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Endurance riding 2006 season, more adventures
Apr 02, 2006
This is more or less a continuation of the 3 threads on endurance riding from last year. So, if you aren't familiar with the somewhat obscure sport of endurance riding, go back to the older threads in this forum, then come back to this thread.
My endurance riding season started with a ride in central Washington on March 25. I'm riding with a new team this year, they finished close on the heels of the team division winners last year so we have high hopes for this season. The Trail Raiders work together very well, that's so refreshing after the past few years on another team where there was little communication and very little interaction at the rides.
On Friday the 24th I left home at 8am with Breezy in the trailer, drove about 40 miles and met 2 other endurance riders. We caravaned to the ride which was about 4 hours away. My team leader had saved me a place to park, and in another 2 hours my trailer was surrounded by other team members and their trailers. The camp next to me had a small pipe corral with my mare in it, my friend and teammate had brought her for a prospective buyer to ride in the 50 mile ride. We had high hopes for a sale the next day.
After filling out my entry form, paying my fee, and taking Breezy through the vet line for his check in, I saddled up and went for a ride with the 15 year old junior rider I was sponsoring the next day. The weather was cool and sunny, hopefully the next day it would be the same. The horses still have most of their winter coats and don't need a warm day, riders can add another jacket to be comfortable.
Two of the other team members and I went to the crew access area near the vet check and picked out a spot to put supplies for the next day. One of our members who was not able to ride was asked to be our crew leader. I placed a large plastic box there with horse blankets in it, and a nylon feed bag with hay in it to stake out our territory.
The rider information meeting took place just after dark, and the ride manager was very pleased and a bit overwhelmed because over 200 riders had signed up for the various distances! The 75 milers would start at 5am, so that means I need to be up about 4. The team has all 3 distances covered, 3 riders on the 75, 4 or 5 on the 50 and 3 on the 25. If 3 riders finish each distance we will get lots of points. Finish is the key word here, not just start.
Back in the camp area my new team presents me with a team t-shirt. After a bit of socializing around a propane portable campfire and a couple of other propane heaters where we made final plans for the ride, I finished organizing my gear, filled the hay bags tied to the trailer, refilled Breezy's water buckets, decided he looked warm under his blanket and with plenty of groceries, and went to bed.
Morning comes, dark, cold, and way too early! I dress quickly and eat my usual breakfast of yogurt, a banana, a few salted nuts and my vitamins washed down with fruit juice, venture outside and make sure Breezy still has water and hay, and make the trip to the outhouse (ooo cold seat).
I saddle up using the trailer lights, get on Breezy and find my junior who is camped a couple of trailers over, and we find our way between trailers, horses, portable corrals and other riders to the road at the edge of camp.
The gravel road that leads to the start line is just barely visible, mostly because of people on it carrying flashlights. The start of a ride can be exciting sometimes so people get up to watch, just in case. A member of the ride management team makes a list of starters to account for everybody while we all mill around for a few minutes, then it is time to start. We keep walking along the road for about a quarter mile to the single track trail with it's surveyor tape ribbons fluttering in the breeze. We see them as we pass, but they are not visible unless we are right next to them. Off we go, but it is still too dark to trot on a twisty, hilly trail with rocky stretches.
Endurance rules require that the junior riders must have an adult sponsor and stay with that person. We go at a walk for about 5 more minutes until we can see the trail. That gives the horses a nice slow warm up before we start trotting. As soon as it is possible another of our team members takes the first opportunity to pass the 10 or so riders ahead of us and she is off at a trot. She rode down that trail yesterday afternoon so her horse knows where he is going, and besides, horses see better in the dark than people do. Eventually she finished first and potentially earned us a lot of points, but my junior and I both have to finish for any points to count for the team.
The first loop is 14 miles. We ride on cow trails and jeep roads over small rocky ridges, past small lakes, past cows with small calves, and in 2 hours are back at camp. Our crew gal meets us with blankets to put on the horses. After their pulses are down to 60 beats per minute we get into the vet line, our horses both pass inspection and within about 3 minutes we're heading back to our crew area where we have to wait until our 15 minute hold is over. There is hay and some grain and soaked beet pulp for the horses to eat, buckets of water, and some carrots and apples for treats and a couple of canvas folding chairs where we can sit on something that isn't moving. But there is no time to sit, our crew gal holds our horses while we make a quick trip to the outhouse, make some tack adjustments and before we know it the timer clears us to go out on loop 2, for another 11 miles.
About an hour and 45 minutes later we are back to camp for another vet check and 30 minute hold, then go out for another loop. We are hoping to keep up this pace all day and finish the ride in the daylight, but might have to slow down and make adjustments later, it all depends on the horses.
Mid way though the day the clouds get thicker and darker, the humidity is definitely up, air is colder and we feel a few sprinkles. Time to change to a more water resistant jacket and hope it stops. But it doesn't, instead it rains lightly but steadily, but it's still not a bad day.
During a one hour hold between loops I take Breezy back to my trailer, cover him with a heavier dry blanket and one of my new teammates who has finished her ride loans me some wonderful chaps for keeping my legs warm and dry. Wow, those are wonderful! They are water resistant nylon (or something similiar) with a wool liner, and they fasten on with Velcro so are very adjustable. I want some of them, she tells me her sister made them and sells them. They go on my wish list.
We do 2 more loops in light rain and finish the ride in the daylight taking 7th and 8th places, pass our vet checks and we have team points! The top 10 finishers on every distance get bonus points and we earned a lot of them today! The team also earned points on the 50 and 25 mile rides. We are off to a great start.
My mare also finished her ride in great shape, but the rider decided not to buy her because he linked up with a couple camped nearby who have several horses they are preparing for international competitions and need another rider. They will also pay his entry fees! Good for all of them but disappointing for me because I was sure we had found a buyer.
Note: this was over a week ago. I hauled the mare home from the ride since there were no buyers on the horizon, and when I got home there was a message from another prospective buyer wanting to see her. So yesterday I made a 300 mile trip (one way) to take her back to my friend's place, the mare was ridden and bought! This is the mare that gave me the exciting flying lessons last year. The buyer likes to work with challenging horses and plans to enter her in some rides soon. I will get to see her from time to time and she has a good home.
Apr 03, 2006
I still have Patch who did about 250 miles of endurance rides last year. He and Breezy will alternate rides unless something happens to put one of them out of the game for a while. My next ride is April 15. Stand by for news!
Mary
Apr 17, 2006
Ok, here we go again. This time we're going to central Oregon, between the Cascade Mountains and the Blue Mountains. The weather has been rainy and they say the trails have deep mud in places. I decide I had better be prepared for rain. My Outback type canvas riding coat gets a wild trip through the big front loading washing machine in town, then after it is dry it gets a treatment with Camp Dry spray. I hope I won't be needing it since it is stiff and heavy. I only wear it as a last resort.
Friday morning I finished my last minute packing and house chores, and am headed down the road with Patch in the trailer at about 10am. The weather is nice for my trip but when I arrive at the ride camp a few hours later the wind is blowing and I can see some kinda ugly clouds on the western horizon. Once the paperwork is done, I go for a quick ride and right away we get into a little squall with rain and hail, so I am soon wet and don't ride long. The purpose of this is mostly to loosen the horse up after his trailer ride. That done, he gets his warm blanket and hay bag and is happy. I change clothes and we go get into the vet line to check in.
At the ride information meeting the ride manager said the forecast for tomorrow is temperatures near 50 after a night in the 30's, no rain forecast, it sounds pretty good.
My team picks out a spot near the vet check for supplies for the next day. All the team members present are riding, we have 3 each on the 25 and 75, and 5 on the 50, including me. The 25 mile riders will crew for us after they finish their rides but we will be on our own for the first vet check. After some socializing with the team, checking Patch's food and water supply, I get to bed about 9:30.
I wake early, nearby riders are getting ready for a 6am start for the 75. I listen for rain and don't hear any. Good. Horses whinny, I hear voices, a trailer door bangs, Patch is moving around making the trailer move, that's comforting because I know he is still there. (Once I lost a horse in the middle of the night and didn't know it until morning, but that's another story).
About daylight the alarm rings, and I crawl out of the sleeping bag. I dress quickly, check Patch's feed and water, do the usual quicker than quick outhouse visit, eat some breakfast, saddle up and decide that with the misty drizzle I should wear my rain suit, a rubberized nylon jacket and pants, and gloves would also be a good idea. The rain suit is lighter than my rain coat. I can always change later if I need to since all the vet checks are in camp today. Before we head down the trail the rainy mist has changed to small snowflakes. Hmmm, this was not in the forecast. Somebody says it's 30 degrees. Brrrr.
Horses and riders mill around near the starting line. Somebody is taking down our numbers. And in a few minutes they're off!! We wait and watch for a minute. Some riders leave at a canter, most at a trot, some like us, try to start at a walk. Patch is excited, he wants to pass all the horses ahead of us. This is a big ride and there are about 70 riders on the 50 mile ride. It takes a lot of miles for that many horses to spread out so the first 20 miles is a fight all the way with Patch often cantering sideways on twisty cow trails through the sagebrush and juniper trees. He is wasting a lot of energy, both his and mine. My hands are numb for most of the first couple of hours and I keep hoping he will not hurt himself being so nutty. Now and then he shows brilliance by trotting like he is supposed to for several minutes at a time and my hands get their feeling back. The trail has muddy places where a horse could pull a shoe or strain something. We try to go through those at a walk, or at least a slow trot.
About 2 hours after the start we're back at camp for the first vet check and I grab a blanket out of the plastic team box to cover the sweaty horse. Although the sun is shining the wind is blowing at about 15mph, the temperature might be up to the upper 30's by now but it is not warm. Of course, Patch and I have both been working hard and are warm enough for the moment. There are a lot of horses in a small area, I have to keep watching them while Patch eats a little hay and (hopefully) relaxes. One horse near us is making small excited circles around his rider who is also trying to get him to relax. Horses are coming into the pulse and water tank area, others are heading for the vet line, still others are coming through on their way to the timer to see if it is time for them to leave, and volunteers move through this whole mess taking pulses. Other people walk through with blankets for incoming horses, or a flake of hay. I move Patch to a quieter spot and wait for his pulse to come down.
First pulse check after I have only been there about 2 minutes, his pulse is 68, a couple of minutes later it is 64, then on the 3rd check it is down to 60 and we can get in the vet line. He passes and we go to the trailer since we have a 45 minute hold.
I tie Patch in his nighttime spot on the sheltered side of the trailer, put a heavy blanket on him, then go inside to get myself a snack. When I take off the rain jacket I discover that my sweatshirt is wet, so I change to a dry one, eat some mixed nuts, yogurt, a banana, drink some carrot and orange juice, check the horse, visit the outhouse, warm up a little more, and soon it is time to go. The rain jacket goes back on, just in case.
Patch walks calmly out of camp. Ahhhh, good. I'm riding with a man on a mule and his wife who has a big chestnut Thoroughbred looking horse. I rode with them on most of the first loop. I lead this small group and Patch is calmer than when I have been following. All is calm for a few miles until we catch up with a small slower moving group, then he gets excited. We find a wide place in the trail and pass them but then another group who are moving faster catch all of us. Patch is excited again. Darn. Eventually they go on, ahead of us and out of sight and Patch is calm again. A few miles later other riders pass us and Patch wants to keep up with them. We slow down and let them get far enough ahead so that Patch kind of forgets them. Calm again. And so it goes for the rest of that 20 mile loop.
While all this is going on, the weather is getting worse, the wind is up to about 40 mph with higher gusts. I'm pretty good at judging wind speeds and the man riding with me is a pilot, so he is even better. He says 40 mph with gusts probably near 60. Wow! Just like home! Heading into this at a trot is lots of work for the horse. The big bank of clouds over to the west is getting closer, and the humidity is up. It starts to rain, then hail (thankfully it's small hail but it hurts!) and by the time we reach camp it is snowing hard. The rain suit was a good choice and I'm glad I put it on for the 2nd loop, just to be a windbreak I thought.
Tarps are flapping noisily in the wind, dust and snow are blowing, blankets won't stay on the horses, ah, such fun! The blankets have buckles but with saddles on the horses we are just tenting the blanket over the horse and can't fasten anything. They look a bit like camels.
Patch's pulse gets taken about 3 times at about 2 minute intervals, finally it is down to 60. The vet line is short this time and we see the vet, and are headed for the shelter of the trailer again to wait out our 45 minute hold. Buckets and other small items have blown around from one campsite to another, and one of the neighboring trailers has lost an awning that was sheltering their cooking/patio area. A few other items are out of place but my camp is ok. At the upper end of camp a plastic outhouse is on it's back, a casualty of a wind gust.
This is the kind of day when I am doubly thankful for having a furnace in the trailer living space. I have another wet sweatshirt under the rain jacket. That one gets hung up on an improvised clothes line next to the first one. I rummage around and find another dry one. It's harder to get warm this time. Another snack of nuts, another banana, two cups of hot cocoa, some jerky and we head for the timer's table again. I'm warm enough for now.
Loop 3 is 10 miles, some of it a repeat of the first 20 we did today. We had been hoping the wind would improve trail conditions in the muddy places, but with the rain, hail and snow they are worse than before. We take almost 2 hours doing the loop. Two horses pass us, Patch gets excited again. We slow down and let the horses get some of the fresh grass growing along the trail. For most riders, having a horse eat while going down the trail is a bad thing, but with the distances we do, an endurance horse eating a bite here and there is a good thing. We want to keep a lot of food moving through the horse because the gut needs to keep working while the muscles are demanding so much energy.
About 2 miles from camp other riders catch up with our little group. I decide to go on ahead and try to position Patch halfway between the group ahead and the group behind. My riding companions understand what I am doing and do not speed up, the new riders stay with them. We get a bit too close to the group ahead but when they turn off to see if their horses want a drink at a stock tank about 100 ft off the trail, I let Patch speed up and go toward camp. I can see the whole trail to camp, there is nobody between us and the finish line. Patch is enjoying the moment and so am I, so I let him go at his big ground eating trot to the finish line.
We are done, a teammate is waiting with a blanket, Patch gets a few bites of hay, passes the pulse criteria and we see the vet. He passes the vet check sound and healthy, and we are done! 2 teammates come in right after us. The team has points on the 50.
One of the 25 mile riders from our team had a lame horse so we didn't get team points on that distance. We also got no team points on the 75 due to 2 horses with a problem, one of those was lame at 65 miles. Our remaining 75 mile rider was a junior division rider who needed a new sponsor, so one of the riders borrowed a sound horse that had only done a 25 and went out with the junior on the last 10 mile loop. They finished the ride at about 10pm. This team works together!!
The ride management supplied chili dogs, and my team had baked potatoes and chicken wings, so I ate well after the ride but still had problems getting warm with so much wind and the temperature dropping, so I went to bed early. I discovered that my jeans were also wet under the rain pants, a fact I didn't realize that until I took off the rain suit which I wore all evening to be a windbreak. No wonder I felt so cold. I have to find a rain suit that breathes, this was a cheap one for sure, but it did keep me dry on the outside and was fine until I quit riding and was standing around not generating any heat.
That's all the adventure for now. I hope you've enjoyed the ride. I have a few sore muscles, so somebody sit in a hot tub for me for awhile, please.
Mary
Apr 24, 2006
Last weekend there was a ride in Idaho, about 3 hours from home, and so I took Breezy and went to ride, even though none of my teammates would be there. On the way to the ride camp I kept thinking whether I would enter the 50 or the 75. I have done the 75 there several times, but I had heard that the new ride manager had made a lot of trail changes and found new hills for us to climb. By the time I entered the ride I had decided to do the 50 mile ride until I knew more about the new trails.
I saddled up and go out for a short ride. I saw some of the new trail I knew that 50 miles was a good choice. Way up on a plateau there was a big band of sheep, a couple of horses, and a sheep herder's wagon. One hillside almost appeared to be moving with so many sheep grazing across it. A couple of thousand sheep all together is quite a sight.
After heating up my dinner on the camp stove, I organize a few things for morning, then shortly before dark we all get information about the ride. The ride manager tells us about the joys and hazards of the trail, the order of the loops we would do, and we get information from the vet about the hold times. After a bit of socializing at a friend's trailer I give Breezy more food and water, plus a dose of electrolytes so he will be sure to drink plenty of water overnight, adjust my watch for the change from Pacific time to Mountain time, set the alarm clock, and go to bed.
The alarm rings, it's still dark. I expect it to be light, hmmm, now I wonder if I set the clock correctly. When I go outside the 75 mile rider camped next to me is about to get on her horse, she confirms that the time was right. Ok, good. I wish her a good ride, make a quick trip past about 6 trailers to the nearest outhouse and then watch the 75's leave without having any second thoughts about the distance I have chosen for the day.
It's a chilly morning because of the wind. I am glad for the furnace in my living quarters. The yogurt, banana and juice are all cold, so I make a cup of hot chocolate, ahhhh, something warm! I hover over the heater for a few minutes.
The camp is stirring when I saddle Breezy, many riders are already on their horses, warming up for a fast start. Since I do slow starts, we usually warm up as we start the ride at a walk and slow trot. Breezy is very cooperative that way, unlike Patch. A friend and I have decided to ride together and take most of the day, visit, enjoy the day and the scenery.
Loop one is marked with pink surveyor ribbon tied to sagebrush along the trail. We travel up a sandy draw between the hills, and it soon gets quite steep and takes us to the top of a hill. This is a ride with no trees, just big grassy hills with sagebrush and some tall weeds. Sage rats are numerous and so are the badger holes, often in the middle of the trail, so we have to be very watchful for them. A badger hole is about 8 inches in diameter, so if a horse steps in one it could result in a broken leg.
In 2 1/2 hours we have gone about 18 miles and are back at camp for the first vet check. This is a smaller ride than last week, so there is much less confusion in the pulse down area and around the water tank, and there is no vet line, so I just take Breezy right over when his pulse is down. He passes easily and we go to the trailer for a 30 minute hold.
