Big South Fork Story - Really Long

["Tina Hicks" <tina@autoairbagcovers.com>]

Consider this fair warning - this story is almost as long as my riding time 
:)

After entering the Big South Fork 150 and looking forward to it for 
forever it was finally here!! Time to pack and get stuff together and get 
on the road. We were off on Wed morning for our first multi-day and my 
second time to do a ride at BSF – the first time was two years ago and I 
pulled after the first loop due to a stone bruise. Wasn't going to let that 
stop me this time - had a full set of Hoof-It and 4 easyboots cut down, 
duct taped, vet-wrapped and ready to go.

The whole group was myself, my mom, friend Lyn and her husband John 
and Lyn’s parents who where there to watch, hang out, and camp. Lyn was 
to ride until her horse fixed that 2 weeks before the ride by dinging his 
hock pretty good in the pasture :< so she was to ride Jose at some point 
and then crew or work or whatever as needed.

We arrived fine and finally got parked, set up, vetted-in, and waited for 
the rest of our group to arrive which they did in short order. We put 
Hoof-it in the front feet of both horses and starting loading the truck with 
all the vet check stuff as all checks all three days were out except for 
completion checks – boy was I glad to have a crew!!

Thursday morning was finally here – the beginning of the multi-day I had 
been waiting on…Today’s ride held a bit of apprehension for me as Tony 
and I have not completed a ride yet this year for various reasons (injuries, 
etc…) so the way I approached it was to try and finish one day to begin 
with – I’d worry about days 2 and 3 later – I just wanted to complete a 
ride this year on my horse :>. 

The day looked to be overcast and fairly cool for this time of year in the 
SE – things were looking good already. We tacked the boys up and 
proceeded to the start to check in and then wait for the pack the leave. 
Being a fairly conservative (okay, fine, call me a weenie <g>) rider AND 
not having a clue about his multi-day business my plans were to just ease 
along – to do that we had to start after most of the group left.

We took off at a blazing walk, picked up a nice trot and took in the sights. 
The whole BSF facility is just incredible and the trails were no exception. 
The trails we covered went up and down and up and down giving us views 
of a beautiful gorge with a river flowing around huge (like the size of 
building!!) rocks, waterfalls, whirlpools, and places as still as lakes. We 
saw rock overhangs with cave like areas under them, all kinds of flowers, 
ferns, butterflies, etc…

Of course to see those kinds of things you have to go way up and way 
down which we did – walking a good bit of the way – particularly on the 
uphills. Both boys learned to tail pretty well on this ride and I learned that 
most folks must not get off their horse – even on these big climbs as 
there weren’t many footprints down there among all the hoofprints <g>. 
At the top of each climb we’d get back on the horses would be ready to 
just sail which we did. 

The trails at BSF  have lots of rocks –hence the Hoof-it in their feet. 
However, about midway thru the first loop I noticed Tony slowed way 
down. I immediately jumped off and checked front feet – sure enough – 
no Hoof-It in there :<. I have used it before for training rides and have 
had no trouble but this time it came out. Anyway, I pulled my trusty 
easyboots out of my pack, put them on Tony’s front feet and off we went 
again.

Karen (Clark, ride manager) and her crew of ride managers/trail markers 
did such a good job that there wasn’t one time in the entire 150 miles of 
trail that I ever questioned which way to go – you could almost always 
see one ribbon from the next. Made it really nice as you could enjoy the 
trail instead of worrying about where to go next. 

We cruised through the checks easily enough – Jose had all A’s, Tony 
had all A’s except B on guts which is perfectly normal for him so I was 
pleased. They were eating and drinking so the day just kept looking better 
and better.

Like I said we were riding fairly slow – by that I mean walking uphills, 
major downhills, mud, etc…and trotting/cantering the rest. We didn’t 
feel like we were really dawdling but we sure weren’t setting any land 
speed records either :> so we came in about 3rd or 4th from last on the 
first day – ride times of about 9 hours I think. Okay, one day down, I can 
too complete a ride…..the rest is gravy :>

Back at camp is when the real fun began – this is the point where I’m 
usually ready to take care of the horse, hit the rider meeting/meal, have a 
good cold one, and crash for the nite…..except we had to get ready to do 
it all over again – Yikes!! For crewing the truck needed more grain and 
water on it and we had to add some food to our packs and I needed to 
round up some more elec, etc…so nothing major just normal “getting 
ready”. 

