We had a pretty good time last weekend. I rode Chief on Friday to mark trail along with Sue Wilkie and her horse Rocky. Then, I rode Bo on the first day of the ride in the 50, and Chief in the 50 on the 2nd day. The weather turned out great, and all things considered the turnout was decent – though still down over the previous year. I think that may just be the trend with the economy the way it is – ride participation is going to be down.
On day 1 there were around 21 in the LD and 31 in the 50. Winning time on the 50 was 5:52. On day two there were 8 in the LD and 24 in the 50 with the winning time on the 50 being 5:25. Rouven Krauer got BC on day 1, and on day 2 Mae Chase-Dunn got BC. Four people rode 2 horses both days, and 12 people rode the same horse both days.
My horses had just had a nice break in between ride seasons. Chief had nearly three months off, and Bo had six weeks off. They both had pretty incredible seasons in 2011. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that horses need breaks, even if they are performing extremely well. I’ve seen too many people not follow that protocol and have seen their horses fall apart prematurely (versus if they had been more generous when it came to giving their horse a vacation after a busy year). I’m still never quite sure where that imaginary line is. You know the one in the sand, the one that should you cross it means that something is going to go wrong with your horse. And, they aren’t like our vehicles that we can simply go out and buy a new part for. When a horse breaks it usually means time off, or worse case scenario an end of their career. So I’m kind of cautious there, always trying to figure out how much is too much, not enough, or just right. Always watching for signs of wear and tear.
You can imagine how happy I was that both of my horses finished their ride day at this ride in great shape. I took it pretty easy on both of them, using this more as a pre-check ride for the upcoming Death Valley Encounter where they will hopefully each do two days. Yet, still not easy so a good test to ensure that they are indeed ready to go. Besides always being concerned about how much time off is appropriate is the worry about giving too much time off. A super fit horse that is idle is not always a good thing.
The weather was great all week at home leading up to the ride. It was below freezing on the Thursday morning I left to drive down. Fortunately this is a fairly close ride, less than 300 miles away. I had a bit of trouble getting my water filled up. The first water hose was frozen, in spite of having drained it previously. I took that hose and went to put it in my large heated water trough knowing it’d thaw out quickly to find that the circuit breaker in the barn tripped and that tank was iced over on top.
I soon found out that I had no reason to feel sorry for myself. Al called to tell me that the front axle had come off of his truck. Seriously, he wasn’t kidding. HUH? WHAT? It was a good thing he came to the ride with Nannette. They were driving their pickup, pulling the LQ gooseneck trailer and went to turn at Kramer Junction when it happened. They were able to stop, and get out of traffic and call for help. They were so close to the ride, but had to get towed back to Vegas. Oh mannnnn!!! Nannette said they would refer to Plan B, and hook up the motorhome to the bumper pull, move everything over and come back the next day. And they did, tho it wasn’t in the cards for that to go super well for them either, but at least they finally did make it into camp on Friday and all in one piece.
I was still out marking trail with Sue. It was interesting as the wind had come up a bit. We were trying to pin ribbons to moving targets. Which, we decided should be an olympic event. Especially if you are A) on a moving horse and B) trying to pin a ribbon to a moving bush and C) leaning down to a bush that is lower than your stirrup. What fun! The horses were good sports, and we got it done. Chief and Rocky were happy to get to the end point where the trailer had been left for us to haul back in. That went well…until we got stuck. Hehehe. I swear you can’t make this stuff up! I unloaded both of the horses while Sue backed up and made a running start at a hill and made it up and over. Reloaded the horses and we made it safely back to camp. It made me appreciate how nice it is to have a horse that quietly loads in and out of any type of trailer.
Both days of the ride are a LD and a 50, and it is an elevator. That complicates things a bit, especially the first day when the 50's are out of camp all day. The LD’s have to decide at about 17 miles if they want to go back to camp, or elevate at that check and continue on to do the 50. I think most people know by that point so it’s not a big deal. Some trails just don’t work out to be mileage that breaks things evenly in half..
