roads. The trail goes past several Christmas tree farms and through miles of private timberland. The rain continues, and the soft parts of the trail get softer and slicker. We pass a couple of riders and some others pass us while everybody gets their speed adjusted. As we are going along a single track trail up a steep hill I get a facefull of mud from the hoof of the horse ahead of me and can't see a thing! I stop. I hadn't thought of needing goggles. The mud slides off my face when I look up into the rain, then blink my eyes several times to get the mud out without rubbing. When one eye works well enough to see the trail we go again.
Shortly before we get through the first loop Eva says her horse feels lame. As we ride along we watch to see which foot he favors, the lameness comes and goes but we guess it is the left front but could be something is the right hind since a trot is a diagonal gait and horses will often look lame in front when something hurts in the rear. When the vet checks her horse, yes, he is lame on the left front and she is out for the day. I arrange to ride the next loop with two other riders and go to my trailer for food, get my water bottle, and a snack for myself and Breezy. Soon it is time to go again. Half an hour went by fast.
Loop 2 is 10 miles. Oh really? It takes us 2 hours and 45 minutes to ride it, almost as long as the first 20. We trotted a lot and rode at the same overall speed as the first loop and we agree that we might have taken a wrong turn and done something an extra time. About a mile into the loop one of the riders had decided her horse was lame and turned back so that left two of us.
Eva is there to help me when we ride into camp. She has a blanket for my horse so he won't chill in the rain and asks what she can do to help. I give her my vet card and she takes Breezy to the vet, I run to my trailer to get the easyboots, get some cookies, string cheese and a bottle of carrot/orange juice. After a stop at the outhouse I'm back to the vet area, Breezy has passed the vet check and is eating hay. I put the easyboots on his front feet, something I probably should have done before now this since he has flinched a couple of times from stepping on rocks. Another half hour hold goes by quickly and we go out to do the next loop, 15 miles.
The rain comes and goes. We make good time, pick up another rider who is riding alone, and are back to camp in 2 hours. We are still wondering about the 10 mile vs 15 mile and the time it took to do both. We do the 10 mile loop again so will be watching the markings more carefully.
Eva meets us with blankets again, I give her the vet card and the reins and she goes to get Breezy checked. He is fine, eats more hay and it's time to go again. One of my riding partners thinks we will be out there after dark so she brings a light just in case.
This time there are 3 of us watching the markings and interpreting the pie plate signs at intersections where one loop crosses another. Every ribbon (marking the trail) is checked to be sure we are doing it right, every intersection carefully examined, and we try to make good time to beat the dark which comes fast on a rainy day. There is no question in our minds that this trail is longer than 10 miles since we do everything just the same the second time through without questions.
A few miles before the finish we meet the ride manager who is out in her pickup putting glow lights on the corners. From this point to camp it is all roads. It does get dark but we don't need the light because the sky is still lighter than the woods and the roads which are clear show up just enough to see them. Eva and Tom meet us at the turn from the road into camp with flashlights. We made it, now all we have to do is one more vet check. Eva takes my vet card and checks Breezy through, he passes and so do the two horses we had traveled with for so many miles. The rain has seeped into my clothes here and there and my shoulders feel wet. As soon as I quit moving I start to feel cold. The rain is coming down sideways.
I get my completion award from the ride manager and head for the trailer to take care of the horse. Standing in the rain later to get the award later just doesn't sound like anything I want to do. Breezy is glad to be eating, I get him unsaddled, put his dry blanket on him, wrap his legs and go to eat some hot food with Tom and Eva next door. We sit in the horse space in the trailer but the wind blows through the vented sides so it isn't warm. It doesn't take long to feel like I want to get to bed. About then I hear the ride managers honking a horn to signal that it is time for awards.
The next ride is this coming weekend.
Mary
Oct 25, 2005
This weekend's ride is the last of the season. Weather is supposed to be dry but the temperature could be cold.
Nov 04, 2005
All week I have been watching the weather channel to see if I can tell if we will be between storms for ride day. It's looking good as I leave home Friday morning except that I am not traveling on the back roads since we had a small storm come through overnight that probably left snow on some of the higher passes. The freeway I-84 will be a better choice even though it is a longer drive that way. The state highway department has a priority list for the highways, so if there is snow on the other roads it could be there a long time before the road gets plowed or sanded. Better safe than sorry so I take the long way.