Although it is sunny, Breezy is covered loosely with a blanket to keep his muscles warm so he doesn't stiffen up in the wind. He eats hay and some soaked beet pulp with oats while I eat another banana, juice, salted nuts, some dried fruit, and 2 oatmeal cookies; then make a fast trip to the outhouse, fill the water bottle I carry on the saddle, and it is time to go out to do another loop. We check out with the timer and follow orange markings down the road and up though a draw on a cow trail. Soon we are way up on the top of a hill and can see some mountains with snow in the distance in one direction, and the greater Boise area in the other, and more mountains in the distance beyond that streak of civilization. There is nothing but other riders, a few cattle, sunshine and wind with lots of space as we follow the ribbons along a jeep road, then a cow trail, then another road, going up and down hills that seem endless.
The day is getting quite warm for the horses who still have part of their winter coats and are not used to the 60's. I had traded my jacket for a vest at camp, and while it feels a bit chilly up on the hilltops with nothing to break the wind, in sheltered places I also feel too warm. When we come to a water tank, I use the sponge I carry on the saddle to put some water on Breezy's neck, shoulders and chest. We alternate walking and trotting for the last couple of miles into camp. Now we have done about 35 miles, have another vet check and a 45 minute hold.
Breezy gets more beet pulp and oats to go with his hay, he rests and looks around at other horses coming and going on the various loops. At this point some of the 25 milers are already finished with their ride. They started about an hour after we did. Some of them are walking their horses around camp, letting them eat grass and relax. I eat, drink a bottle of juice, fill the water bottle on the saddle, rest and watch the clock.
The third loop is marked in blue, it's 15 miles. We go out in a different direction, up a draw between hills, and soon are way up on top of another hill, probably 5-600 feet above the camp. There is another nice view from up there. We hear a bell dinging as two other riders approach. One of them is a rider we passed on the last loop, and the bell the rider has tied to her horse's breast collar is something neither I nor my riding partner want to hear for the next two hours. We got tired of it in about a minute on the last loop, so we speed up just a little to get far enough out ahead of them so we don't hear it.
This loop has several miles of flat road after we get down out of the hills, so we take advantage of it and get about a mile ahead of the rider with the bell.
Now we hear shooting, some guys are out shooting sage rats. As we approach their truck they get in and drive away from us along the same road we are following. Their truck gets sideways while they climb a steep hill but they do make it, and then when we get to the top of the hill the horses spook at their truck. Thankfully they go on and eventually turn off on another road. We hear more shooting, bigger guns, and hope we don't go there. Soon we turn away from them. The horses relax, they didn't like the shooting, and it was not real comforting for us since we couldn't tell in which direction the bullets might be going.
We see riders getting closer to us and speed up again for a mile or two just to keep from hearing that bell dinging. It's about 3:30 and getting pretty warm in sheltered locations. Water tanks along the trail are a welcome sight, the horses drink, we sponge them again and continue along the jeep road. We slow down for the last couple of miles into camp while watching to be sure we keep ahead of the horse with the bell. I don't know how the rider and her riding companion could stand it for 50 miles.
At 4:30 we finish the ride, pass the vet check and are done for the day. The bell rider must have slowed way down because she finishes about half an hour later. I take care of Breezy which includes putting ice boots on his legs for about half an hour, then applying a clay poltice to his legs and wrapping them with some pieces of an old mattress pad and then long strips of material we call track wraps. You've all seen these on the legs of race horses. The clay pulls the heat out of the legs over the next few hours, and is refreshing to the horse. All this controls stocking up over the next few hours while the horse stands by the trailer resting. Stocking up is the same sort of thing that happens to people's legs and feet on a long plane or car trip.
There is a potluck before the awards are given out. We learn that one of the 75 mile riders has a lame horse and wants a trailer ride back to camp since she is on a road where they can reach her. She has ridden about 70 miles. I know what she feels having been in the same situation a few times, mileage almost finished but no completion. She is the rider I talked with in the morning before the ride started.
After awards I socialize with other riders, pack up most of my stuff and go to bed early. Just after daylight on Sunday morning we are on our way home. Fifty miles was just right, 75 would have been too much yesterday.
On the way home, about 2 miles from camp, I passed a dog musher who was just hitching his team to a 4wheeler (motorcycle) to give them a workout before the day got warm. The dogs were excited, straining to start working before he could even get all of them hitched together. Pulling a 4wheeler with a man on it over the hills out there could surely make a competitive team for some big race like the Iditarod in Alaska! I wonder if he goes there?
Mary
The Archive Posts Have Been Completed.
New Posts Start Here
After 6 weeks of no reports but plenty of rides I will try to fill the gap with a (possibly) abbreviated version of the rides I have attended.
On May 13 Breezy and I were off to central Oregon again to ride in one of the oldest endurance rides in the northwest. The weather was nice and warm and my teammates had saved me a place to park. I got Breezy set up with hay and water, visited with my teammates for a few minutes then went to fill out the paperwork. Along the way I ran into a few friends and stopped to visit, so by the time I got back to the trailer Breezy had finished his hay and was taking a nap.
I saddled him and took a half hour ride up the big hill along the first few miles of the trail. When we got back down the hill the vet line was much shorter than it had been earlier. About dark we gathered for the ride information meeting, then a bbq and finger foods dinner with the team and organizing some things for the vet check out on the trail and the one in camp. One of my teammates is a guy who loves to cook and he doesn't skimp on the amounts! Ummmm, good!
Morning. It is almost light, the 75 mile riders are stirring, I stay in my warm bed and listen to the sounds of ride camp. When horses start moving around warming up I get up, dress quickly and go out to watch the start. Some of the horses are pretty lively but nobody gets bucked off. They trot toward the big hill behind camp and I have an hour to get ready to go.
While warming Breezy up a bit before we leave I team up with a friend for my day partner. Jen has a new horse, one who was at the barn with other horses that she has ridden on endurance rides, but the owner of this horse had just disappeared without paying the horse's board bill for several months. Jen was able to buy the horse for the amount of the board bill. He is a beauty and seems to enjoy his new job covering miles of endurance trails instead of going round and round in an arena.
The day starts with a bit of frost on the ground but quickly warms to around 65 or 70 degrees. Trails are very good, not muddy and not dusty. We make good time up over the big hill, down a very steep hill where we get off to lead the horses down, then along some farm fields, up more hills, finally arriving at the outcheck about 2 hours later. We get into the pulse line, then into the vet line and over to a quiet area where the horses eat hay and some beet pulp with grain, carrots and apples in it. Somebody holds my horse while I make a trip to the outhouse and then it's time to tighten the cinch and get back on the trail.
We're half way through the 25 mile loop at this point, and now the trail takes us out of the pine trees and out into the Crooked River National Grasslands and several miles of flat jeep roads, then a gentle climb back to camp. 25 miles down, 25 to go.
After a vet check and hold of about an hour we start off to do the same loop over again. We really don't mind, the scenery is spectacular. The only bad part is the steep downhill, but with 25 miles already behind us, our horses are not quite so energetic and there are less horses on the hill. So instead of the 10 horses that went down the hill in a group this morning, there are only 2 of us. Nice! As the day goes on the groups of horses get farther apart. I like that.
We get to the vet check which is almost empty in contrast to the crowded conditions of this morning, get immediate attention from the pulse takers and the vets, go over to our resting spot and the horses settle in there to eat. We snack on V-8 juice, string cheese, a few cookies, fill water bottles again, visit the outhouse and it is time to leave.
The ride back to camp is peaceful, warm, and very nice. The horses have plenty of energy and we move along at a steady pace, arriving back at camp about 8 hours riding time after we started. The vets say our horses look great. We are done, sunburned, and tired enough for the day! We had enough finishers on the 25 and 50 mile rides to get team points but nobody on the 75 this time. Next week will be one of our major efforts!
Breezy is happy to be back at the trailer with his hay bag, unsaddled, legs cooled and wrapped, and I am happy to join my teammates at yet another team barbeque. One of my teammates has brought along a litter of puppies since there was nobody at home to take care of them. Another one of my teammates will be taking one of the pups home after the ride. They get a lot of attention as you can emagine.
The next morning we gather at about 7am for a cowboy breakfast for 200 people, followed by awards for yesterday's event. Half an hour later I have everything loaded up and am on my way for the 6 hour drive home.
Mary
On May 19 I headed to a ride in the foothills of Mt. Adams in southwest Washington with Patch in the trailer. The sky looked threatening when I left home and by the time I got to LaGrande, about 40 miles from home, I got into a lightening storm with heavy rain. The semi ahead of me disappeared, I slowed down, put on my flashers and took the first exit off the freeway. 20 minutes later the storm had passed and we continued our trip. About a hundred miles farther we got into another one, not as bad but still impressive. At least I could see the vehicle ahead of me at 45 mph, with flashers going, mine were going too. They are a good safety feature.
The weather forecast for the ride tomorrow says scattered showers in the morning and clearing by afternoon. I have my rain gear.
Ride camp is in a grassy field with a few mowed strips for "roads" and walking. The team has saved me a parking place, all I have to do is locate the group, so I ask a couple of people and am able to drive right to it. Patch is happy to get out of the trailer and eat some of the grass. I walk him over to a water tank, he doesn't drink, is just interested in green grass which he hasn't seen much of for months.
My feet are already wet, in fact my jeans are wet almost to my knees, and we get another light shower.
After I get a hay bag hung up, and 2 buckets of water next to the trailer for Patch, I go to fill out my entry form, visiting with friends along the way in both directions, so it is almost time for the ride info meeting by the time I get my camp stove set up and spaghetti heated. The meeting doesn't take long, it's raining quite hard, then it quits about the time we all head for our trailers. There is time for some socializing with the team before I check the horse again, brush my teeth and get to bed.
During the night there are more showers, but by the time I get up in the just barely daylight it has become a misty drizzle. My riding shoes are wet before I even saddle the horse, definitely a day for riding in rain gear but I don't bother changing my shoes.
As we ride toward the start line I team up with a couple of possibilities for riding partners for the day, but a few miles down the trail I decide they are going too slow. Patch needs a faster group, so we strike out alone and after a few miles catch up with somebody. It's going to be a long day, Patch is fighting me to go even faster, trotting sideways, and giving my arms a workout.
The trail for the day is 3 loops, each about 15-17 miles. They will total up to 50 eventually. Today there is also a 75 mile ride, and a 25 mile ride, and a trail ride for folks who just want to walk or go slower than the endurance horses. They use one of the loops that we will use later, but will mostly be out of our way by the time we get there. We all watch out for each other, they get out of our way so we can pass safely and we slow down when approaching them so we don't scare a horse out from under somebody.
Vet checks are all in a grassy meadow at camp today. One of our team members who isn't riding is crewing for the team. She meets me with a blanket to cover the horse so he doesn't chill, goes with me through the pluse area and trots my horse for the veterinary inspection. He passes. One down, two to go. We have a half hour hold. My teammate takes Patch over to eat in the crew area while I go to the trailer for a snack, make a quick trip to the outhouse, grab a couple of forgotten items and hot foot it back to the crew area. It is time to go. My clothes are wet under the rain gear but not as wet as I would have been without. Anyhow, I'm warm enough and that is good.
The second loop is much like the first, mostly old logging roads with a few single track trails thrown in and a couple of creek crossings with water to the horses knees. Patch is still wanting to go faster and I am still wanting to go slower. Although we are in the foothills of Mt Adams, the overcast prevents us from seeing it. I believe the elevation is 12,000 plus, there is still plenty of snow up there, some of it never goes away. It is between Mt Hood in Oregon, and Mt St Helens of exploding volcano fame, (May 18, 1980 I think).
Showers continue for most of loop 2 and then suddenly we have sunshine. Vet check again, same teammate helping me with Patch. I feel like I'm in a sauna under the rain gear, the rain appears to be over so it is time to get rid of it. Patch eats grass, 45 minutes pass quickly and we are on our way again. We get a glimpse of about half of the mountain with clouds covering the top.
The sun warms things up, including horses and people! By the time we finish the 3rd loop my clothes are dry and my shoes are still wet. A different teammate helps me with my horse at the finish, one more veterinary check to go, he passed easily and gets a completion. My other team members also finish their rides. We have 100% completion on the 25 and 50, and we have a rider in the 75 but no posibility of team points there.
The mountain is fully visable now, what a sight! And where is my camera, at home on the computer desk!!
Somebody comes running into camp to say that a rider has come off her horse about 1/2 mile from the finish line. Quite a few of us go out to assist, including a nurse and a student nurse. The rider is very shaken, needs to lay down for a while. I untie her jacket from the saddle to cover her since there is a breeze and she is on wet grass. Suddenly a corpman who lives nearby and is home from Afganistan appears with his medical bag. He asks her some questions and then tells her "Ma'am, I'm sorry I can't help you, you haven't been shot". We all laugh, including the patient. I hope this young man becomes a doctor, he definitely has great bedside manner!
The rider is helped to her feet, shaky but able to walk unassisted. All this time she has been saying she wants to finish the ride. I told her "you'll finish. There's nothing in the rules that says the rider even has to be conscious". Rider and horse continue on foot to the finish line with an entourage that would make the President proud! One of my helpful teammates takes the horse and the vet card to the vet for that final check and gets the completion while the rest of us take the rider to her trailer.
Mary
It's May 26 and we're off again, this time to a 3 day series in southwestern corner of Idaho, just a few miles south of the Snake River. Breezy and Patch will both get to go down the trails before the fun is over.
I have pre-entered the ride, reserved a corral, a friend is saving me a place to park near her, I don't have to hurry on my drive to the ride but I've been hurrying all morning, well, really all week, to get ready to go. The drive takes about 4 hours and the weather is pleasant.
Getting my camp set up is quite easy. Unload the horses, tie Breezy to the trailer, take Patch and find our reserved corral in the row of pipe corrals, give them both hay and water, then go pick up my entry information. Socializing with friends along the way takes longer. I saddle Breezy and go for a short ride, then get him vetted in for the first day's ride, put easyboots on his front feet, eat some dinner, go to the ride information meeting, then back to the trailer in the dark to pack my lunch for the next day, organize my gear, take a horse blanket to the pile of gear that is going to the vet checks tomorrow, and check the horses again. Whew! It's bed time.
In the morning darkness on my way to the outhouse I take more hay to Patch, carry more water for him, and clean the corral of the night's accumulation. The morning air is chilly, I sit in my trailer by the furnace and eat some breakfast, then venture out again to saddle Breezy and get him moving around to warm up. I'm riding with a friend named Tonya who broke her foot last week and has it casted and vet wrapped for extra padding. Yesterday she cut away some of the cast so her foot would fit into the largest stirrup she has. She thinks with enough ibuprophen she will be ok. Two other friends ride in our little group.
Today we are riding to the Snake River and will follow it for a few miles before heading back to camp. It's a 60 mile loop. The trail goes up through a small canyon after leaving the little valley where the ride camp is located, then goes for miles across a sagebrush plateau, down into another valley, through a large cattle ranch, along a big irrigation ditch, across a highway and we arrive at the first vet check about 15 miles into the ride, it is at the same place where Can Do dumped me last year when the airplane flew over. No plane this year.
The wind is blowing and it's starting to rain. After getting the horse vetted through I grab a flake of hay, find a sheltered place next to a horse trailer to park the horse for a few minutes, and untie my rain jacket from behind the saddle. I'm glad I sent a blanket out for the horse, but I'm having trouble keeping it on him even in that sheltered spot. We only have a 15 minute hold here, there is just time to refill the water bottle I carry on the saddle, make a quick pit stop at the plastic throne (outhouse mounted on a small trailer that goes from one vet check to the next), and soon we are on our way. The rain showers are short and finally quit coming but the wind still blows hard so my rain jacket is now just a windbreak.
About 5 miles later we decend into the Snake River canyon and ride past boulders with Indian petroglyphs on them, past the remains of a rock house, and later past an old orchard where there are signs of a homestead. As we ride along we see a few fishermen on the riverbanks and a boat on the river. The canyon walls have horizontal stripes of different kinds of rock, every layer a different color. The river has carved it's way hundreds of feet down through all that and I try to emagine the violence of the formation of this land. Later we climb up out of the canyon next to a steep wall and get a closer view of the layers of sandstone, volcanic rock, some layers where the roundish river rocks are imbedded in the other materials, it is just fantastic. There are a few wildflowers but mainly today I am looking at geological features.
Soon we start seeing plastic post signs that have the Oregon Trail symbol on them. We can see ruts from wagon wheels in places. I try to visualize teams of horses, mules and oxen pulling wagons, and tired pioneers walking beside them. Believe me this is no highway! A 4 wheel drive vehicle would have trouble on some parts of it, especially where we decend a steep hill through a narrow canyon where the wagons would have been going up the hill. They probably unloaded everything and hand carried the wagon contents up the hill to make it possible for the animals just to get the wagons up there.
The second vet check is at a large ranch in a valley with green irrigated pastures and hayfields. Black angus cattle support this operation that surrounds a large private lake, has several houses for the ranch hands, and is pretty much on it's own out in the middle of nowhere. We have a one hour hold here, 2 kinds of hay and fresh green grass for the horses, water bottles and a few rider comforts (outhouse included, a welcome sight after many hours since the last one). Breezy eats, then naps a few minutes, and soon we are on our way back to camp, about 11 more miles.
Breezy passes the final vet check and I take him to the trailer, unsaddle him, take off the easyboots, apply clay to his legs to help remove heat from the tissues and keep him from stocking up. Breezy goes into the corral, Patch comes out, and we go to vet Patch in for the next day.
My next task is to put easyboots over Patch's shoes on his front feet (it's rocky country and the front feet hit the ground harder than the rear feet). Most lameness caused from rocks effects the front feet. Some riders easyboot all four.
Before I know it the dinner bell is ringing. The ride manager has arranged for a cowboy chef to provide dinners for the riders and anybody connected with running the rides. Extra dinners are available on a pay per meal basis for people who just came with friends or family. After dinner today's awards are given out, information given for the next day's ride, and we all head for our trailers to prepare for the second day.
to be continued....
Mary
Today is the 2nd ride of the 3 day series in Idaho. Patch is my mount for the day and we will be going 50 miles, going more or less in the same direction as yesterday's ride. We have a little cloud cover and the temperature is warmer than yesterday morning. The day is supposed to be in the 60's. I tie the rain jacket to the saddle just in case, since there is no 2nd chance to get it once we leave camp.