P
lan B for Al and Nannette isn’t too bad, really….lol….and on Friday evening we sat inside their motorhome facing the vet check in area. We watched everybody vetting in their horses, which was quite entertaining. Most of the horses did pretty well. The most mis-behaved and dangerous horses belonged to well experienced long time endurance riders. One of those horses got out of control, spun around and nearly double barrel kicked the ride vet in the head. Barely missing by inches. I mean “barely”. Then the horse proceeded to get loose from the rider and gallop off into the desert. Before that, the horse spun another way around and double barrel kicked at another horse. Other people just arriving thought that the other horse initiated the kicking contest….let me tell you…not so, that grey horse was wayyy over there minding it’s own business! It is disappointing to see that. Newby riders often have horses that may not have manners or know to stand still, or when to stop after trotting out but they rarely behave that dangerously. This last full calendar year though, I can say without a doubt that it’s been the more experienced riders and horses that I’ve seen cause the most injuries, wrecks and accidents. It makes me want to stay off to myself and not get into groups on the trail, in camp or at water troughs. Please respect my space, and I will respect yours. I hope nobody thinks I’m being anti-social or rude; it’s just that I don’t want to put my horses into a situation where they could get hurt.
I started out the first day riding Bo along with Nannette who was on Extra (who she calls “Crack), and Sue who was riding Rocky. We waited till everybody left camp and had a nice easy calm start. I knew that Bo would be a handful and even moreso if he was trying to catch other horses. He walked really nice and we had a fantastic start. It wasn’t until we had gone a few miles and started to catch other riders that he started to get wound up. In fact, he behaved the worst he ever has to date and a couple of times started trying to buck with me. He wasn’t very good at it, so I’m not sure he was trying to buck so much as crow-hop and have a fit. The first time he did it, I stopped him and got after him, kind of surprised that he did it since it happened while I was letting him pass two other horses. The second time he did it, I stopped him and REALLY got after him. From that point on, he knocked it off and settled in. I knew it was more my fault than anything since I didn’t ride him the day before – I chose to take Chief out (which made him much easier to ride on Sunday). You can’t get a horse as fit as Bo, give him six weeks off and then expect perfect behavior. Lesson learned on the part of this human. I know he is a super competitive, fit horse and it was really stupid of me to put him in that situation.
The rest of the ride went really well. We had a great ride into lunch which was in a dry lake bed. Bo was being really good by this point and was more than happy to dig into his food. Sue decided to pull Rocky as he had hit himself and was alternating okay and not okay. Extra was doing well too, happy to snuggle up with Bo and see if he had any food that might better than his own. Annie had hot cup of soups and hot chocolate for lunch for us, along with water, chips and candy for us.
My lower back was starting to bother me, no doubt from Bo’s early misbehaviors. Nannette and I vetted our horses on the way out from lunch and were on our way. We soon found ourselves heading downhill on the long, steep sand-hill. I decided to stay on Bo, in part because I didn’t have my tall boots on and because he was walking so fast I knew that there was no way I could walk that fast on foot, so why not make it easy on myself? I wasn’t sure my back would hold up anyhow. When I got to the bottom, I got off and pulled out a gallon sized baggie of Strategy that I always carry for the horse and fed it to Bo. Nannette caught up in a few minutes and I fed some of it to Extrah. We still had a long downhill grade to go, so walked that on foot. We got back on and soon found our way heading up another really good climb. It was somewhere in that area that Nannette’s Oregon GPS fell out of her pocket 
The sun had set and it was cooling off when we made it into the finish, finally. The weather had been gorgeous and the trail a nice challenge with mostly excellent footing. Bo was in good spirits and vetted through with no trouble at all. He and Chief were happy to see each other again. I got Bo cleaned up, wrapped his legs and then was barely able to crawl into my trailer. Talk about having GREAT LUCK – ME ME ME!!! My chiropractor and friend Dublin Hart was at the ride and she heard that my back was killing me….so she came over to my trailer and adjusted my back. OMG! I was hardly able to walk before, and afterwards I was able to move without pain…well, without excruciating pain. What a relief that was, and how lucky was I? Then, she even sent over Zach to walk my horses for me later. He’s a “former junior” 
and was nice to do that for me!