As I drive toward my ride I get into rain a few times but no snow, then the sun comes out from behind the clouds and I feel lots better about the weather. When I arrive at the ride camp in late afternoon there are clouds and patches of clear sky, it could go either way but I am still hopeful for a dry ride. I've brought Can Do (the mare) along for my friend Darlene to ride. She has agreed to sell her for me and wants to take her through the 75 mile ride. After filling out my entry form for the 60 miler we saddle the horses to go for a short ride so Darlene can get aquainted with Can Do while the other riders wait in the vet line which is moving very slowly. There are a lot of riders and so far only one vet has arrived to check the horses.
We join the vet line just as darkness arrives and after standing there a few minutes I hand my friend Breezy's lead rope and she holds both horses while I run back to the trailer to get blankets for the horses so they don't get chilled from being a bit sweaty and then standing in the cold. On my way somebody calls my name, I respond and am handed a lead rope with another horse on it and the man walks away in the dark. This horse is one I have planned to pick up on Sunday morning on my way home to transport for somebody living in my area, and I hadn't planned on having to find a place for her for all weekend. She gets tied temporarily to the trailer in Can Do's spot and I grab the blankets and hurry back to the vet line.
After vetting in we go back to my trailer, I move the extra horse to another nearby trailer where I have borrowed space for her, and Can Do gets her place back. We have a few minutes before the ride information meeting so I put some spaghetti in a pan and take it to Darlene's camper next door to warm it up. They have a tent set up too, with a propane heater and chairs so I have a comfortable place to sit and eat my hot food. Somebody honks a horn and we go to the ride meeting to find out about the trail, hold times, start time, etc. All vet checks will be in camp and the 60 milers will leave at 7am and do 4 loops. The 75's will start at 6:30 in the dark and do 5 loops with the last one being a repeat of the 4th one.
It's getting quite cold but maybe will not frost overnight if the cloud cover stays in place. The horses get heavy blankets, more hay, another bucket of water so there are 2 buckets per horse in case one gets tipped over, and I go to bed, thankfull that my furnace is working. I don't want it warm in the trailer for sleeping, just not cold. The lowest setting keeps the temperature at about 50 degrees.
The alarm rings at 5:30, I crawl out of the sleeping bag and turn the furnace up, get dressed and go out to check the horses. They have emptied their hay bags overnight so I refill them, carry more water, briefly visit that cold outhouse with the cold plastic seat and go back inside my living quarters to eat a banana, yogurt, handfull of salted mixed nuts, and drink some hot chocolate to take my vitamins and get something warm in my tummy. I've been outside just long enough to know I'm gonna need my gloves but they are nowhere to be found. I decide they are in the pickup, get my hands cold again while I look there, nope, no gloves. Darn!
About 6am Darlene comes over and I help her get Can Do saddled and ready for the day. Basically I just hold the horse where there is a bit of light from the trailer. She is excited and not standing as still as we would like her to, so it helps to have somebody distract her a little while she is dressed for the day. Darlene is wearing a headlamp on her riding helmet to see the trail in the dark as are several of the other riders. Some have glo sticks on their horses breast collars that make a soft glow near the front of the horses. There is a lot of chatter combined with hoofbeats as riders try to locate each other in the dark and get their horses warmed up. Other horses whinny because their buddies are leaving and they are still at their trailers. The last 10 minutes before a ride starts can be quite exciting even without anybody's horse bucking. All is well with Darlene and Can Do, the starter says "go" and everyone starts down the trail. They quickly disappear into the darkness.
Breezy is saddled and covered again with the blanket while I get the rest of my riding gear put on, do another quick and futile search for the missing gloves, and bridle him. I'm also using a small blanket called a rump rug that ties to the saddle to help keep his hindquarters warm on the trail. During the ride I can adjust it to keep him warm or let him cool off. Last week I put a fleece cover on my saddle so I will have a warmer place to sit. On a cold morning the saddle can feel like a block of ice! I sure don't need anything to help me stay chilly today.