The ride starts about a half hour after daylight, so I get to saddle Patch without using the lights on the outside of my trailer. I've been thankful for lights when I need them, but natural light is easier to deal with having no shadows, and I am also glad not to have to use battery power to see. My furnace starts on battery power, so I conserve lights in favor or having the furnace when I need to use it.
Patch is excited! He stood around all day yesterday and his energy level is way up there. We mill around with other riders near the start line, give the ride manager our number, and do a quick trot past the vet as we leave. He can call us back if he sees lameness but says "ok" as we go by and we are on our way down a road with a lot of rocks. There are a lot of rocks almost everywhere in this area so we will deal with them all day.
The trail markings take us off the rocky road after about a mile and now we are in deep sand for about another half mile, climb a hill on a cow trail and follow a jeep road across a desert plateau toward the rising sun. It's quite a picture with the horses ahead of us (some about a mile ahead already!) putting dust into the air and the sun shining with a red glow through it.
Today we have 2 vet checks on the trail again, the first is about 15 miles out, and the second at about 40 miles. Tonya, my riding partner from yesterday is with me again, her broken foot is no worse for having ridden 60 miles yesterday and she is happy about that. she came here hoping to ride all 3 days, and now she expects to. Actually she says riding with the cast is easier than walking with it, so getting on her horse was a relief.
Our horses pass vet check 1 with no problems, we cover them with blankets and they eat hay while we eat a snack and refill the water bottles on our saddles. The hold at this check is half an hour, so we relax a bit and watch riders come and go. One horse doesn't pass the vet exam and is loaded into the trailer for a ride back to camp. He is done for today but could go tomorrow if he looks sound since each day is a separate event. Lameness usually doesn't cure itself that fast.
It's time to go, and we check out with the timer and go down a gravel road, then a jeep road without rocks or gravel which is very nice. There is lots of green grass out here in the hills due to spring rains, and wildflowers everywhere. Lupine, phlox, miraposa lilies, the ever present dandylion relatives, and several others. Again we are going to the Snake River, but will be a few miles upstream from where we rode yesterday. Along the river there are a lot of bushes with big feathery looking pink blooms that look like Smoke Bush that people have in their yards. It's probably the same thing since most shrubs have a wild counterpart somewhere.
The ride manager has marked a place where our horses can get to the river for a drink. Patch is kind of concerned about that much moving water, but after Tonya's horse drinks he gains confidence and gets a pretty good drink before getting nervous about it. We follow the river downstream for a few miles and then take a trail leading back up to the plateau and eventually arrive at the second vet check where we have about a 45 minute hold.
I like 45 minute holds. Not too long, not too short. At this point in the ride the horses are hungry and they have enough time after the vet checks them to get a good meal and sometimes even a little nap. Riders have enough time to relax after eating and making that outhouse visit. The ride management always has water available so riders can refill their water bottles, tanks of water for the horses to drink all they want, hay for the horses, and sometimes they also have people snacks like those little packs of cheese and crackers, apples or cookies.
The trip back to camp takes us up a gravel road for a mile or so, across the paved highway, and then along jeep roads and a couple of cow trails to ride camp. The vet in camp checks the horses, they are sound and healthy and we are good to go for tomorrow. Patch has some interferance marks on his rear fetlocks, so I will add some interferance boots for tomorrows ride. They will provide some cushioning if he hits his fetlock (ankle joint just above the hoof).
A friend who didn't ride today took Breezy for a long walk during the day so he wasn't just standing in a corral all day. When Breezy and Patch see each other they whinney happily. Patch gets unsaddled and cleaned up so that he is ready for tomorrow. He munches hay and snoozes, watches other horses, and is happy to be home. Home for a working horse isn't necessarily where he lives, it can also be beside the trailer with his hay bag and water bucket where he doesn't have to work. I put the saddle pad in the sun to dry as much as possible before tomorrow's ride, it is a fluffy synthetic that looks like wool and it dries quickly.
At about 6pm the dinner bell rings, we get a nice dinner, the ride manager gives out the day's awards and then we get information about tomorrow's trail. It's dark when we head for our trailers to finish preparations for tomorrow, carry feed and water for the horses, and sleep.
to be continued....... again.
Mary
Day 3 of the ride series has a weather forecast for thunder showers late in the afternoon, but good weather for most of the day. Ok, I'll take it!
Today all the vet checks are in camp. We will be riding 2 20 mile loops and a 10 mile loop to get our 50 miles. It seems so simple to be returning to camp twice during the ride, no lunch to pack, and no forgotten item will have to be done without for more than 20 miles, or about 3 hours.
We start down that rocky road again but then turn off it after about 1/4 mile, cross a creek and follow a cow trail into the hills. Today we start out on the opposite side of the valley, so will see new stuff today. Patch has interferance boots on his hind legs to pad his fetlock joints if he hits himself with his hind hooves. He had some marks there yesterday, but usually he does not have a problem with it. I think it might be from traveling in soft sand, the feet don't stay where he puts them.
I think Patch has as much energy as yesterday. He definitely has just as much adrenaline. We have our usual conflict with him wanting to go faster, me wanting to go slower. After about 3 hours we are back at camp for the first vet check. The vet says Patch took a couple of funny steps before smoothing out to trot the 125 feet to the turn around and back. He writes a note on the vet card, Rt. Hind? and lets us go.
We walk to the trailer for our half hour hold. Breezy greets us from his corral as we walk by and I'm sure Patch thought he was done for the day. Patch gets a bucket with beet pulp and grain, it's all wet and sloppy. He loves it and sounds like a pig. I eat some canned pineapple, string cheese, crackers and juice, make a quick trip to the outhouse and it's time to go back out for the 2nd 20 miles.
Part way through the loop I think Patch is traveling just a bit unevenly, he seems to be pushing harder with one hind leg than the other. It feels like the weak side is the right, but it might just be my imagination. The rider who is with me today says she can't see anything wrong when we trot ahead of her, but admits that she isn't very good at spotting lameness. A few miles farther we pass somebody who can tell us, I ask her to look as we go by, she calls out "right hind" as we pass. So, now that is not my imagination.
It takes an extra hour or so for us to walk the few miles to camp. Patch doesn't understand the change in pace and letting everybody go on ahead of us. He prances sideways every time another horse comes by, then after they are out of sight for a few minutes he walks calmly until somebody else comes along.
When we arrive back at camp we get checked by the pulse taker, then the vet checks him and confirms what I already knew, he is consistantly lame on the right hind. The vet thinks the problem is in the muscles, not the fetlock. And so we are out of the ride. No credit for 40 miles, we have to finish the entire distance to earn any credit. We take our time getting back to the trailer, there's no reason to hurry now.
After unsaddling, removing the easyboots, rinsing the sweat off the horse with a hose, putting clay on his legs, and cooling myself off in the shade I consider going home today, but have one more dinner paid for, and besides, I'm a bit tired. It's a good chance to socialize with other riders, the vets, and the people who have endurance riding related businesses and brought their wares to display and hopefully sell. I pack up a lot of things and am still thinking I might leave after the dinner.
Just as we all assemble for the dinner in the ride manager's back yard we feel a few raindrops. We hope it is not going to get serious but I hang my extra shirt on a chair under the roof just in case, and before I can sit down with my full plate the rain has started along with a few flashes of lightening. The squall goes right over camp. Dinner and awards go on with everybody under the shelter of the porch roof and the open dining hall, both with metal roofs that amplify the sound of hard rain. The ride manager calls somebody's name for an award, people point to the person who hasn't heard a thing and they go to recieve it. Over and over. Lots of smiles, pointing, nodding, and lots of noise from the thunder and the rain pounding on the roof. Kind of a unique situation out there in the desert where the annual rainfall is something like 5 inches.
As soon as the festivities are over I go to check the horses, they are calmly eating hay like nothing happened. I put blankets on both of them, resupply them with hay, carry more buckets of water and go to visit with my friends who are parked next to me. The rain continues although not as hard as before, and soon it is dark and we all welcome the sleeping bags and pillows.
The next morning I'm up just at daylight, take the horses for a walk through a frosty landscape, load them into the trailer, scrape a hefty covering of ice off the windshield, and head for home. I'm glad the ride didn't include today because it would have been less pleasant with frozen fingers than the nice temperatures we had for the past 3 mornings.
Mary
After a quick bounce at home for a couple of days (home on Tuesday and leaving again Friday morning) Breezy and I are off to a fairly easy ride in southwest Washington state. We will be in the same general area as the Mt Adams ride a few weeks ago, but farther east. I hadn't planned to go to this one, but since it is another one of those major team efforts I decide to join the fun and get some easy miles. Breezy looked very good after the first day of our recent 3 day event, and so I got into fast forward mode, got the laundry done, trailer cleaned and repacked and we are on our way!
The team has saved me a good parking place, close to water tanks, vet check area, and outhouse. Well, not too close to that! We are camped at a rodeo grounds, have the use of a large metal building for our ride meetings, and a group from a local church is cooking hamburgers! They will be busy all weekend feeding this gang of a couple hundred people.
At the ride information meeting we learn that loop 1 will be 40 miles with a vet check about in the middle. We will have a 10 mile loop at the end. We also have riders on the 25 mile and 80 mile rides, so we have the opportunity for lots of points. The weather is supposed to be nice, high temperature not uncomfortable, it's going to be a great day for riding.
We will be following a lot of jeep roads today but also a lot of single track trail. Although the ride is near a major mountain we will not be doing a lot of climbing since we are on a plateau.
The alarm rings after I have been awake listening to some of the 75 mile riders getting ready to start their day. I get dressed and go out to watch the start. They soon disappear into the trees without anybody taking a flying lesson. I busy myself getting my breakfast eaten, giving Breezy a bit of beet pulp with grain and vitamins, get him saddled and we ride slowly to the start line.
Today I haven't made plans to ride with anybody, but will just see who is traveling at a speed I like and ride with them. For most of the first loop it turns out to be a couple who originated in Germany and are fairly new at endurance riding. The miles pass quickly, the trails are not dusty, not muddy, not too rocky. One water crossing gives us some problems with getting out of the water and up a steep bank with slippery mud from so many horses adding water to it as they come out of knee deep water. My riding partner's horse looses an easy boot in the mud, he looks for it, gets down on his hands and knees and reaches into holes a foot deep or more but can't locate it.
We have a short hold at the vet check out on the trail, there is lots of grass available for the horses to eat after we pass the veterinary inspection. Breezy is looking great. I eat some sting cheese and cookies that I carried in a fanny pack, refill my water bottle, visit the outhouse and we are on our way again.
The vet check in camp is a very busy place, horses everywhere! surprisingly there is order in all of this and a flow through pattern. Somebody is keeping us all moving in the right directions. After sponging Breezy at the water tank, and getting through the pulse line we get in the vet line which is moving quickly with 3 vets checking horses taking about 2 minutes per horse to check for metabolic problems and lameness. Breezy passes ok and we go to the trailer for about 35 more minutes (we have spent about 10 minutes in the vet line).
Breezy eats more soaked beet pulp with whole oats, alfalfa pellets and other horse favorite goodies in it. I refill the hay bag and make myself a sandwich. My team members fill me in on progress of the other team members and it all looks good. Soon it is time to go.
About a mile from camp we see an ambulance crew loading a stretcher with somebody on it. We are too far away to tell who it is. It turns out to be a lady whose horse balked at crossing the irrigation ditch, threw her and then stepped on her leg, breaking it. Somebody had already lead her horse back to camp.
We have mostly single track trail for this loop. It goes up and down hills but nothing is steep and we manage to trot on most of it. The footing is mostly good with a few rocky places where we walk. Before we know it we are back at camp and the finish line. Breezy passes the vet inspection and we are done.
The 25 milers got us points, so did the 50's, and the 80's are still on the trail. There is lots of food at the team potluck, we have a couple of those instant canopys, and lots of folding chairs. The sun is still shining, we relax and eat, swap stories, laugh, and wait for our teammates to finish their last loops. All were in about an hour or two after dark, a first place, a second and another top 10 finish, all earning bonus points besides the regular amount for the distance. Glow lights on the trail guided the riders who rode in the dark so they didn't miss turns.
I take Breezy for a walk and decide to turn him out in the rodeo arena. He loves it, trots around, rolls, trots around some more, rolls again, 3 times all together, all by himself. After he explores all the corners I catch him and take him back to the trailer. He gets another full bag of hay, fresh water, a blanket, and we are both ready for sleep.
In the morning I get a good breakfast from the concession stand, more food for less money than I would have gotten if I had stopped at a cafe on my way home, and it saved time too since I was waiting for the awards presentation to start. Before we are through with the awards we have a hard rain shower for about 5 minutes. Another tin roof, very noisy, but it is over quickly and the sun comes out again.
I finish packing, take Breezy for another walk, load him in the trailer and am soon on my way home. Breezy doesn't keep track of these things, but he is very near another milestone in his endurance career. He is just glad to be heading home, as am I.
Mary
We're off to another ride in the mountains of central Oregon. Breezy had a couple of weeks off and is ready to go again, and if we complete this ride Breezy's lifetime mileage will go over 6000 miles. Not many horses have done that.
The team has a spot for me to camp near them, and it doesn't take very long to set up and get the paperwork filled out to do the 50 mile ride. The vet line is long so I decide to saddle up and ride the first part of the trail. We go about 3 miles uphill on a jeep road and then ride back to camp, that's enough for a warm up after the trailer ride and to check and make sure he isn't going to have a tie up problem in the morning. When I get back there is no line anymore.
The fellow team member who loves to cook is not at the ride so we are pretty much on our own for dinner. Shortly before dark is the ride information meeting, they tell us about some trail changes. The 50 mile ride will consist of a 30 mile loop with a vet check with a 15 minute hold, then 45 minutes in camp, followed by a 20 mile loop with a vet check and 30 minute hold. I will send a few things out to the last hold.
The team has enough people to get points on the 30 mile ride, the 50 and the 100 if we all finish.
At 5am the 100's leave, followed an hour later by the 50's and the 30's an hour after that. We let the faster riders take the trail ahead of us and start off at a walk, no hurry, we have 12 hours to do this. I'm just a bit chilly with my 3 layers of shirts, however it is going to be hot so I can put up with that for a while. I want to get quite a lot of the miles done before the heat slows us down. I'm sponsoring 2 juniors and two other teammates join us so we 5 go trotting happily down the trail together. Breezy is feeling good, and seems to have forgotten that in previous years he always thought there were monsters out here. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, they might look just like a log, a stump, a rock, or anything else his little brain can dream up to keep himself entertained and keep me alert.
There are a lot of horses at the first vet check. The first stop is the water tank, Breezy doesn't drink but he does get sponged to cool him, and we proceed to the pulse area. A couple of minutes later we are in the vet line. Everything goes quickly and since we have only a 15 minute hold here we can be on our way as soon. I take off the sweatshirt and tie it behind the saddle, top off my water bottle and get somebody to hold Breezy while I use the outhouse. The 12 miles back to camp goes quickly.
The vet check in camp is a very busy place but with 3 vets the line moves right along. It's just like the line at the bank where you get the next available teller, we get to the front of the line and get the next available vet. Breezy passes again and we shortcut across camp to our trailer where he is happy to eat soaked beet pulp and grain, plus all the hay he can get down in the 35 or so minutes we have left. Of course he has no concept of time. I hurry to make a quick sandwich, refill my water bottle, drink a bottle of carrot and orange juice, take a salt tablet and visit the plastic throne. UGH! on a hot day the air is not pleasant in there. I'll swear that a plastic outhouse is at least 10 degrees hotter than outside on a hot day.
The 2nd loop starts out with the same climb out of camp that all of us did this morning, but it is different with the heat. We walk most of the first 3 miles, then the trail divides and we take the other fork. Although I have done this ride many times, we are now on new trails. As we ride along I try to keep mental notes of about where we are. After a few miles we are back on a trail that I recognize. I calculate how far we have come based on time, and soon we come to a pond beside the trail and I know we are less than 1/4 mile from the vet check.
This vet check is in a nice meadow with lots of pine trees, so there is some shade. The water supply is from a spring a up the hill, gravity flow through a couple of hoses. It is very cold water. I let Breezy have about 10 swallows, then pull him away from the tank. He gets a few bites of grass while I sponge him out of a bucket and we go to the vet line. He passes and we go back to the water. In the few minutes since he got the first drink the water in his stomach has warmed up, so now he can have all he wants. We find a flake of alfalfa hay under a tree and he settles down to munch. I eat some string cheese and a granola bar that is in my fanny pack refill my water bottle and wait for time to pass.
The trail out of the vet check is an old logging road that goes up, and up, and up, for about 3 miles. It is steeper than the climb out of camp, and we are in full sun for most of it. Hot. We walk except in the few places where it levels off briefly. At the top of the climb we have a nice view and a nice welcome breeze. Ahhhh. But we also have some deer flies, so we put the horses into a trot because the flies will have to keep up with the horses before they can bite them. It is fairly level for the rest of the trip back to camp.
A mile from the finish we see a pickup with some guys from ride management. They ask us if we had seen a horse without a rider or a rider without a horse. No to both questions. At the last water tank about 4 miles down the trail somebody's horse got stung by a bee, bucked the rider off and took off at a run. The horse had been seen by another rider right in the area where we were, but that rider hadn't been able to catch the horse. She gave up the persuit when the horse was running toward a highway (hoping it would stop if she wasn't chasing it), and rode into camp to report it and get people looking for horse and rider. Hopefully the horse would follow other horses into camp. The rider apparently wasn't hurt, but was still out there on foot trying to find her horse.
We continue to camp, unsaddle our horses after we cross the finish line since the vet wanted to see them without tack, cool them off at the water trough, pass the pulse criteria (60 beats per minute or less) and get into the vet line. One of the juniors' horses was a bit lame because of a rock wedged in the shoe, they removed the rock, trotted again, she still looks lame. She can bring the horse back in an hour for a recheck. They go to their trailer to try to ice the foot in a bucket of water. It's tricky because the horse doesn't want to stand with her foot in a bucket, but food under her nose distracts the horse enough so that she tolerates it. The team sacrifices a lot of ice from our ice chests and the horse stands with both front feet in buckets. They do both feet so that they will both feel the same and the horse will trot evenly.