By morning I was feeling much better, well rested and my back didn’t bother me at all. Even though the heater in my LQ hasn’t been working since the Grand Canyon ride. I think the thermostat is broken. I can deal with it being in the 30's in my trailer in the morning, but it sure sucks to get out of the shower when it’s only 38 degrees inside after finishing!
On day 2, I put on my tall riding boots for the deep sand and headed out on Chief, again, waiting for everybody to go first. Chief was very well behaved and stayed that way for some time. On this day I rode with Nannette who was on Wizard. We always manage to ride different colored horses together it’s kind of funny how that works out. Wizard is so calm and laid back, he has a good effect on Chief who can be a bit too much Type A at times. Though, to be fair – after 12,000 miles on Chief he hasn’t gotten so wound up as to try and buck me off EVER (bad, bad, bad boy Bo!) Chief was pretty good, like I said, until we had gone maybe 25 or 30 miles into the ride. Then get this, he didn’t get obnoxious about going because we were headed to camp, but because we were at the farthest away point…and he KNEW it! Because that was where he marked trail on Friday (and did so the year before, too). I couldn’t let him trot because he wouldn’t “trot nice” (without me having to pull on him), so I made him walk – which worked since he had his fast walk on – poor Wizard had to jog to keep up, or would just drop way back, then trot to catch up. Finally we started to go back to camp and everything was fine, though it was like riding in a sports car that has the gas peddle mashed down with one foot, and the brake with the other. Chief, Really? I was having cross country ride withdrawals at this point, trying to give myself reasons for doing this circling camp thing we were doing. The point? Certainly the horse had no understanding of the concept at that moment other than “we must get back to camp as fast as we can”. At least my back didn’t hurt.
Lunch went well in camp, I had a peanut butter sandwich and watched Chief eat like a giant Hoover. One more loop to go, this was a pretty loop too, going north. At one of the most farthest points out we picked up a card from a deck of cards to prove we were there. Chief was walking faster the farthest away from camp he got, then once we turned towards camp we trotted almost the entire way in. That worked and got us in just before dark, without getting the horses too hot and sweaty. While the weather was sunny and nice, it was cooler than the year before. Making me glad that I had not clipped. Day 2 had roughly the same ride time as I’d had the day before, give and take the differences in the hold times (45 minutes on day 1 and 1 hour on day 2).
One of the things that I noticed a lot on this ride were the riders who trotted downhill, then walked on the flat. I am always trying to minimize the stress placed on my horses, so want to do what is easiest on them. Trotting on the flat is easier than trotting downhill. Trotting uphill is good if it’s early and you want to keep your horse leveled out and steady, then it’s better to watch the terrain. If the footing is good, ALWAYS choose to walk down or uphill, and trot on the flat when you have the choice. If you do otherwise, you’ll have riders like me shaking their heads {bg}.
Chief finished in fine shape at about a quarter to five. 
The sun had set and we had just enough time to get the horses taken care of before dark. Annie had made the nicest beef stew for dinner that I think I’ve ever had. The ride had seemed pretty hard overall and I was tired out. I’m sure it was in part due to the shorter daylight hours, and taking care of two horses by myself, plus the fact that my back went out for part of the time. I decided that I am for sure going to stay in better shape and be better prepared for the Death Valley Encounter at the end of the month! My horses flat out wore me out, just like I expected. I’m not complaining, that kind of tired and wore out feeling, is the best kind there is.
For the next ride I have these goals 1) get the heater in the trailer fixed, 2) ride BOTH horses one or two days prior to the ride (longing isn’t enough) and 3) keep exercising enough so that I won’t be sore. Oh, and I need to come up with better lines for than Nannette than “how does it feel to be on Crack today?”, or “you are soooo on Crack!”. Ideas?
Annie found Nannette’s GPS on Monday while unmarking trail – yay! We were all happy to have made it to the ride, through the ride, and back home again safely! Great way to start off the 2012 ride season. I used strap on Renegades on both horses and they were great – never had any trouble with them. I noticed a lot of other riders using them too, I think they are gaining in popularity.
Here is a video that Carey Brock made of the trail in case you want to see what it’s like:
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