It's light now and riders are going past the trailer warming up their horses, some walking, some trotting. A few minutes before start time I get on Breezy and ride slowly to the far end of camp away from most of the other riders since I don't want to get caught up with the faster ones. A lady named Niki asked to ride with me when I drove into camp yesterday, we locate each other, give the starter our numbers and start out at a walk and slow trot about 3 minutes after the fast riders leave. I have pulled my jacket sleeves down over my hands but they are still cold and now we are making our own 7 or 8mph wind. Breezy does not want to go slow, he knows there are horses ahead of him and wants to catch them.
The first 3 loops are about 15-16 miles each through sagebrush and juniper trees. The terrain is pretty level with small hills and canyons. We follow jeep roads and 4 wheeler trails up and down, level here, another hill there, now down again with views of the Cascade Mountains to our west with their new coats of snow shining in the sun. After about an hour I feel like my fingers are not going to fall off after all and the ride gets more pleasant. The sun starts to warm us just a little, ahhh yes!What a fantastic day!
About 2 1/2 hours after the start we are through the first loop and back into camp, check in with the arrival timer and proceed down to the pulse taker. Breezy's pulse is down to 48 bpm and we get in the vet line. I have brought a blanket to the vet area so he is warm while we wait our turn. There is alfalfa hay for the horses to munch while in line, Breezy does not get alfalfa at home so is very happy. At each vet check today we have a hold, the first one is 30 minutes. Breezy eats and looks around and after a few minutes the vet checks him. He passes and we go to the trailer for the rest of the hold. I get another handfull of nuts, a chunk of jerky, eat some string cheese, drink some fruit juice and am ready to go again. We ride down to check out with the timer and are on the trail again.
Niki, my riding partner is about my age. We have ridden together several times over the years and have a pleasant time visiting and catching up with each other's lives as we ride along. The day is getting a bit warmer, my hands are comfortable but I still need the jacket. The trail is not dusty since they had rain just the day before the ride and there are still a few puddles. Breezy (silly boy) uses them as an excuse to snort and act silly, spooks at a rock now and then, and keeps me alert! He's a character.
After loop 2 we have a 45 minute hold, then we are off to do loop 3 with a pocketfull of cookies and a full bottle of cranberry juice. Somewhere we take a wrong turn and have to backtrack about half a mile but it is no big deal. We can see from the tracks that many others did the same thing. I'll remember that turn in the future. A breeze has come up but thankfully the sun is still with us. Some of the trails we are riding today are familiar, parts of it I have ridden in past years when doing some rides that started on the other side of the valley. Loop 3 takes us into territory where I used to do conditioning many years ago when I lived in that area. It is all new to Breezy however, since I rode different horses back then. We climb up a cinder butte that is about 400 ft higher than the surrounding country, the view from up there is fantastic but we don't stay to admire it long because the wind is stronger up there and the sweaty horses could get chilled easily. The downhill is steep so I get off and lead the horse down. It feels good to walk a while but keeping my balance on a steep downhill with small cinder rocks is a challenge. Niki says she is not feeling well and she thinks if she gets off her horse she will not be able to get back on. Later she seems a bit disoriented, asking where we are on a trail that we followed on an earlier loop. I'm glad that camp is just a couple of miles away.
We get back to camp, go through the vet line and back to our trailers. I eat half a peanut butter and jam sandwich, drink more juice and eat a string cheese, refill the water bottle on the saddle and wait in the warm sun on the sheltered side of the trailer for the hold time to expire. When I get ready to go Niki says she is not going to ride the last loop. I tell her it is shorter, only 11 miles, but she has made up her mind. She rides for fun, and won't go out for another loop when she is feeling sick.
Breezy doesn't mind going out on that last loop alone, we make good time riding down through a canyon and past the remains of an old stone house. This canyon is where I used to come and ride a lot, usually going the opposite way to take advantage of a steeper hill and returning to my trailer another way. The house in the canyon has an interesting history, it belonged to a cattle baron from the open range days in the early days of settlement in the area. He got a mail order bride and brought her to his house, she left the next day, never to return. Years later the abandoned house was used for a bombing target during training of troops for the second world war. There is still some of it left. I took a minute to ride through the rubble just for fun. It hasn't changed a bit in all these years since I last saw it.