Breezy is healthy and sound. He has his 6000 miles and couldn't care less. He is hungry! Oh the other hand, I am very happy about it.
The junior's horse is taken back to the vet for a final look, and she trots out sound! Team points!
I spend the rest of the afternoon and evening visiting with friends until my trailer is cool enough for sleeping. One of our team's 100 milers has been pulled because of a lame horse, so there went the 100 mile team points. The 30 milers all finished ok so we have some points there. All in all it was a pretty good day for the team.
Several of the riders who rode the 30 mile ride and a few people on 4 wheelers have gone out looking for the missing horse. The rider returns to camp, gets on her other horse and joins the search. The missing horse has been seen but is scared and disappears into the trees and brush again. Night falls, she hasn't been caught.
The next morning more people are looking for the horse. The sheriff has been notified and some horse club people come from the local area to search. Finally the horse was found on Wednesday without saddle or bridle but unhurt except for minor scrapes. She had spent 4 nights alone in the woods in the mountains and was very scared, uncatchable until her owner and pasture buddy came to where a hiker had seen the horse. During the time she was missing she had backtracked on the trail to the last vet check, then crossed the highway into a boggy area where tracking was difficult. She didn't know that the trail she had been on went to camp since she had never been there before. I'm glad the story had a happy ending.
Mary
It's a week after the last ride, and almost 4 weeks after Patch's pull for lameness, he looks good and is full of energy, so we are ready to go to another ride.
We are going back to Idaho, this time to a new ride in grassy hills. Our trip to the ride takes about 4 1/2 hours, the sun is hot but there is a breeze. Of course riding in the trailer with the roof vents open gives Patch a nice breeze and I have AC in the truck. When I pull into camp and get out of the truck reality hits me in the face! The camping spot is rough so I unload the horse, a friend holds him while he grazes and I get the truck and trailer parked near my teammates.
I do the usual paper work to enter the ride, saddle Patch and ride out a mile or two. After that we see the vet, and we are officially ready to enter tomorrow's ride. This event has a 75, a 50, a Limited Distance and a trail ride. At the ride information meeting we get a general idea of the trail, start times, warning about trail hazards, and firm instructions not to leave any gates open since there are cattle out there belonging to several ranches.
Patch eats all the grass he can reach from his tether, then resigns himself to eating hay. He gets some grain and soaked beet pulp with his vitamins, a dose of electrolites and a light blanket when the sun goes down and the evening cools off. Although he doesn't really need the blanket, I think he will by morning and it will keep his muscles nice and soft. He has two bags of hay and two buckets of water.
The 75's leave camp at 5am, the 50's at 6 and the shorter distances after that. It's a pleasant morning, cool, sun just coming up, green grass and wildflowers everywhere. I wait until most of the horses have left, then just start out at a walk, hoping to keep Patch calm. After a mile or so some riders who left later catch up and we go along at a trot together. There are gates to open, so we take turns doing that. The water along the trail is large ponds, but since there are a lot of cattle out there using them the water is not what the horses want to drink. They are thirsty by the time we get to camp where water has been hauled in to fill the troughs.
Patch passes the first vet check ok, we have a 45 minute hold and then go out to repeat loop 1. I have managed to keep Patch calm for most of the ride, except at one gate where I had to open and close it when I was riding alone. Patch didn't want to stand still while I climbed up on something to get on him. Everything we do at home can be different at a ride because he knows there are other horses.
We ride most of loop 2 with a man named Paul who is on a horse that is doing his first or second endurance ride. He needs company and I need a gate opener, so we have a deal.
It's getting pretty hot by the time we finish the second loop. I take extra time at the first water tank at the edge of camp, letting him drink all he wants and sponging him to cool him,then lead Patch about 1/8 of a mile to the pulse area. His pulse is down and we go to the vet check. Everything looks good until he trots. The vet has me trot him again, sorry, he is lame again. This time it is on the opposite hind leg. The vet says I can try icing it until the hold time is over and come back for a recheck, so I go to the trailer to try to get him iced and looking ok for the final 15 mile loop. I told the vet we would walk the whole loop if we had to, he understands how determined I am to get a finish.
So, for the next 40 minutes I hold a frozen plastic bottle on the spot that seems sore, high up on the inside of his leg. I take a couple of brief breaks to cool off with some cold water from Patch's buckets on my face, neck, head, and arms, grab a few cookies and some juice and go back to hold the ice bottle again. We go back to the vet when our hold time is up. I am very hot from standing in the sun. and feel a bit dizzy. If we get to go out for the last loop I need some food, more water and electrolites before we go, and will need to electrolite Patch as well.
I lead him at a trot away from the vet for about 50 feet, then turn and come back. The vet shakes his head. We are done for the day. He suggests that since the horse was lame on the other hind leg a few weeks ago that possibly he needs some chiropractic work.
Patch gets unsaddled, then I get a bucket of water and clean the sweat and dirt off him as well as I can. We have to conserve water here since it is hauled in and the last delivery has been made. I consider driving home since it is only mid day but while Patch eats and rests I get lazy and decide to stay the night and drive home tomorrow.
I spend a lazy afternoon visiting with friends and getting to know some new people. Late in the afternoon there is some concern about one of the riders in the 75 mile ride who is trying to keep up with the leaders. She would like to win, but she can't see well and has some other health problems. She didn't look good when she left camp the last time and is now overdue to be back. (The vet can pull a horse that doesn't look good but has no authority to pull the rider except in cases where a rider is abusing the horse, breaking the rules or argueing with the vet's decision about the condition of his horse.) Another rider has seen her a few miles out and said she did not look good and her horse didn't either. The rider seemed disoriented and the horse didn't act like he wanted to follow another horse, so the rider came to camp as quickly as possible to get her some help.
The ride manager and some others go out in a pickup pulling a horse trailer to see if they can find her since the loop she is on has a lot of road and not much trail. While they are out searching the rider comes in, she is in bad shape and her horse is very tired. Two or three people help her get off her horse and into a trailer with living quarters that belongs to a nurse. They are trying to rehydrate her and get some salt and potassium into her.
Meanwhile the horse is not doing well. I unsaddle him, he is not interested in food or water, has no gut sounds, wants to lay down, all bad when the horse should have nothing on his mind but food and water. He is going to need to be treated with IV fluids. We select a pen behind a trailer near mine that is out of the wind, and in the shade. I take one of my hightie poles out of it's brackets and we attatch it to the side of the other trailer to serve as the IV pole. One of the riders is a vet tech, she has a first aid kit but no clippers. Another rider has clippers that run on a battery. The tech shaves and disinfects a place on the horse's neck to put the IV catheter, and we have the horse in place ready for bags of fluids and ready to be hooked up just as soon as the vet gets over there with his pickup and supplies.
The horse is treated with pain killer, has sucrose added to the IV fluid, and a couple of other things. He is in serious condition for several hours. Half a dozen of us stand around and watch him and keep him on his feet, the rest of the camp is unaware of the crisis, the potluck and awards go on as scheduled without us. One of my teammates has plenty of food, she invites us over and we go eat one by one. She brings the treatment vet a plate of hot food and later a dish of strawberry shortcake. He stays with the horse. Finally after 35 liters of fluids go into the horse his condition stabilizes at about 1am and he wants to nibble some hay. It's been a close call. At one point he really needed to be transported to a vet hospital but was not stable enough to be moved. The rider's husband has been there several times but he is also concerned about his wife.
The rider was pretty much out of it for all the rest of the day and night but had a nurse tending her for several hours until she went to sleep. Both horse and rider looked pretty good in the morning. I heard a report a couple of days later that the horse was taken home and did not require further treatment.
Mary
On July 7 I head for another ride where I will have a vet who does chiropractic work on horses check Patch to see if anything is out of place, and if so, adjust it. My team will be there to try for points on 3 distances and I will crew for the team.
This ride is on the east slope of the Cascade Mountains in Washington, just west of the Yakima Valley east of Mt Rainier. It is steep country and a very challenging ride.
I park near my team, unload Patch and take him for a short walk, give him a bucket of water and a bag of hay, and go to see what the team will need tomorrow. We have enough riders on the limited distance (25 or 30 miles, I can't remember) and on the 50 to get points, plus a couple of extras that we refer to as insurance riders, and one rider on the 75 mile ride. One of our 50 milers will be riding a horse belonging to a friend who rides for another team, and I will be crewing for both of them, plus a couple of extras who are good friends. Our 75 mile rider hopes to team up with another rider for the ride but that is in the wait and see category for now.
The ride information meeting gives us distances between the vet checks on the loops, hold times and other information. A printed sheet is given to those who will be taking the road to the vet checks, something I haven't done so that will be helpful. I've already unhitched my truck from the trailer and have moved it to a spot where it will be convenient to put everyone's bags, lunches and things into it. I will be going to the second vet check on the 50 mile loop. The first vet check is just a 15 minute hold and only about 17 miles out from camp, there will be hay provided by the ride management and no need for crew. The 2nd vet check is at 37 miles and has a 45 minute hold, so that is where help will be needed.
Patch gets another walk and some time grazing on the nice meadow grass in camp. He has eaten all the grass he could reach from his tether plus a bag of hay and either drank or spilled his bucket of water. I give him a chance to drink from the water trough and tie him to the hightie arm on the trailer for the night. He has 2 bags of hay and 2 buckets of water to keep him entertained. The trailer living quarters are still hot even with all the windows and the roof vent open. Sometimes I wish for a fan that runs on a battery. During the night it cools off enough for me to get into the sleeping bag.
Our 75 miler will be leaving at 5am, so I get up a few minutes before that. She is already on her horse when I get to the starting line. Another 75 mile rider is easily talked into riding with her, they are both just riding to finish, not to win. The bait: stay with Mona and you will have crew! They go off down the road out of camp and we turn our attention to getting the 50's ready to go at 6am. I need to be ready to drive out soon after all our riders are gone, so I tend to Patch and get myself some breakfast. It sure feels funny to be at a ride and not be saddling up to ride.
After our limited distance riders leave I get into the truck to be ready to start for the vet check. I know just the spot I want for our crew area and want to be sure I get it. The ride manager leads the procession out of camp, then the vet truck, another crew person with his team's gear and I am 4th in line. As I am following them up the dusty mountain roads it crosses my mind that I have not consulted the printed directions and I hope I am following the right cloud of dust. I grab the instructions, and try to read it without my glasses while driving along a straight section of road. There is a fork in the road, I see the road number on a post, check the sheet, yes!
We arrive at the vet check and I go to my chosen spot, a stand of large pine trees in the grassy meadow where there will be shade all day. I've been here before but I had arrived by horse on the trail. It's different when I arrive by road. I unload everything and start setting up feeding stations in the little clearing in the grove. Three will be enough I think since our riders will be in small groups and probably there will only be 2 or 3 at a time. Each feeding station has a bucket of water, a flake of alfalfa hay, a pan with soaked beet pulp, soaked whole oats and a small pile of a pelleted feed that all horses seem to love, all topped with chunks of apples and carrots. I don't mix these things, the horses will decide what they want to eat. Each feeding station also has a folding chair so the rider can sit there, hold the horse and relax.
Half an hour later the first riders come in, but they are not on my team. I'm doing double duty today, checking and recording pulses while I wait for my riders. Some of them come in and now they get my attention. I help the riders find their lunches, fill water bottles, wash down horses legs, clean off equipment, hold horses while riders dash to the outhouse, and we talk about how the ride is going. When they are on their way I refill the feed pans and water buckets to be ready for the next group and go back to taking pulses for a while.
Our riders are all doing well. One of them leaves the vet check in 2nd place on the 50 mile ride (she eventually finishes 3rd I think) and as the day goes on there is more space between riders and less and less to do. I have time to visit with a crew that is set up on the other side of my trees. The team crew leader is a woman who has a stable and gives riding lessons. She has brought a couple of her students to learn how to crew before they will have the privilige of being riders. They are cheerful and enthusiastic.
My system for feeding and taking care of the team is working well with no problems. In addition to the horse stuff I have a bag with chapstick, Desitin (useful on people and also for horses with minor owies), some potato chips, cookies and salt tablets. All of that comes in handy. Toward the end I only have the 75 milers on our team to crew for and there is lots of hay, grain and goodies prepared, so I invite the slower 50 milers to our shady spot for horse and people goodies. Being a rider really helps because I know what people and their horses are likely to need. They've been riding a long time on a hot day, a position I have been in many times, so I know how welcome a shady spot with everything ready can be. I send people off with a couple of peanut butter cookies for the road. And smiles!
After the 2 75 milers are back on the trail to camp I pack up everything and drive down the road, arriving in camp about 10 minutes before they do. Our rider is hot and looking kind of wilted. One of the team members who has finished her ride takes the horse for the vet check, we take the rider to a shady spot to get her cooled off. I find the salt tablets and give her one. She drinks about a quart of cool water, and eats some watermellon. I hurry around to try to find a cooling vest to borrow for her. A few minutes later I have one, it is dunked in water and we put it on her and get her back on her horse. She still has 2 short loops to go, totaling 25 miles, hopefully all before dark.
I go to see when the vet might be able to examine Patch. Most of the riders have finished their rides and done all of the required vet exams, and so she comes down to my trailer a few minutes later. We take Patch to a shady level spot down the road. I lead him at a trot past her a few times so she can see how he is moving, and then she goes to work giving him a hands-on examination. She finds some things out of place, the major one being that his pelvis is crooked, high on one side and low on the other. Watching a 125 pound barely 5 ft tall vet adjust a 1000 pound horse's bones is interesting. She uses the horse's own weight to move his bones into the correct positions.
After the treatment I recieve instructions on how to rehab him and then take him for a walk to help things settle in before tieing him to the trailer. Rehab is going to take quite a few weeks and we hope he will stay alligned. She asked me if I understood what his problem had been, I told her yes, I have the same thing and have also been going to a chiropractor.
When our 75 mile rider comes back into camp she looks better than when she left, and now she only has another 10 mile loop to go. The other rider is still with her. They both get the A1 treatment, and the other rider says "I could get used to this, I've never had a crew". I know just what she means, having ridden a few thousand miles without a crew. They finish just at dark. All of our team finished their rides today so we have earned a lot of points.
The ride management has provided us with a wonderful dinner of barbequed salmon, barbequed ribs, oysters on the halfshell cooked on the grill so they have a smokey flavor, lots of garlic bread and salad. We were only asked to bring desserts. The late finishing riders had plates of food saved for them and believe me, they were hungry. I've been one of the last riders in at this ride and the dinner is always very welcome although at times I have been almost too tired to eat it.
The next morning the awards are given out and we head down the road, stopping at the first restaurant that is open to have a real breakfast. They opened a couple of hours early knowing there would be a crowd, and we almost filled the place!
Mary
July 14, I'm on my way again. This ride is at the top of Ochoco Pass in central Oregon. It's a beautiful place, ride camp is in a large meadow with lots of green grass and huge pine trees. Much of the scenery along the trail is similiar but there is also variety. Since Both Patch and Breezy are laid up, one of my teammates offered me a horse for the ride.
I arrive in ride camp about 5pm, and one of the team shows me where they are all parked in a group. Thankfully it is easy to get into without any manouvering, and will also be easy to get out of on Sunday morning.
One of the guys has barbequed London broil steak, others have brought salads, there is a pan of fresh summer squash with other vegies, some fresh brocolli, a potato casserole with cheese topping, garlic bread, chips, and my peach pie that came from Safeway. We eat, visit, and wait for the rest of the team to arrive.
My mount will be a tall bay gelding named Lewis. I put Breezy's saddle on him and go for a brief ride in the evening. He and I will have to get used to each other tomorrow because by the time Lewis arrived at camp it was getting late, so we don't have much time. This is mostly to adjust the saddle and other tack so I won't have to do it in the morning. Lewis' regular rider is riding another teammate's horse on the 80 mile ride. We have an extra rider for the longer distance that way. Lewis and I will do 50 miles. He has only done one 25 mile ride this year but they feel that he is ready for 50. I really know nothing about this horse so have to rely on their judgement.
I get him entered and vetted, give him electrolites and tie him to the owner's trailer. We attend the rider info meeting, organize the things we will need at the vet check and everybody settles in for the night. Although I didn't bring a horse I did bring my trailer and so I have my own place to sleep, tack in it's usual places, etc, much more convenient than putting everything in the car or pickup and hoping I have what I need, then sleeping in somebody else's fold out dinette bed. My bed has a comfy foam mattress which my body likes quite well.
When the alarm rings I am already half awake, listening to camp sounds and mentally planning my day. I get up in time to walk down the hill to the start line and watch the 80 milers leave. We have 4 team riders out of about 25 starters. No excitement. I walk back to the trailer, eat my usual ride morning breakfast, saddle Lewis, give him another dose of electrolites and mount up. We walk calmly around camp for about 15 minutes before we see the faster group heading out for the first 30 mile loop.
Lewis' way of going reminds me of Patch. He wants to go fast, I want to go slower, he ducks his head while we trot along, pulling me off balance, then raises his head and speeds up while I get myself rebalanced and back in control. Over and over. Sometimes the head goes up, sometimes down. After just a few miles I'm getting too warm with 3 layers I put on for the chilly morning but don't want to stop to take off anything.
The vet check is somewhere in the middle of the loop in a small meadow with a creek. I cool him off a little, his pulse is below 60, we can proceed to the vet line. There are about 50 horses here, but only a dozen or so in the vet line. I take off the sweatshirt and tie it behind the saddle. The wait isn't long since there are 2 vets. He eats a few bites of grass as we inch along in line, and when our turn comes he passes the vet check ok. I find the pile of stuff the team has sent out, give him hay, some grain, he doesn't eat as well as I would like but it's early in the ride and he has been eating all night. He gets only a half dose of electrolites because he did not drink any water, then our time is up and we leave.
When we come to a water tank few miles later he gets a good drink. I feel better and I'm sure he is happy to have rinsed that salty taste out of his mouth.
About ten miles farther on the way to camp I see a group of horses and riders at an intersection of the cow trail and a jeep road. Oops, one of the riders is sitting on the ground, he has an improvised splint and a bandage on his arm. He is one of my team who was riding the 50 mile ride. His horse got into some bees, bolted, shed the rider and is missing, last seen running full speed down the trail. The injured rider does seem to know where he is and why, what day it is, who we are, and what happened, and so it appears that he has not hurt his head. The rider who bandaged it is also one of our team. She is a nurse and always carries some basic first aid supplies. She thinks his arm might be broken and it definitely looks dislocated at the elbow! Ouch! A man who rode a few miles with me gets off his horse and says he will stay with him until help arrives. The rider says "if you find my horse please tie him to a tree next to the trail".
We go on down a long hill, across a creek, up another big hill and soon we hear 4 wheeler ATV's. A couple camped nearby was out for a ride, learned there was an injured rider and wanted to help. The man has started down the trail we just came up, but I tell him the trail has downed trees and is not passable on his 4 wheeler. They are unfamiliar with the road we come onto at this point and I have no idea if it is the same road the injured rider is sitting on. I tell them we came by trail and that is all I know. When I saw them I hoped they were from ride camp out looking for him. All the way to camp we look for the horse.
Back in camp again, we will have a vet check and 45 minute hold. I get the horse vetted, take him to his trailer to eat, pull off the saddle and sponge him with cool water to help him relax. His owner is there to take care of him so I go to my trailer to get some lunch, refill my water container, drink a lot of water with a salt tablet, and shed another shirt. I see one of the ride management people and walk over to tell him exactly where the rider is, in case the rescue team can't find him for some reason. When my hold is almost up I make a quick trip to the outhouse, saddle the horse again, check out with the timer and we start loop 2.
Now the heat of the day has really started to build. It will slow us down but we have time for that. The 20 mile loop winds through and across meadows, up and down small hills, then bigger hills. I start looking for a water tank located in a grove of trees that is always a great relief, very cold water, shade, ahhh! This year it is disappointing. The pipe is disconnected, no water is coming out, and there is very little water left in the tank. At least we get a shade break for a few minutes.
After a few more miles we reach a road and I know that the real climb starts here. It's 3 miles of gradual climb, but in full sun most of the time, and it is hot! We go along at a slow trot, then walk, slow trot again. Two riders are ahead of me, I know them both. We ride along and talk. One of them says her horse lost a shoe earlier and she had to put on an easyboot. I tell her the horse has no easyboot and didn't have it when I caught up with her a few miles ago. OH NO! She decides to walk the rest of the way to camp and the other rider and I go on. Walk, trot, walk again. No hurry, we have several hours left and only need about half an hour more to get done.
I keep thinking of my teammate sitting by the road with his hurting arm. When I get to camp they have no word except that he is on his way to the hospital at Prineville, 40+ miles away. I unsaddle Lewis, sponge him with cool water, give him a couple of minutes to eat, and we go to the vet area. His pulse is down, we get in the vet line and about 2 minutes later the vet tells me "he's thumping". OH NO!
Thumping is a metabolic thing caused from insufficient calcium. I have an hour to get it stopped. I take him back to the trailer, and he is given a double dose of electrolites. I find some alfalfa hay at a neighboring trailer (from some people I helped on a previous ride) and he eats some of it. This horse is a slow eater, there is no way to make him eat faster. He munches, looks around, we keep shoving the alfalfa back under his nose whenever he quits eating it. We watch anxiously, the thumping gets weaker, then stronger, weaker, stronger, over and over. It stops, we all breathe a sigh of relief and then it starts again. The clock is ticking. When the hour is almost up I take him back to the vet to see if we can get a completion. Nope, he is thumping again. There went the hope of team points on the 50.
Out of 4 riders on the 50 we only got 2 completions, we need 3 for team points. The 80 milers all finished, one of them in the top 10 so we even got some bonus points from her effort.
Thumps causes the diaphram to pulse in time with the heartbeat. After the horse got enough calcium it stopped but that took an additional hour or two, too late for any credit for the day's ride. Disappointing.
Before dark the hurt rider was back in camp with his arm in a sling, feeling no pain because he had a lot of meds in him. His arm was broken in 3 places but nothing out of place except that the ulna had popped out of his elbow. It makes me cringe to think about it. Searchers were out looking for his horse until dark, and the late finishing riders watched for him as they went along the trail, but he wasn't found until about noon the next day, unhurt, and quite meek for the experience! Saddle and all tack was still on the horse. He had traveled about 4 miles from where he dumped the rider and spent the night alone and lost standing under a tree and no doubt feeling kind of low on the food chain in the mountains with bears, cougars, and unknown monsters all around.
Happy ending to that story.
Mary
The ride that was scheduled for August 12 was cancelled because of a forest fire in the area. Our ride camp, the local rodeo grounds which we were to use for the first time, was taken over by the Forest Service for their fire camp. We still don't know how much of our trail area was burned which might effect where we can ride there for next year's event.
With a month off between rides I had plenty of time to do lots of slow and careful rehab miles on Patch. Breezy got over his cough and then put a front foot through the barbed wire fence and got a wire cut that took time to heal. I rode him just enough to determine that he is sound enough to enter in a ride, and hope that he is sound for 50 miles.
On Friday of Labor Day weekend I am finally heading for another endurance ride with my own horses! We are going into the Idaho mountains north of Boise, almost directly east of where we live but with Hell's Canyon and a range of mountains between us it is about a 4 hour drive to get there.
Several members from my team are already camped in a group and I'm directed to them when I drive into camp. Sometimes arriving a bit late is an advantage. After the ride is over I won't have to wait for other trailers to leave before I can move. This ride is two days so I have brought Breezy and Patch to each take a day.
After I get the horses set up with hay bags and water buckets, and take a few minutes to greet those camped nearby, I saddle Breezy and we go out for a 45 minute ride which includes part of one of the hills we will climb tomorrow. We only go part way up and I see that there is a lot more hill here. Back at camp I fill out the paperwork to enter the rides and take Breezy for his vet exam. The ride meeting takes place just before dark, then I join the team under the awning of a small motor home for bbq and potluck. Our teammate who loves to cook is back with us so the eating is good!
Breezy gets a dose of electrolites, another bag of hay, fresh water in his buckets, a blanket and a goodnight smooch on his nose. Patch also gets a blanket since he is tied to the trailer and can't move around freely to stay warm like he does at home. My teammates who came a day early said it was frosty that morning. That's about a 60 degree change in just a few hours since it was 90 when I got there and will be hot again tomorrow.
The alarm rings before light, but I have been awake since 3am when the horses got noisy and I went out to refill haybags and tipped over water buckets. I get up, turn on the furnace and eat my banana, yogurt, juice, vitamins, handfull of mixed nuts, take a salt tablet, and dress for the day in layers like an onion so I can peel. The trip to the outhouse requires a flashlight but I think I can see streaks of light in the sky, or maybe it is just my imagination. I'm sure we will not start in the dark since it is only a 50 miler.
As I saddle Breezy I can see that it really is getting light, and after about a 5 minute warm up at a walk we start down the trail about 15 minutes into daylight. I'm chilly with 3 layers of shirts, but an hour later they are too much. I don't want to stop to take off the sweatshirt so I try to ignore the fact that I am getting too hot. When we stop at a water tank I am observing how much water Breezy drinks, then sponge him to cool him off and our little group goes down the trail. Then I remember that I should have taken off the shirt. Oh, well, we are only 7 miles from camp and I am not going to stop to do it since I would have to take off my riding helmet and hang onto it and the reins while I take off the shirt, put the helmet back on and tie the shirt either to the saddle or around my waist by the sleeves. Nope, I will just wear it and think about other things.
The first loop is a little over 19 miles, it takes about 3 hours, and by the time we get back to camp for the first vet check I am very happy to take off the sweatshirt. One of my teammates has a sister visiting her for the weekend, she is also an endurance rider but I am not sure why whe isn't riding today. She crews for me, takes Breezy to the vet line, and does the trot out for evaluation. I watch him trot, he looks sound so I go to refill my water bottle, get a snack, drink a lot of water and visit the portapotty. Sue has hay and pans of beet pulp, grain, and goodies ready for the horse and he is happily eating when I get back. The hold is 30 minutes and goes by quickly.
We check out with the timer and are off again for another 19 mile loop. I've been riding with my friend David and a teenage girl he is sponsoring, plus a lady who has been a distance runner and is just into her second year of endurance riding. She said she wanted to ride with me to learn, so she has been asking a lot of questions and I have been trying to answer them, and also supplying tidbits of information as things come up on the trail. She has a very nice, well behaved horse who is a former Arabian track racehorse. Sometimes all they know is full speed ahead but her new owner has been riding her slowly and carefully for several months, and the horse is easily controlled and doesn't seem to get excited about anything we encounter.
In about 3 and a half hours we are back in camp for another vet check and a 45 minute hold. I sponge Breezy to cool him off and when his pulse is down below 60 in a minute or two I hand Sue my card and the reins and she heads for the vet line again. Wow, it is great to not have to do everything myself. Another shirt comes off, and I stick my head in the water tank as I go past, ooo that feels good! At the trailer my water bottle is filled, I get a snack and another salt tablet, and drink a lot of water and grape juice.
The teenage girl who is riding with us has absorbed too much of the heat of the day. At the last water tank on the trail I told her to use that sponge she was using to cool her horse to cool herself as well. I thought she might not be drinking enough water, and told her she needs to drink all the water she has in her water bottle. Now! Her sponsor gave her the extra bottle he had in a pack on his saddle, but when we rode into camp she still looked too hot.
Now she is at a nearby trailer cooling off with a wet towel over her head. I take her a salt tablet and a different, cooler shirt to wear. T-shirts are hot on a hot day, especially the kind that hug the body. I tell her to take it off and wear my spare one, a lightweight, light colored cotton shirt that will breathe and reflect some heat. I also tell her to stick her head into the water tank to cool off but I don't know if she did it. Today I cool off that way every time I pass a tank.
A few minutes later I take a bag of cookies to my nice helper, put my full water bottle into the water bottle holder on my saddle, and we are ready to go out for the final short loop, about 11.5 miles. Breezy has eaten a whole flake of hay and a panfull of mash (about a gallon) and even took a quick nap. He really knows how to relax at a vet check.
This third loop goes up a mountain for the first 5 miles. We follow a pretty good logging road that winds up and up and up, then get onto some smaller spur roads and finally a game trail. If it weren't for smokey conditions from nearby forest fires the view from the top would be terriffic. I'll have to see it another time. We've had to slow down a lot because of the heat. Now the trail goes down, joins an old logging road and we make good time trotting along a gentle grade. Suddenly there is a turn and we are on another trail going back up again. We almost missed the turn, 4 pairs of eyes and only one saw the markings. That trail goes up over a ridge and down to another road, then finally into camp and the finish line. Our riding time is about 9 hours, we sponge them off at the water tanks while they get big drinks of water and all of our horses pass the final vet check.
A few minutes later two of my teammates come riding into camp, their horses also pass the vet check and we have team points on the 50. Earlier all of our 30 mile riders also got completions, so we have made a good start for the weekend.
Tomorrow I will be riding Patch, so I take him for his vet check. He is excited but vets in with a 34 pulse! He trots out like he is actually going somewhere instead of about 100 feet away from the vet and back. We are cleared to go tomorrow.
Since both days are separate events, except for the riders who entered the 2 day 100, awards are given for the day after a great potluck dinner. We eat like we are half starved, and indeed we are, endurance riding burns a lot of calories. Baked beans, potato dishes, vegie dishes, pasta dishes (one with shrimp in Alfredo sauce), wieners in barbeque sauce, fried chicken, salads, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, chunks of watermellon and canteloupe, chips, dips, garlic bread and desserts, ummmm good! I eat like there is no tomorrow, as does everyone else, and still there are leftovers!
After this feast and the awards for the day, I go over to my team campsite and there is more food since they hadn't realized there was an all camp potluck. There's too much to eat but yes! there is tomorrow, and I do eat a little more, including a slice of apple pie. Tomorrow I will burn all of these calories and more. We sit and recap the day's events while the evening cools off.
Patch and Breezy get their hay bags filled, fresh water in their buckets and Patch gets a dose of electrolites. It's a fight and I win but he hates it. I have to work on getting him to let me squirt stuff into his mouth. Applesauce works well for this, I just have to do it a few times at home so that he knows that often the stuff that gets squirted into his mouth actually tastes good. They both get blankets at the last minute, the evening is cooloing off but they won't really need them for a while, however, I need sleep so they get the blankets sooner rather than not at all.
I set the alarm and go to bed. It is finally cool enough in the trailer for sleeping since it has been dark for about 2 hours and the windows and roof vent have all been open since about 10 this morning. It's hard to believe I needed my furnace early this morning when there was a bit of frost again. My bed feels so good.
Mary
A horse nickering nearby wakes me up. I lay there in my sleeping bag wondering why, another nicker, it sounds like Patch. I get up quickly, slip on my shoes, grab my flashlight, and go outside to investigate. Sometimes nickers are greetings meaning another horse is wandering through camp, and since I brought 2 horses it could mean that one of mine is wandering. Or, somebody nearby could be up feeding their horses and he is just saying "I want some too". Thankfully it turns out to be the latter this time. As long as I am up I check feed and water supplies for my horses and go back to bed. It's 4am.
My alarm is set for 6. I catnap for the next 2 hours until it is time to get up, and am just finally sleeping pretty soundly when the early morning sounds of ride camp wake me.
After my usual ride morning routine I get Patch saddled and bridled, but leave him tied to the trailer while other riders warm up their horses and drift over toward the start line. I'm going to let all of them go ahead of me in an effort to keep Patch calm, so I watch the pack head off down the trail. One horse is very excited, he is sideways more than forward until his rider gives him the signal to go with the others. The start official appreciates knowing that I am leaving late but is still wondering about one other rider on her list. Finally I decide it's time to start, we have given the others a good lead and the idea is to not have any horses that Patch can see for a few miles.
The trail starts the same way out of camp as yesterday's ride, down a gravel road and then through the gravel pit, across a rocky area and a creek, more rocks and then finally a nice trail that is wide enough for a 4 wheeler but not quite wide enough for a pickup. We come to a fork in the trail and go left today where we went right yesterday. He trots along happily, curious about what is around the next corner. After a few miles we come to the photographer, he snaps a couple of pictures as we trot by, and tells me the nearest riders are about 3 or 4 minutes ahead of me. We have been gaining on them since I gave them about a 10 minute head start. I estimate that we are traveling about 2 mph faster than they are.
As we pick our way at a walk along a rocky creek trail next to a creek that is all of 2 feet wide in places, I hear voices ahead and slow Patch down even more. There is nice tall grass growing beside the trail, so I let him eat some of it to buy a little time and space. We follow them at a distance but I have to keep slowing down, even at a walk. I'm going to have to pass them but am looking for a better place to do it. This trail is narrow and there are no wide places to pass other horses, so we continue the walk and munch program for now and try to stay far enough behind so he doesn't see them.
The trail becomes wider and goes up over a hill, then winds down the other side. The air is quite smokey from forest fires to the west of us, but Patch doesn't notice, he is focused on the trail. I wonder just how close the fires are, but I haven't heard any aircraft and in country as steep as these mountains it is almost impossible to fight fires without air support. Trees and bushes on the hillsides have started to turn pretty fall colors since the nights have been quite cool and we have climbed at least 1500 ft since we left camp. I ride along slowly and enjoy the scenery.
I am about 1/4 mile behind the riders but closer at times because of the zigzaging trail. I can see them across the ravine, going to my right when I still have quite a ways to go to the left before the trail zigs back the other way. When they get off their horses to walk a while through a section with some deep ruts, I decide this is the place to pass. They are my teammates, we exchange greetings briefly but I do not stop so that Patch is more interested in the trail than equine company. We ride alone for the rest of the 22 mile loop.
As we near camp we are back on the same trail that we used going out this morning. Patch starts to get excited and it gets worse when he hears horses whinnying. We have to cross the rocky area with the creek again and I would prefer that he walk instead of trying to trot sideways. When we get to the road I decide to stop him, and after he stands still for about 5 seconds I tell him to trot. I know that he would have a high heartrate if I held him back and he went sideways all the way to camp, so I hope this might be better.
When we get into the vet check he becomes a nut case. Oh boy, horses! Camp! I'm done! Where is my buddy? No Patch, you are not done and you are not going to see Breezy.
When we get to the water tank he gets a nice big drink but as soon as he is finished he starts dancing around and I get him sponged to help cool him with the help of a friend who is crewing for the team today. The pulse taker comes but Patch is not standing still. I grab a handfull of skin on his neck, that gets his attention, his feet stop but his head is still busy. Despite all of this his pulse is 52! The pulse taker and all of us standing nearby can hardly believe it. He rechecks it for another 15 seconds, still 52! We proceed to the vet, my crew helper takes him through and leads him for the trot out, and he passes. There is hay and pans of beet pulp, grain and goodies set up for us nearby. He gets his face into that smorgasbord and forgets being excited!
While my crew person holds the reins I go quickly to get a snack for myself with a stop at the plastic throne on the way. My water bottle gets a refill, I shed a shirt (I'm down to 2 layers now) take some ibuprophen for my aching knee, stick my head in a nearby water trough to cool off, and soon the 30 minute hold is over and it is time to mount up and go. Patch gets a dose of electrolites, he is all excited again. I stand rather precariously on the edge of a water trough while somebody holds him and after a bit of dancing, I'm on. Even if he stands perfectly still I need to stand on something to get on him (that comes with age and owies). The timer says we can go.
We start off at a good trot, and Patch is out of camp before he knows he is leaving! This is a new direction, he wants to see what is ahead and his nice big trot quickly puts a few miles behind us. The trail goes up that steep hill we climbed yesterday, miles and miles of it. I slow him to a walk and after about 200 feet he breaks back into his trot. We walk and trot, walk and trot, pass other riders, and finally reach the fork in the trail. Today we take the other path and it goes along the top of a ridge and then up some more through a logged area where there are piles of logs waiting to be hauled out. This land is private timberland, the family who owns it has made a good living selectively logging it for about 50 years.
Finally we do reach the high point in the ride, it would be a great view if it weren't for the forest fire smoke. At least on this side of the course we can't smell it. We are 12 miles into our 20 mile loop.