We passed some other riders on the way back to camp, one was a friend whom I rode with on conditioning rides in the canyon all those years ago. After walking along with her a while visiting as we went, I was starting to feel chilly, so we trotted the rest of the way back to camp. Darkness was upon us when we reached the finish line. I stopped at my trailer, pulled the saddle off, put a blanket on Breezy and walked him down for the final vet check. He passed just fine, and on the way back to the trailer there was Darlene and Can Do heading for their final vet check. All was OK with Can Do. She did 75 miles quicker than we did 60 and finished with energy to spare. Darlene had no problems with her all day and that is just what I wanted to hear!
After wrapping Breezy's legs and getting him settled with hay and water, I warmed up the rest of the spaghetti and only got part of it eaten before we heard the horn honking for the awards presentations. So I went to that but they weren't ready after all, so I stood around and got cold while we were waiting for them to get the last of the Best Conditioned scores figured out. It takes quite a while to give out all the awards since there were about 20 in the 75 mile division, about 40 or 50 in the 60 miler, 25 or 30 in the 25 miler plus about a half dozen trail riders who rode one of the 15 mile loops. By the time it was all over I was really cold, went back and warmed up the rest of my dinner and went to bed soon afterward.
During the night I woke up several times hearing the fan on the furnace, and about the 4th time I realized I was breathing cold air. Darn, out of propane! The clock said 5am. Since I was awake I got up to check the horses. The people next to me on Breezy's side of the trailer were up and packing to leave. I refilled hay bags for all 3 horses and was making trips to the water tank when the truck next to Breezy started and was making a huge cloud of exhaust which Breezy didn't like at all. I untied him and took him for a walk down to the vet check area to eat some of that leftover alfalfa while we waited for the people to leave. While doing that I got colder since I wasn't dressed to stand around on a frozen morning. I walked around leading Breezy with frequent trips back to the hay until I saw the truck pull out. On my way back to my trailer I ran into a water tank in the dark and almost fell in! Got splashed a little bit but thank God I didn't fall into the icey water! That would have been really bad with no heat in the trailer.
When I got back to the trailer I went back to bed but couldn't get warm again, so laid there cat napping until it got light, then got up and made a visit to warm up at the propane heater in the next tent!! I drank some hot chocolate and warmed my hands periodically while packing to leave. There is about 1/4 inch of ice on all the water tanks and buckets and a thick coat of frost on the windshield. I'm still wishing for those gloves.
I haul 3 horses home, Breezy, the horse I was handed in the dark who belongs to another endurance rider who is moving to my area, and one of Darlene's horses. She could only take my mare home to sell if I took one of her horses temporarily due to a lack of space at her place. I scrape the ice off the windshield just as the sun is coming up and head down the road with my jacket sleeves pulled over my hands for the first few miles until the truck engine warms up enough to produce some heat and thaw out the steering wheel. Even the cloth seat was cold! About 100 miles into my trip home I stopped at the first town and ate a big omlet and pancakes for breakfast, drank a lot of hot tea and finally got warm.! Yes, I did say 100 miles to the first town. In the desert there is nothing but big ranches and rangeland for miles and miles. Good thing I had enough diesel fuel in the tank, I had planned for the trip home better than for the feeding of the furnace!
Ride season 2005 is over! I checked the standings and I did win the mileage championship! Woopeeee! Ride season 2006 starts the last weekend in March, see you then.
Mary
Nov 04, 2005
The year end awards are given at the regional convention at the end of January, or if I have earned anything in the national standings they present stuff at the big convention in February or March, or mail it to me later. It will be a while before I learn if I have any national award coming since the ride season is still going on in the warmer regions of the country. The award presentation I mentioned above was just the daily one. We do get stuff we can use, keep, wear or display (I have a wall full of stuff catching dust) plus a lot of shirts, jackets, vests, buckets, blankets, halters and etc that I use.
I'm ready for the season to be over, it's getting too cold to be much fun and I have ridden over 1000 miles this season.