Down, down, miles of downhill, most of it gradual on old abandoned logging roads with occasional game trails. We catch and pass two more riders who decide to come with us. I tell them that I may need to ride alone if Patch gets nutty. They understand. All goes well with Patch in the lead, and it is nice to have company. Finally the trails come back together and we reach a place I remember seeing yesterday and I know we are close to camp. Patch stays calm this time and I think that big hill would have been nice to have today for the first loop!
He gets a big drink of water, we sponge him again, his pulse is down, my helper takes my card and horse through the vet check, all is well and he is taken back to the hay and goodies. The hold is 45 minutes, I hobble back to the trailer, shed another shirt, refill the water bottle, get something to eat, sit down and put my feet up. My knee has really been hurting. I use some vet wrap on it and take more ibuprophen. We only have about 10 miles to go. I hope there is not too much downhill, that is what bothers my knee.
When I get back to the horse there is still about 20 minutes left before we can leave. It's hot, about 85 and hotter in the sun. We decide the shade of a big pine tree is looking very inviting, so we move a flake of hay, a pan of the beet pulp mixture and the horse over there. Patch and I will both be cooler when we start again. I get some help to give him the electrolites.
Loop 3 starts out like loop one but then we go downstream along a gravel and rock road that follows the creek, then off on another road, up over a hill, down the other side to the same creek that we follow on a trail, and finally cross in knee deep water. The horses all get a drink and I throw my sponge into the stream and haul it up a few times by it's string to sponge the horse without getting off, then we go up a very steep hill on a somewhat imaginary trail for about a quarter of a mile. There are a lot of markers and as long as we sort of follow them we are ok. Thankfully the way down on the other side is a very gradual downgrade. My knee is screaming in spite of the wrap and the pills. We have traveled almost all of this loop with the same 2 horses that we rode with on the loop before and Patch has been good even when they were ahead of us briefly a few times. I hope he has learned something today. This is the kind of ride that will get a horse's attention.
The 3 of us ride into camp together, the horses get good drinks at the water tanks, and are sponged to cool them.I don't see my crew person so I hobble to the trailer leading Patch and unsaddle him. The crew person comes back to the vet area with us and trots my horse. He passes healthy and sound. My team has had another good day, the slow riders finished about half an hour after I did and we got points on the 30 mile ride as well. The team had 7 riders on the trail both days with 100% completion. I am very pleased to have 2 healthy horses again.
Mary
The annual 5 day ride series in southwest Idaho is my destination. Everything I can do at home before it is time to leave has been done. A few plants will just have to be tough this week. All that I think I will need for a week of rides is in the trailer. Breezy and Patch go in last, and away we go.
After driving a few miles I am noticing a significant loss of power and I can see white smoke coming from the exhaust, an indication of restricted fuel supply. My guess is that I got some diesel with junk in the bottom of the tank, so I take the next exit off the freeway and drive back though town to the dealership. Thankfully they say they can work me in, so I drive up the street to a vacant lot and unhitch my trailer. I believe my horses will stand still while I go back to get the truck fixed but if it looks like it will be too long I will walk back and unload them.
The mechanic pulls the fuel filter out, it is gunky. He does a fuel volume test and tells me that my primary fuel pump is not at 100%. If it fails the injector pump will burn out and that is a really big repair bill. He puts in a new fuel filter and checks the fuel volume again, it is much better than before. After a test drive he says that's all he can do for now but that I had better get the fuel pump replaced. I ask him if this is good for a 400 mile round trip, he says "probably but I won't guarantee anything".
That's good enough for now, I go back and hitch up my trailer, pray for a safe trip without more problems, and head down the highway. The delay has been about 2 hours altogether but I still get to my ride camp before dark. Along the way I make a quick stop at a McDonalds and get a chicken sandwich, fries and a tall 7up. I arrive at ride camp with enough daylight to give the horses hay and water, go to the ride office to get my paperwork taken care of and get Breezy vetted before dark.
Evening includes the usual preparations for the next day's ride, attending the rider info meeting, and a lot of visiting. I reset my alarm clock and my watch to Mountain time, pack a lunch, fill my camel pack resevoir and lay out stuff for tomorrow, feed the horses enough to last until morning, put blankets on them, brush my teeth outside under the stars and go to bed.
Two of my teammates who rode last weekend at another ride came over to this ride to get more miles and points for the team. They will be riding the first day, all 3 of us have to finish.
By the time my alarm rings at about 6:30 local time I have been awake for about 2 hours. I hope this doesn't continue all week, but my internal clock is set to Pacific time. I haven't made plans to ride with anybody. My teammates will be going faster than I want to go, so I will just start out and take the day as it comes.
Breezy is happy to be going down the trail with the other horses. He is bored at home but at the ride he is quite happy, more energetic, and always has a good time. About 2 miles out along the single track trail we meet 2 riders coming back on foot without their horses. One horse bucked it's rider off and then went running up the trail and ran into the other horse causing that rider to come off. Both horses ran in a direction that would eventually lead them back toward camp. We wish them the best and go on.
All the rides this week are 50 miles except for day 2 which is 60. We go along with different riders and sometimes alone. The country is big and open, hardly any trees, and it is common to be able to see mountains 40 or 50 miles away, just like home. The big difference is the amount of rocks. Breezy has easyboots on his front feet to protect the soles and prevent stone bruises. Most of the concussion is to the horse's front feet. Some riders boot all 4 but stone bruising seldom happens on the hind feet since they carry less weight.
The trail takes us over hills, through sandy washes, along some jeep roads but mostly on cow trails and several miles looking down into a deep canyon with jumbled rocks. I'm glad we aren't riding into that canyon. We have to walk through the worst of the rocky areas, sometimes a mile at a time. We trot where we can and walk where we have to. The vet check is at a ranch next to a huge stackyard with big round bales stacked up in rows for cattle feeding next winter. After passing the vet inspection I find a flake of alfalfa hay and Breezy is happy to make it disappear while I eat my lunch. Somebody holds his reins for me while I go use the outhouse. There are two plastic thrones mounted on a small trailer which will be pulled around to the vet checks all week. I fill my water reservoir from a 5 gallon insulated cooler on the tailgate of a pickup, grab a couple of cookies and a bag of potato chips, and go back to my horse. It's almost time to go.
By about 30 miles my knees are hurting. I took my last ibuprophen. That's something I forgot to check before leaving home. I'll have to borrow enough to get me through the rest of the 5 days. No problem, everybody carries stuff like this.
About 10 miles from the finish we catch up with a lady I have known and admired for many years. She usually rides faster than I do, but today she is walking, so I slow Breezy to a walk and we ride along together and have a good visit. Soon we are back at camp and our 50 miles is over. I unsaddle Breezy at the trailer, cool him off with a hose and we walk back over to the vetting area. He passes. My teammates have both finished in the top 10 so we have some nice bonus points there. I take Breezy back to the trailer, put cooling clay on his legs, get a snack and a bottle of juice for myself, and it is time to prepare for tomorrow by getting Patch vetted.
I have rented a pen for the week, Patch occupied it last night and today, but I switch horses now and Breezy gets the pen. Patch comes with me to be tied to the trailer on my extended tie arm, and actually has more freedom there than he had in the pen. I feed him some soaked beet pulp and grain with vitamins, clean myself up a little and go to dinner in the yard behind the ride manager's house. Dinners are provided for riders all week. The first night we have meatloaf, potatoes and gravy, green beans and carrots, green salad, hot rolls, and carrot cake, plus a complimentary glass of wine (good for helping relax tight muscles).
The rider information meeting for day 2 and awards for Day 1 take place after dinner and then we go to our trailers to get ready for the night and next day's ride. I pack another lunch, fill my camel back reservoir again, lay out some different equipment since I am changing horses, make sure both horses have hay, water and blankets, and get myself ready for bed.
Note: both the runaway horses were caught near camp, one rider started out again 2 hours late and finished the ride with time to spare. The other rider decided not to ride any more that day but did ride on the same horse on other days.
Mary
It's day 2. I am awake before the alarm rings, crawl out of the sleeping bag, turn on the furnace and crawl back in for a few minutes while the trailer warms up. I have no place to stand except right in front of the furnace vent, and don't want to get blasted with cold air. I watch flashlites bobbing around outside and see lights in trailers nearby, all accompanied by horse and human voices.
Patch greets me with a nicker as I exit the trailer. He is tied on the side with the door, and has enough freedom to stick his head into my living quarters if I were to leave the door open. Of course he knows I have carrots in the ice chest and other goodies like cookies and crackers. He still has some hay and a half bucket of water. I fill a hay bag to take to Breezy since he is in a pen on the way to the outhouse.
After breakfast I saddle and bridle Patch while he eats some soaked beet pulp with vitamins and a little scoop of whole oats. He is fairly calm. That is good, and I hope it lasts. I plan to leave about 15 minutes after the ride starts to let the faster riders get down the trail and out of sight. A neighbor has discussed riding with me but I told her I wanted to go alone today to keep Patch calm. Her horse needs a trail buddy so he won't be missing his buddy in camp. I get her pared up with another person who had asked to ride with me and they go off together. I wait a few minutes, mount up and ride slowly to the start line.
All goes well for about a mile, and then we catch up with another rider. Patch starts tossing his head, going sideways and I can see that it could be a long day. We pass that rider but soon catch up with two more, and then another. I decide that I am going to have to improvise a tiedown for Patch when we get to the vet check. I ride with that last rider we caught since we might have some gates to open along the first part of the ride. Getting back on Patch after opening and closing a gate when he is excited is very difficult. The rider understands my problem and is happy to stay behind me, that helps Patch a little but he is still fighting me and wasting his energy and mine. All the gates were open so that was nice, sometimes we know if there will be gates to open and close and sometimes we don't. I stay with that rider to the vet check since I don't think riding alone at this point would change Patch's behavior and I just want to get there.
When we get to the vet check he pulses down in about 5 minutes, then we get in the vet line, he passes with all A's and we go to find a flake of hay. One of his Easyboots has twisted so I borrow a screwdriver to pry it off, wrap some duct tape around his hoof to help take up some empty space and put the boot back on. Somebody holds him while I go refill my camel back reservoir and take a quick turn at the outhouse.
Somebody else gives me a hay string which I tie to the ring on the halter/bridle combination, run through the ring on the breast collar and tie to the cinch ring. He has enough room to raise his head a few inches above where he normally carrys it, but I won't be seeing nostrils between his ears.
All this has taken me past my out time (the time when I can leave the vet check) and the timer keeps telling me I can go. I am finally ready, find a raised spot where I can stand to give myself a few inches advantage, and get on Patch while somebody holds his head. He knows we are going to go have more fun!
Off we go at a nice big trot. Alone! He is perfect and happy to be going, and so am I. After a mile or so we can see 2 riders in the distance. I slow him down, but after a few minutes can see that we are getting closer. I slow down more, but there are also riders behind me. The space we are in is getting smaller. Patch is traveling along happily and it is a big relief to have a calm horse for a few miles.
We are going to be decending into the Snake River Canyon on a steep single track trail where I will get off and lead the horse down the worst part of it. Before we get to the steep part the trail gets rocky and we proceed at a walk, then trot, walk again. A small rattlesnake crosses the trail ahead of us, Patch stops and watches him nervously. The snake is rattling and crawling, he just wants to be left alone and that is fine with me. When he is off the trail to our left we proceed making a small detour to the right at a walk, then trot on as the trail conditions allow.
I get off and lead him down the steep part. Now are closer to the riders ahead of us but that is still ok with Patch, and I can hear some voices behind us. I'm thankful that he stays calm for the steep trail. It is a challenge for both of us to keep our feet under us, some of the trail surface is loose sand and rocks. At the bottom there is a nice big rock where I can stand to help me get back on. Patch is watching the horses ahead of us so is focused for a few seconds. Just enough time for me to remount. After about another mile we come to the boulders where ancient people made petroglyphs. Some of the things make sense to me, others don't.
We follow the flagging to the river where Patch gets a good drink, and about half a mile past that we catch the riders we have been following. One rider says his horse is lame so he is going to walk and lead the horse. The other rider comes with me. We used to travel and ride together and it would have been rude not to ask her if she wanted to ride with me. Patch is ok with that as long as I stay ahead of her and we have a few good miles.
The trail follows the Snake River for a few miles past the ruins of a rock house, and later past an orchard. Here and there we see some old farm equipment, and the remains of corrals. The gnats are bad along the river, causing the horses to shake their heads. They are bothering us too, being attracted to moisture, that means they get into our eyes, noses, and mouths. It's not a good place for conversation.
Soon we start the climb up out of the canyon on a road that hangs on the side of the cliff. What a view! We look back and see a rider catching up with us, it is the man who was leading the horse a few miles before. He said he lead the horse for about 20 minutes and then couldn't see any lameness so he got on and rode him, felt no lameness so decided that the horse probably hadn't been lame. He might have had a belly cramp because of just having drank a lot of water, and once the water warmed up the horse was ok.
We climb out of the canyon mostly at a walk. Patch walks fast and we stay ahead of the two riders behind us. The layers of rocks that we see on the canyon walls look like ribbons of several different colors. Some of them have much harder boulders in them, and some of those have rolled down toward the river. I can identify some of the sandstone and lava but other layers are a mystery to me. The scenery is fantastic and the day is getting hot but as we climb the breeze increases and the bugs fewer. Patch gets bored with walking and we trot for a while where the road flattens out for short stretches. It's 28 miles between the vet checks today and a 60 mile round trip. We are somewhere around half way.
The trail at the top of the canyon has signs on it telling us we are following the Oregon Trail. We can see wagon wheel ruts in the sandstone in places. I try to emagine the sight of all those wagons, horses, mules, oxen, and people on their westward migration. Soon the trail takes us down through a steep gully. It is sandy and hard for the horse to keep his footing. We are still following the Oregon Trail signs, but the pioneers would have been going up this hill. it probably took them most of a day to get up this one hill, but takes us about 5 minutes to go down. A couple of miles farther and we are at the vet check near a big cattle ranch in a nice valley with a lake. I don't know if this is a man made lake or a natural one.
Patch passes with A's again, and is calm and happy to be eating a nice flake of hay. There is a farrier at this ride and he is at the vet check. He asks if there is anything he can do to help me, "yes, this easyboot is twisted again, do you have a screwdriver?" He does, and he takes the boot off, pries up some metal points on the inside and replaces it. Maybe the points will help hold it where it should be. After refilling my camel back again and using the outhouse (mounted on a trailer and being pulled from one vet check to the next) we check out with the timer and start the last 15 miles alone again.
We follow a road past the ranch corrals (probably about 5 acres of them, it's a big ranch) and then along the lake which is the ranch irrigation water. Sprinklers are going in the pastures and hayfields and we see cattle in the distance. I'm able to count 5 houses on this ranch, all for the families who work here. Soon I pass 2 riders but just say hello and keep going. Several miles later I see dust in the distance and try not to catch them but stay ahead of the ones we passed. That works for a few more miles and then we get too close. Patch gets excited again. He can't throw his head because of the tiedown but he ducks it often and that pulls me off balance. While I rebalance myself he speeds up for a step or two, it is just enough to reward him and he does it over and over. I decide that two can play this game and when he does it again he gets a quick seesawing motion on the reins that gets his attention. After several of those he pretty much quits ducking his head, but is still excited and travels sideways. I will deal with one problem at a time.
We slow down and follow the group of 3 riders at a distance of about half a mile. The riders behind us are not in sight. My knees are hurting, they have been hurting most of the day. I took ibuprophen twice and need some more but it is back at camp. Slowing to a walk for a while helps, then we trot for a mile or so, then walk again. When we get within about a quarter mile of camp I get off the horse and lead him in, this kind of walking is much better and my knees recover.
My teammates did not ride today and they help me unsaddle, take Patch to a nearby hose (what a luxury in a ride camp!) and wash his legs, back, belly, neck and shoulders, but avoiding putting cold water on his hindquarters. Then we go to the vet, Rob trots the horse for me, Patch passes the final check and it also serves as our vet-in for the next day. A horse with this much energy needs at least one more day of the trail.
It's hot, and when not moving down the trail and making a breeze it feels hotter. I take Patch back to the hose for the rest of his shower. He is on the sunny side of the trailer so he will dry quickly. I'm glad to get out of my riding clothes, clean up a bit and sit in the shade for a few minutes, then I put clay on Patch's legs and go to see if Breezy needs anything. Rob has filled his hay bag and water buckets for me, it is so nice to have some help.
Soon it is almost dark and time for dinner, trail information for the next day, and the awards for today. A small group of musicians are tuning up their instruments for a bit of musical fun. I wish I could stay for a while, but there is still a lot to do to get ready for tomorrow, so I head back to the trailer.
Mary
Today is day 3 of the 5 day series. Last evening the ride manager told us that the weather forecast is for temperatures near 95 and asked if we wanted to start half an hour early. Yes! so 7:30 is start time, daylight is at about 7:15. Everyone is up early.
Every day there are new riders since each day is a separate event. Today also starts the 3 day limited distance series, so there are a lot more. Limited distance is 25 or 30 miles. They will start about an hour after the 50's but since they often ride faster they might catch us. It will add an extra tricky element to the task of keeping Patch calm. Today we are trying a trail buddy to see if that helps keep him calm. My ride camp neighbor Nance and her horse Jaz will try to ride together to see if our horses are compatible, it doesn't always work.
We leave a few minutes after the leaders and are soon in traffic. Not good. Patch is kind of nutty but not quite as bad as yesterday. Maybe he is catching on? I hope so. It's 18 miles across the desert plateaus and canyons to the first vet check where we have a 40 minute hold. Patch's pulse comes down a little bit quicker than yesterday (a good sign) and he passes the vet check ok. The easyboot that twisted yesterday has been replaced by a different one and it is staying where it should be. He eats hay and some other horse's leftover beet pulp and goodies. I get somebody to hold him while I refill my water and use the well traveled outhouse.
Soon after I get back I see a horse going sideways dragging it's reins. Then it takes off in a panic, barely missing some other horses and riders on foot, and off it goes through the sagebrush and on to a gravel road. This horse should be on the race track, everybody is impressed with how fast she can run. Two men and the horse's owner quickly get into a pickup and follow the horse who runs about a mile and is cornered in a fenced field and lead back to the vet check. This is the same horse that was missing on a mountain ride for 4 days this summer. I hear that she is for sale.
Some of the limited distance riders have come into the vet check already. They left camp an hour after we did and traveled on the same trail. The hold is 30 minutes for them so they are ready to leave about the same time we are.
Our hold is up, we leave the vet check to go do a 20 mile loop around Wildhorse Butte. Patch walks out of camp in a flat footed walk on a loose rein. Wow! I hope it lasts. Later we trot and walk, trot again and he is just fine. I think the buddy system is working, but also the miles have mellowed him. He is learning that I will let him travel fast and have fun and he doesn't have to fight me for it.
About half way through the loop we come to the Snake River, several miles farther upstream than where we rode yesterday. Patch and Jaz get good drinks, we sponge them to cool them off but don't stay still too long because of all the gnats. The trail follows the river for a few miles and then turns and climbs gently toward the plateau. We soon find ourselves back on the Oregon Trail. Patch and Jaz travel well together, Nance and I visit and soon we are back to the same vet check again.
The horses pass the vet exam and we have a 50 minute hold. All of the limited distance horses have come and gone while we did the 20 mile loop. Patch eats like he never saw food before! We start back to camp, just 12 more miles. My knees are more comfortable today, I took the ibuprophen this morning before the ride started, then again 4 hours later and a 3rd dose on the way back to camp. I understand it has an accumulative effect since it relieves pain by reducing inflamation.
Patch and Jaz travel nicely together, Patch is calm and soon we are at the finish line. I am met by Bev and Rob, my teammates. They rode today, Rob was first to finish and Bev also finished in the top ten. If Patch is fit to continue we will have good points today! They help me unsaddle and cool Patch with the hose, then take him to see the vet. The vet checks hydration and metabolic factors, Rob leads the horse at a trot for soundness evaluation and he passes. He is good to go for tomorrow.
I take a few minutes to sit down on something that doesn't move, then put clay on Patch's legs and start preparations for tomorrow. It's still hot. I'm wishing for a place to lay down in the shade, it is too hot to lay down in the trailer living quarters. I've been thinking I need a folding cot or lounge chair that I can put on the shady side of the trailer.
There is always something to do with 2 horses in camp. I put Patch's saddle pad on top of my truck to dry in the sun. Breezy's pen needs to be cleaned, he needs to go for a walk, and Patch's area near the trailer needs to be cleaned and have some fresh straw spread on the dust. Breezy has been watching everything going on around him and probably wondering when he gets to go again. I tell him it won't be tomorrow. Patch is just finding his brain and I want to continue with him tomorrow.
Later, after another good dinner, ride info for the next day and awards, I check the horses again, fill hay bags and water buckets, put blankets on the horses, fill my water reservoir, and lay out everything for tomorrow's ride. I don't have to pack a lunch tomorrow, we have one vet check in camp and one on the trail, so I can eat when we are in camp. It feels like a real luxury. We really learn to appreciate the little things.
The clock is set and I climb up into the trailer gooseneck and into my sleeping bag. Ahhh!
Mary
Before I know it, morning is here. I have been awake for a while wondering what time it is, then camp sounds begin and I know it won't be long before the alarm rings. When it does, I crawl out of the sleeping bag, turn on the furnace and crawl back in. The furnace could be called a snooze alarm since I turned it up high enough to drive me out in a few minutes if I happen to fall back to sleep.
Patch still has hay and water. I fill a hay bag and walk toward Breezy and the outhouse. While I hang the bag on the fence Breezy gets a nice big mouthfull, and I check his water. I take a bucket with me toward the fawcett and outhouse and deliver it filled on the return trip. I try not to waste steps or energy.
After my usual ride day breakfast I start to saddle Patch. He gets a pan with beet pulp, vitamins and oats. Not much, he doesn't need it for energy, just to help keep him occupied and still while I get him dressed for work. Nance and I will be riding together again. It's the 4th consecutive day for her horse and the 3rd for Patch.
We start out a few minutes behind the pack on a jeep road for about a mile and a half, then turn down a single track trail, cross a rocky dry creek bed and climb up a big hill. Soon we find ourselves on a plateau. The trail takes us across it and then along the edge where we look down into an old lakebed on sandstone formations. In the distance we can see a lava rock wall with an opening. It makes me want to explore it but we are going the other way. Maybe someday.
One of my teammates is riding with us and her horse is a real powerhouse. I feel like we are going too fast, confirmed when we start passing too many others. Patch gets excited after being calm since we left camp. There are horses ahead of us and behind us. It's just too much excitement for him. He prances sideways, and ducks his head pulling me off balance, but is given the 1 second seesaw treatment and only does it a couple of times. I tell my teammate that I have to stop him to regroup. She goes on leaving Nance and I to ride together. A few others pass us but soon we are alone and he settles down when we stop for water. Good, this is real progress! This episode only lasted about 3 miles!
About an hour and a half later we finish the loop and come back into camp, 20 miles down, 30 to go. Patch is fairly calm but knows he is at camp and is thinking he is done. No such luck, buddy. He and Breezy exchange greetings, Patch passes the vet check without a problem and we go to the trailer for our hold. It's only 30 minutes so I have to hurry. Make sure there is hay and water for Patch, give him a fresh flake of hay to be sure he will be interested in eating, fill my water reservoir, then grab a banana and head down to take the blanket off Breezy. He is starting to sweat under it in the desert sun.
We are asked to be on the lookout for a loose horse that broke out of a pen in camp after the riders left this morning and ran off to parts unknown.
The second loop starts out in a different direction but on a trail we have used on other days this week. We climb up through a steep sandy wash and on to a plateau, heading toward mountains but we turn off before we reach them and soon find ourselves at the next vet check at the top of a canyon. Nance's husband is there to help us. We will have an hour hold here. No shade! After passing the vet exam we get settled with a nice flake of hay which Patch munches contentedly while I eat some string cheese and cookies I have carried in my pack. My water reservoir gets topped off and I visit the outhouse as quickly as possible. I wish somebody would add about a gallon of some good smelling disinfectant to it.
It's hot and we are glad to be on the move again. We lead our horses for a mile down the jeep road into the canyon. It feels good to walk. The sand is bright white in places causing us to squint. I wish for my sunglasses which I have managed to forget every day this week. My lips are chapped, maybe beyond chapped, probably sunburned, and I am glad to have lip balm in my pocket. It's soothing but too little, too late. No sunscreen though, another boo boo. It is just hard to remember everything.
There has been a big flash flood since last year when we took the trail along the creek up through Sinker Canyon. The going has always been slow through here but this year it is much worse. Piles of log and brush debris are everywhere and we pick our way along between them over piles of rocks that were moved by the water. In places we get into the creek and walk a hundred feet or so until we see a flag and a place to get out, and often we are back in the water half a minute later.
This year instead of going up to the head of the canyon and getting on to a nice road, we turn off through a side canyon and eventually end up on the plateau again. I look at my watch, it has been 2 hours since we left the vet check and we have only covered 5 miles. The nice road we used to travel had been washed out by the flood.
Nance notices that one of Patch's easyboots is unbuckled probably from hitting a rock in the canyon. I get off to fix it and notice that the other one has a broken cable. Maybe it will stay on for the last few miles since it was a tight fit getting it on his foot.
The rest of the way into camp is a better trail where we can do a lot of trotting. We aren't in a hurry but don't want to waste time either. The last mile into camp is through the sandy wash that started the loop, so we walk down that and on to the finish line and to our trailers where we unsaddle and cool the horses, then back to the vet. Patch and Jaz both pass ok but the vet says the sore places in the corners of Patch's mouth concern him a little, and he would rather that I not ride Patch the next day unless I ride him with a hackamore. Since Patch has never been ridden in a hackamore, I opt not to do that, not knowing if it would be enough to control him if he got excited again.
Patch gets the rest of his shower, has clay put on his legs and I lead him down to the pen to trade places with Breezy. The next stop is the vet, Breezy passes and we are in for tomorrow. I take him back to the trailer, saddle him and go for a half hour ride up a good sized hill just to limber him up and make sure he is not going to have a tie up problem tomorrow after standing around for 3 days. He is ok. Back at the trailer I fill hay and water for both of them and it is time for dinner already. I make sure I have my dinner ticket and a jacket. When the sun goes down in the desert it gets cold in a hurry.
We learn that the missing horse was caught and returned unhurt, but the pen he crashed out of will never be the same.
My teammates both rode today, Rob was first to finish and Bev placed in the top 10 again. With my completion we have points again. They have decided not to ride tomorrow, instead they will go home. Three days before they came to this ride they had competed in another ride, and they have been riding faster than I have, so it is time for them to stop.
It's dark when I get back to the trailer but I grab some cash and go to one of the vendors to buy another water bottle and holder. He is packing up to leave for another ride but knows where the water bottles are. Talk about being a last minute customer! I'm tired of the camel back pack on my back, 4 days is more than enough and although the straps are padded my shoulders are sore from the thing. This will give me a quart of water since I already have another water bottle for the other side of the saddle and they each hold a pint. I check and refill hay bags and water buckets, blanket both horses, switch some of my gear from Patch's saddle to Breezy's, lay out things for tomorrow and get ready for bed.
Four days down, one to go.
Mary
We get to start half an hour later today because it is costume day. This is a tradition with this ride which was originally held close to the end of the month. The ride was moved to an earlier time to take advantage of warmer weather, but the tradition continues. Putting a costume on a horse takes a bit of time and daylight. I don't do the costume thing, I just enjoy seeing what the others have.
My internal clock has me awake for an hour or two before the usual time to get up. It would have been nice to sleep a little longer, but is a good time to pray.
Breezy greets me when I exit the trailer living quarters. He has hay left in his bags, and half a bucket of water. I take a hay bag with me for Patch on my way to the outhouse. He is glad to see me but not starving.
I sit in the trailer eating and thinking about this past week, enjoying the heat from the furnace, and planning my day. All the vet checks are in camp today, that makes it really easy, no lunch to pack, and I can eat a little bit at every stop.
Nance and I are riding together again. We let the faster riders go and leave camp at a walk for the first quarter mile to warm the horses up and make progress at the same time. The jeep road goes out from the upper end of camp, crosses a dry creek and becomes a steep single track trail to the top of a plateau. This is a 20 mile loop, it will take us about 3 hours. Along the way we pass a couple of riders in costumes, then later pass a mom with her two girls who always have great costumes. This year their horses have stripes painted on them and they are bees complete with antenae that bounce as the horses trot. The riders are the flowers with petals around their heads, green clothes making the stems and brown shoes with curly plastic roots hanging from them.
My layers of clothes are getting to be a little too much for the sunny day, off comes the jacket and I tie it behind the saddle when we stop for water. By the time we get back to camp I am ready to take off another layer. We vet the horses and go to our trailers for a 40 minute hold. Breezy gets some whole oats and alfalfa pellets to go with his hay, I grab a banana and go down to Patch's pen to take his blanket off.
Nance comes over to my trailer with some little chocolate bars that she has had in her freezer. I seldom eat candy but this is chocolate so I make an exception. It is good with handfulls of salted mixed nuts between bites. When I return the bag to go back in her freezer I take a bottle of carrot and orange juice for her to try. She agrees that it is good and something she will buy for future rides. We are always looking for variety.
Loop 2 goes in another direction, another 20 mile loop that we have done on another day this week. That's ok, pretty scenery is always worth seeing again. Breezy is happy to be going down the trail today and I think Patch is not too unhappy watching the activity in the vet area near his pen. We travel at a consistant speed, trotting with occasional walk breaks for rocky or steep areas. Thankfully the ibuprophen has my knees quite comfortable today so we aren't taking walk breaks for them. It is getting hot by the time we get back to camp, time to get down to a t-shirt now. The horses pass the vet exam and we go back to our trailers for the rest of the hold time.
Ten miles to go to finish a 260 mile week! We go up a steep hill near camp, through some dry washes and along the edge of one of the plateaus above camp, then down the hill on the steep trail we started on this morning and follow the jeep road back to camp. That took about 1 hr and 45 minutes. One more vet exam, and we are done!
Everybody is a little more relaxed at the dinner. The ride manager gives out the daily awards plus extra awards for the costumes, and one for the fastest time on one horse for all 5 days. That goes to Nance, my riding partner. She is as surprised as anyone, but her husband knew it about mid day. She was about 3 hours faster than the next rider who rode one horse all week. He said he didn't tell her because he didn't want to jinx it. I only rode with her 3 days and I rode 2 horses so I don't qualify. She finished about an hour ahead of me both of the first 2 days, but now this has me thinking that if I ride Patch all 5 days next year maybe I could win that.
Back at the trailer I do a some packing, putting away anything I don't need for tonight and tomorrow morning. A lot of the riders who live just an hour or two away have packed up and started home. Camp is looking kind of empty.
In the morning I start to gather up all the rest of the buckets, hay bags, blankets, horses, and stuff. As I go between trailer and pen I see somebody backing up to hitch their gooseneck trailer in the dark.
Bang, she backed up too far and knocked the trailer off the block under the foot that supports the front when it is unhitched. I go over with my flashlight and we see that the trailer hitch is next to the ball. The trailer has to come up a few inches so she can back under it again. She finds a jack and some boards, and starts to lift the front of the trailer for another try. By now there are several onlookers/helpers. Somebody asks if she has blocked the trailer wheels, no, so another lady and I find things to put behind the wheels, and just as we have blocked the wheel on one side, the trailer slips off the jack. It twists a bit since wheels on the other side are not yet blocked. We look with the flashlight again and see that the hitch has fallen right over the ball and all she has to do is lock everything in place! If a person tried to do that again it probably wouldn't happen in 50 tries.
I give the horses some grain with their vitamins and make sure they have some hay. Somebody comes along leading 2 horses and wonders if there is an empty pen, there are several so I help her put them in. She doesn't recognize the horses she found wandering this morning, but I do. I just don't know where the people are camped but I know they will come looking for them.
As I'm packing up the last few things, Nance comes over and invites me to have breakfast with them in their trailer. Scrambled eggs and toast, you bet! I congratulate her again on the award she got, and she says she was so excited about it that it was hard to sleep!
My trip home is uneventful, thankfully the new fuel filter is working and so is the fuel pump. I find a Christian station on the radio and listen to some good gospel music and a couple of good sermons, and the trip goes quickly. A few minutes after I arrive home, my hubby is back from church. Great timing! He offers to take me to lunch, what a great idea, all I need is a few minutes and a shower.
Mary
Patch has had 2 weeks of rest and is now looking energetic again. We are going back to Idaho, but this time up the Weiser River northwest of Boise, to ride on an abandoned railroad right of way that has been turned into a non-motorized trail. Although it appears to be flat, it actually climbs at the rate of 1 or 2 percent while we are going north and of course when we turn around to retrace our steps we will be decending ever so slightly. This year we get to go almost to the end of the old rail line. The last two tressles do not have side rails so we will be bypassing them on a parallel jeep road, but basically this is the northernmost point of the old rail line that was developed to carry logs from forest to sawmill. The ride camp is at the rodeo grounds at Council, Idaho, a small town along the route.
Our ride is a fund raiser for the Friends of the Wieser River Trail, a nonprofit organization that has taken on the rebuilding of all the tressles, resurfacing of the railroad bed, rest stops along the way, and eventually, horse camps.
We start our ride a few minutes after daylight. Nance and I are riding together again along with a couple from Idaho. We are camped across the highway from the railroad trail, so the ride managers have us start half a mile from camp. Most of the riders have already ridden out of camp at a walk while I was getting ready to leave, and the 4 of us walk calmly out of camp, cross the highway and arrive at the trail about 5 to 10 minutes after the ride has officially started. We start to trot as soon as we reach the railroad, which looks like a jeep road. Patch is about a half horse length in the lead. My companions understand that I want to keep him calm, one stays beside us with his horse's nose about at my knee, another is behind him and the other follows Patch. We go several miles like this and Patch is nice and calm even when we pass other riders.
The first few miles of the ride go past farm fields and houses, and soon we are seeing a lot of fruit trees, some right along the right of way and so close to the old roadbed that I am able to reach out and pick an occasional apple while we trot past. Ummm, good, sweet apples, just ripe enough and there are several varieties available. What could be better?
We stop at the first vet check, about 16 or 17 miles from the start. Patch's pulse reaches 60 a couple of minutes after we arrive and we go to the vet. After the vet exam we find some alfalfa hay and Patch is happy to munch. I get somebody to hold him while I fill my water bottle, make a pit stop (outhouse on wheels) and then I pass the rest of the time visiting with a lady who is sitting nearby in a lawn chair with a blanket keeping her legs warm. She is visiting her daughter who is volunteering at the ride. It takes a lot of volunteers to make a ride run smoothly and I thank them every chance I get.
Soon our hold time is over and we mount up and continue along the trail. The hills beside the right of way have gradually gotten steeper and now are covered with pine trees. We are still following the Wieser River and have crossed several tressles, some of them are high above the river. Patch crosses even the highest one without a problem, good thing because we have to cross it again on the return trip.
The private properties along the trail reveal interesting things about the people who live there. Some folks sit in lawn chairs and wave or take pictures as we pass, at other places we see nobody, some folks have allowed the ride manager to run a hose from their water source to a stock tank for our horses to have a drink, but there are others who are unfriendly. Two places have hostile signs telling us that the public use of the trail is an invasion of their privacy. We try to pass respectfully. I might feel the same way if I had bought property facing an abandoned right of way and later had hikers, bicycles and horseback riders going past.
Patch has been a very good boy, has let other horses pass him without getting excited and we have switched places in our little group so he has been in the middle and at the back without a problem. I think he is growing up! Soon we reach the 2nd vet check, but for now it is just a water stop. We pass through and continue for another few miles and reach the end of the first half of our miles. To prove we have been there we use a punch that is hanging on the fence to punch a hole in our vet cards, then start back. Patch is in the rear at this point and we catch up with another group of 4 riders. Another rider has been walking, then cantering, walking, cantering again. She has passed us several times and we keep catching her when she slows down. She is driving all of us nuts, Patch is getting excited. I try to slow him down to let the whole group go ahead but that makes it worse. I decide that I will stay with them following at a little distance until the vet check and then probably ride the last few miles alone or with a slower group.
We have a 45 minute hold at the vet check. The sun is hot, I have too many layers of clothes on, having started when the temperature was about 35 and an hour before the sun was up. The sweatshirt was just barely adequate then but I knew it would be ok as soon as we started trotting. I peel off my riding helmet and sweatshirt, and splash some water on my head and face. A helpful volunteer holds Patch who is still excited and restless until he gets interested in some hay and settles down to eat. I tie my sweatshirt behind the saddle and go to get my water bottles refilled. The ride managers have ice chests of sandwiches that were donated by a local Deli, and so I eat a ham sandwich while I visit with the volunteer. He turns out to be a very interesting Christian fellow who is also a chef. His wife is riding today so he came to help whoever needed help. Bless his heart. He gets a big thank you.
I have something going on with a toothache or an abcess. It started a couple of days before I left home, and I thought flossing and vigorous rinsing would take care of it, but it has been getting worse. I make sure I take some ibuprophen before leaving the vet check and try to ignore the discomfort. My knees are also uncomfortable so I can choose which pain gets my attention or try to ignore them both, that is better since I can do little about either one.
I stay in the vet check an extra 10 or 15 minutes and then start out alone. Patch has had all the hay he wants, another drink of water and a nap. We walk out of the vet check about 20 minutes ahead of the next group of riders. I think they will finish behind us, and I doubt that we will catch anybody. I think Patch has learned a lot today so it is good that we can just travel alone, stop and pick apples, and have a nice quiet few miles back to camp. I'm finding it hard to bite into an apple but Patch gets a lot of them.
We trot across the finish line, I stop and give the finish timer my vet card and she writes our finish time on it. Then we just walk the half mile to camp. Patch's pulse is down when we get there, and he passes the final vet check healthy and sound. I lead him to the trailer to pull off the saddle and rest. Patch gets his nose into his hay bag right away and I wish for a place to lie down for a while, and decide I must have a lounge chair to add to my gear. Over the years I have thought about it several times but today it almost seems like a necessity.
There is no potluck at this ride because it gets so cold so soon after the sun goes down, and also because many of the riders want to get an early start to go home since they live close by. I eat a banana, some nuts, yogurt, cookies, and keep checking to see if it is time to take more pills. My face hurts and I try to ignore it by staying busy, taking Patch's easyboots off, packing my gear, going to see the pictures our friendly local photographer takes of us, and visiting with friends.
Just before dark awards are given out. We have had some interesting competators today, one of them is a sled dog racer who has won the Alaskan Iditarod race several times. He and his wife both rode today, she got bucked off her horse, but got back on and finished the ride. I saw her an hour or so before the awards and she was walking (?) like she hurt a lot, but she was smiling because she had finished the ride. She says she needs to do a little more work with her horse, a real understatement!
Another rider was a lady from Louisiana who had sold her home and bought a horse trailer with living quarters so she could travel with her horse and see the USA! I talk with her for a few minutes and wished her happy travels.
I pack everything that I can before I go to bed since I will be getting up about 5 am and heading home in the dark. My hubby is expecting me to be home in time to go to church. Patch has 2 buckets of water and 2 bags of hay, he is blanketed for the night and happy. My face is feeling quite swollen and hot, something in there is very unhappy. I take more ibuphrophen and go to bed.
Mary
A week later, I take Patch and we head for western Oregon in the western foothills of the Cascade mountain range. My face is much more comfortable since the abcess broke on Tuesday, and I am still rinsing with salt water a few times every day and taking some powerful antibiotic 4 times a day that cost over $1 each. At that price they ought to work.
The weather will be dry and sunny this year, a real contrast with last year's cold, wet, miserable conditions at this event. Several of my teammates arrived before I did, and they saved me a place to camp near them. We have enough riders to earn points on the 25 and 50, plus a couple of extras for insurance. One of our riders is a midwife, gone to deliver a baby hopefully soon enough to get to the ride and do the 25 miler. Her horse was brought to the ride by a friend and will be vet checked and ready to go if she makes it in time.
I go to do the paperwork, visiting along the way with other riders. What should take about 10 minutes takes more than half an hour, but I expect that, it always happens. Patch has had about an hour to relax and eat by the time I take him for the vet exam.
I put easyboots on Patch's front feet, this ride has ROCKS! I have a pair that are pretty worn out and decide to put plastic hoof pads inside in case the holes in them get real big so there will still be some protection for the soles of his feet. My teammates have lots of hot food, very welcome on this chilly evening. We visit and laugh around a propane "campfire" until it's time for the rider information meeting. After the meeting I check Patch's water and hay, refill both, and prepare for bed.
Morning camp sounds wake me up before daylight. I crawl out of the sleeping bag just long enough to turn the furnace on, and crawl back in to stay warm until the living space is warm. My five minute planning session ends with a prayer for safety and success for all the horses and riders. Amen, and it is time to get dressed and check Patch's food and water again. During the night he managed to drink or spill both buckets of water. I haul 2 fresh bucketfulls to him, he sniffs and ignores it, so I am reasonably sure he drank well before playing with them.
Back into the warm trailer, ah, such luxury! I eat my usual ride morning breakfast, then go back out into the dark to start saddling Patch. The sky has some light in it now, and it will be just light enough to see when we start down the trail.
Patch gets some beet pulp, grain and vitamins to keep him occupied while I saddle him. He sees other horses moving around and his adrenaline is working. Before I start to bridle him his feet are moving. I slip him a treat to get his attention while I get the bit into his mouth and headstall over his ears, then give him another one which he chews while I fasten the snap that holds everything on.
Just when I am ready to mount up, my friend David comes over and we start to warm up our horses at a walk while we watch most of the other riders pass the start line, and then we go. I hope to keep Patch calm all day. The first loop is 20 miles, we start down a paved road and then go past a gate and into the woods. Our ride is on private land belonging to several different owners. It is quite heavily timbered and we are riding on logging roads, some old ones with grass and fir neeles covering the rocks, and some new ones with the rocks exposed. We also travel on some game trails, through some muddy places, past tree farms for timber, tree farms for Christmas trees, and a couple of open meadows. Although the sun is out, we are mostly riding in the shade because of all the trees. The trail does a lot of ziging and zaging, and without reference points in the distance it is hard to tell just where we are, but the trail markings are very good.
It takes about 4 hours to do the first 20 miles, pretty slow going. Our horses pass the vet exams and we go to our trailers for about half an hour. The day is feeling warm so my jacket comes off. Patch isn't too hungry, but he does like the panfull of beet pulp, alfalfa pellets, and grain, then picks at his hay. I trade flakes of hay with the rider at the trailer next to me and he is more interested in that flavor. It's important to keep plenty of food going into the horse all day.
Hold time goes quickly and soon David is at my trailer again, mounted up and ready to go. We ride out about 3 minutes past our hold time, that's not too bad, but we don't want to be wasting time either. We try to make up time on the trail, but there is more rock on this loop so it goes slower than the first one, 3 1/2 hours for 15 miles.
Back in camp for another vet check, another hold, this one is 45 minutes. An extra 15 minutes makes it much more relaxed. The sun is still out but we know that it could be dark and cold when we finish, so I tie my jacket behind the saddle. Patch is more interested in the hay now, and I get a sandwich, a banana, some juice and a handfull of nuts and even sit down to eat it!
Just before leaving I fill the water bottle on the saddle, put Patch's bridle back on and tighten the girth. David thinks his long sleeved shirt will be warm enough so he doesn't take a jacket. I would rather be too warm than cold.
The trouble with these rides where all the vet checks are in camp is that by this point in the ride the horses want to stay here. Two horses together leave much better than one horse alone, but it is still a bit slow. It doesn't help that the trail goes out of camp the same way for the first mile or so on every loop, so the horses are bored with it and to be honest, so are the riders. However, soon we come to a fork in the trail and get to see something new. The horses are interested in what's ahead and now we can travel faster, or at least more willingly.
There is a long rocky stretch on this loop, new logging road through a newly logged area. The timber company has already begun replanting trees from a nursery that specializes in forest trees for timber production. We pass a Christmas tree farm where we see trucks, ladders, and trees marked with different colors of surveyor tape. They could be marked for several different markets, or maybe it is grades or sizes of trees, or variety, we don't know but it is fun to try to guess as we ride along.
Suddenly Patch limps and I pull him up and get off to see that one of the easyboots has almost no foot pad left and my extra pad inside it is gone. I borrow David's Leatherman tool and struggle with the buckle and cable on the boot, finally getting it pried off. The other boot is almost as bad, I take it off too so that the front feet will feel the same. Patch is not standing still and that doesn't help the job go smoothly, but after about 5 minutes I finally get it done and we are on our way again but slower now to try to get through the rest of the ride without a stone bruise.
The sun is getting very low, the shadows are long, the air is cooling quite quickly. David says he is wishing for his jacket. I untie mine and put it on, and as we ride along I comment often on how nice and warm I am just to tease him. Actually the top part of me is all that is warm, my legs are getting cold but I don't mention that. We try to calculate how far it might be to the finish line, estimating distance traveled based on how long we have been out of camp, and how much more time it will take. Our goal has been to finish before dark, but now we wonder if we can do it. Soon we come to a section of trail that I remember leads into camp in just a couple more miles, but it is uphill, rocky and we are quickly loosing light. I'm cold but not telling David.
It takes about half an hour to cover the last two miles. We are almost to camp and can barely see the trail markings. Soon I see that we are riding beside a fence with a pasture beyond it. I know that belongs to the ride manager and the gate into camp is just up the road around the bend. David is really kicking himself for not bringing his jacket.
We ride across the finish line, hand our cards to the finish timer to have our time recorded and now I have to get off and see if my legs still work. My teammates meet me just beyond the finish line with a blanket for the horse. One of them takes my card and the reins and we head for the pulse taker and the vet area. David's wife meets him with horse blanket and a jacket, and she takes his horse to be checked. I watch as the horses are examined, and as they trot out for the final evaluation, they both pass and we are done! My teammates all finished so we have points on both distances. It is only then that our team leader tells us that the team was so far ahead going into today that no other team could have caught us and we all could have stayed home! The midwife did make it to the ride, rode the 25 mile ride and went home full of coffee to stay awake.
I warm up a little while teammates unsaddle, feed and water my horse and say goodbye. They all live within about an hour or two of the ride site so they are all going home to hot showers and warm beds! What, you're not gonna stay here and suffer with me? No, they are not. Hummmmph!
One of the endurance riders who didn't come to the ride to ride, came to cook instead. He is from Louisiana and has made a big pot of turkey gumbo, and cooked a big pot of rice! I head for the food tent, and have 2 bowlfulls of gumbo. There are other dishes as well, I would have brought something if I had been aware of the plan, but there is plenty of food. I also have some cold spaghetti and salad, and take the last piece of some kind of berry pie. The wind has come up and I am getting very cold sitting there visiting while waiting for the awards to be given.
The ride managers toot a horn and that is the signal to gather nearby for the day's awards. I stand there freezing and wishing my high carbohydrate foods would start to get me warm. These award ceremonies are another form of endurance! There were about 60-70 riders and it takes a while to announce all their names, give them their awards, thank the volunteers, the vets, the guy who cooked the gumbo and all those who helped anybody do anything. Clapping does help keep a person warm to a limited extent. I should also have been jumping in place! When it is over everybody disappears back to their trailers almost instantly. I thank God again for my furnace while I hover over it getting warm enough to get out of my riding clothes and into a sweatshirt and sweatpants to go to bed.
In the morning I walk around with Patch, he eats some leftovers from other horses, different flavors of grain and hay, and I visit with a couple of people that I missed earlier when all of us were busy. One of the riders is a man who lives on my side of the state, so we decide to caravan for most of the trip and also stop for a hot breakfast. Bob is new to endurance riding this year so he still has a lot of questions. I tie Patch to the trailer while I pack up for the trip home, and soon we are on our way down the mountain in heavy clouds with the truck heater going to warm my cold hands and feet. Before we get to the first town in the valley the sun is out and the rest of the trip home is quite pleasant, just long.
Mary
Breezy and I are on our way to the last ride of the 2006 season. It's hard to believe that the fun is almost over for a few months. We leave home about mid morning for the 6 hour drive to the ride in the central Oregon high desert. I hope I have enough warm clothes, it is going to be cold overnight and at the start and end of the ride.
I find the area where my team is parked, unload Breezy, take him to the nearest water tank, and then back to the trailer, hang up his hay bag, greet my teammates and go find the ride office to enter the 60 mile ride. After that I take Breezy for a walk to the corral area about 1/4 mile beyond the start line where there are some really strange looking critters in the corral, and others wandering at large. Breezy needs to meet them in the daylight and I need a walk after being in the driver's seat for several hours.
The occupants of the corral are Scottish Highlander cattle. They are small, with big horns, and a long shaggy coat which makes them look like something out of the last ice age. The wind is blowing all that long hair which adds to the strange effect. Breezy does a lot of snorting and dancing around before deciding they are just cows. The other strange beasts are a herd of around 100 pigs. That's right, pigs! All sizes and colors!They roam at will because they are way out away from any other farms and roads with traffic, and are fed at a central location which they return to after ranging quite a ways in all directions through the sagebrush and juniper trees, sand and rocky hillsides. I don't want Breezy to be surprised by them since we will pass this corral area several times tomorrow. After he meets the beasts I saddle him and we go for a little ride up a hill in another direction, returning to camp with just enough daylight to find my trailer.
My team has a potluck. I add my gourmet storebought pie, get a platefull of lasagna and other things, and find a place by the propane heater and phony bonfire which also makes a wee bit of heat. Soon it is time for the rider information meeting. It's quite cold already, and even through I put on an extra layer I am cold from just sitting waiting for the meeting. My warm trailer and bed sound real good. Breezy gets another bag of hay, a bit more water, and I hover over my furnace vent in the trailer before climbing into bed.
I'm awake long before I need to be. The sounds of nearby riders feeding their horses and Breezy's gentle tugs on his rope are comforting, except for the fact that I have to get out there soon. When I do, I find about a half inch of ice on Breezy's buckets. He gets more water from a tank with ice on the top. I refill the hay bag and go back inside the trailer. When it is time for the 75 milers to start I go down to the start line to watch for excitement, there is none even though it is still dark and most of the riders have a light on their helmet or on the horse's breast collar. A few just go without lights, the horses can see ok and there are plenty of lights to follow.
This morning as I am eating my cold yogurt, cold banana, cold juice, etc, I think about something like scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, pancakes, anything hot. I've eaten this cold breakfast a lot of times this year, it works for me and my low blood sugar problem so I stick with it, and it is way too much trouble to cook anything no matter how simple. I do have hot water in a pump thermos, so I make hot chocolate, but don't want to drink too much liquid.
My fingers get pretty cold while I am saddling Breezy, but then I put on some gloves and they get warm. I also have some chemical patch type toe warmers, so I have toasty toes. We start off just as there is barely enough light to see, down the road past the scarry cattle. they are eating some hay and Breezy doesn't even notice them. No pigs in sight, thank You Lord! I'm cold for a while but soon warm up. My riding companion for the first couple of miles is a lady from England who now lives in the US. She is riding a horse that she shipped over from England, having to sell two of her others to do that. She really loves this horse!
A bit later we join a group of about 8 riders, too many, they make a lot of dust, but I stay in the back and let them go. Soon the air is clear again. Max, the man with the mules that I often ride with is also content to go a bit slower, so we ride along together and visit. The sun is up, my jacket is too warm, I unzip it and that helps. My hands are also too warm, so the gloves come off and are tied to the saddle strings. The mule wants to go faster and I let them go without trying to follow. Soon another rider catches me. Dori is a lady I have not ridden with for a long time, so we visit. We come to a rider who is struggling with an easyboot. She has no experience with them except that they keep coming off. I get off and help her get the boot back on and show her how to adjust it so that it will stay on. The other one also needs to be tightened so I do that and she thanks me and goes on her way.
All the vet checks are in camp today. Breezy has gotten quite warm with his winter coat on, and I sponge his neck and shoulders to cool him and get his heart rate down. It takes a few minutes, then we go to the vet line, he passes and we go back to the trailer for about half an hour. I take off some of the warm stuff and grab some salted nuts and a couple of cookies. Breezy picks at his hay and soon it is time to go again.
As the day heats up I have more and more trouble getting Breezy's heart rate down at the checks. By mid afternoon the temperature is 80, people are walking around camp in tank tops and flip flops! This is crazy.
When we leave to do our last loop I take my jacket along because I know it will be dark and cold when we finish. We have switched riding companions again, Dori wanted to finish before dark, and the mule man has slowed down. It's dark when we approach camp, and I laugh when I hear Max's cell phone ring, it is his wife warning him that there are pigs near the finish line. As we proceed several pickups pulling trailers are leaving. Their lights make it difficult to see since they are coming out on the road we are using to return to camp, but they are good for something, in the dusty light we can see the pigs. They cross the road in front of a truck and I move Breezy to the side they just left and hope there are no more. Finally I just get off and lead him the last eighth of a mile in. We don't encounter any more pigs.
Two of my teammates meet us at the finish line with a blanket for Breezy. His heart rate is down below 60 beats per minute when we get to the pulse taker. We go to the vet area, Breezy munches some hay while we wait for our turn, then one of my teammates trots him out for the vet to check for soundness and he passes. My team had riders earning points on the 75, the 60 and the 30 miler today, lots of points.
I have help with unsaddling Breezy and he gets a warm blanket, a bucket of fresh water which a teammate carries for him, and a fresh bag of hay. I take off some of my riding gear and put on my insulated coveralls and a heavier jacket. The team has another potluck next to the heater, front side is warm back is cold. Turn around and the back gets warm and the front cold. Our team leader tells us that we were so far ahead of the next team that we all could have stayed home today! We get a laugh out of that and promptly elect her to be team captain again next season. I sit there too long and my shoulders feel quite cold and achey, so I excuse myself early and go to bed to get warm.
Awards are given out the following morning and I pack up to head home. There are 3 trailers going the same direction so we decide to eat breakfast at the first town, it is about 90 miles, so we are all hungry when we finally get there. Ah, hot food, such a luxury! The season is over.