But add in wrapping legs, eating, showering (hey, this is one of the few 
rides with real showers with – had to take advantage of them), attending 
ride meeting for the next day, walking horses, feeding horses, going to 
bed, walking/feeding at midnite, and then getting up at 5AM to ride again 
and you’ve got some tired riders! I found that aspect of the whole 
weekend much more tiring than the actual riding. Now granted, if we 
hadn’t been going quite so slow we would’ve been done with all the rest a 
bit earlier. 

The second day comes and it’s me on Tony and Lyn on Jose for the 50 – 
my mom is sitting today out. Now this is kind of amusing as Lyn is the 
friend I have drug into this sport one step at a time. She’s not quite as 
interested in doing the longer distances as I am and in fact this was to be 
her first 50 – much to both her surprise and mine! Anyway, we got ready 
early in the AM, checked in and took off having noted that Jose seemed a 
bit sensitive in the girth area but seemed to get more comfortable after 
being tacked up for a bit.  Hindsight is 20/20 – we should have let him sit 
that day out – a slight soreness can turn into a real problem after 50 more 
miles –even if they are very slow miles. It was another great day for 
riding and the trails were again stunning with ups, downs, river crossing, 
rocks, sand, and MUD – YUCK! Not miles of it, just large spots of it 
here and there in one section on the trail. And it was the kind that came 
well over their fetlocks and was thick and made big sucking noises when 
their legs came out – the kind that makes you pray to the tendon gods that 
you don’t bow all four legs going thru it or lose all your shoes and 
easyboots.

I am happy to say that in 150 miles on Tony and 50 miles on Jose thru 
hill and dale and water and aforementioned mud we didn’t lose one 
boot….not one….not even once…..:> 

Again we tailed up hills, rode down most and cruised on the rest. I was 
electrolyting on the trail during this ride – first time I have done that – I 
hafta say I’m a believer now  in the “electrolyte early and often” school 
of thought. Tony drank better than ever before and his gut sounds stayed 
very consistent during all three days. However, one should be sure to 
secure the back end of a Lyte-Now Tube before packing it or it 
sometimes comes apart – the result being 3 doses of Lyte-Now all over 
the inside of your pack and it’s contents :< Major YUCK! 
 
Lyn and I sailed along with both boys doing well and us enjoying the 
riding when we noticed Jose started really sucking back when terrain 
changed (which was about every 10 feet on this ride) and not wanting to 
really trot out. Uh-oh. We loosened the girth, actually swapped saddles in 
the middle of the loop (kids, don’t try this at home), put desitin on him, 
took the breastplate off….anything we could to make him more 
comfortable but it soon became apparent that what he needed was the 
tack off – barring that, hand walking was the next best thing.

So Lyn did about 40 miles of her first 50 riding and most of the rest of it 
on foot as she came in to pull him for the day. I went ahead to let mgmt 
know she would be awhile coming in and to finish my ride – I had 10 
more miles after coming in from that loop and was worried about running 
out of time if I didn't hustle. Lyn’s husband went out to meet her and 
walked with her. Wyn Brown, ride manager for the day, went out with her 
truck so Jose could be untacked for the walk in. I felt very bad for Lyn 
and horrible for Jose – it’s one thing to get a horse through one day with 
a slight problem that shows up but if it’s still there when you tack up 
again, think twice about going out as more riding usually won’t make it go 
away. It was an honest mistake on our part but one we won’t make again I 
hope. 

At any rate, no real harm done – the vets even asked Lyn if Jose was 
going out again on Sat (!!!) to which she replied with a solid No. The last 
few miles without tack really gave him some relief but the residual 
soreness would have caused the same problem all over again the next day 
so he was done for the weekend. 

Meanwhile, I again came in about 3rd from last. I had the turtle award all 
sewn up until I accidentally passed a few people on the last loop :> and 
decided I wanted out of the saddle worse than I wanted the turtle award so 
I didn’t stick around to wait them out. Vetted through fine and began to 
think I might actually complete not just one day or two days but might 
actually get through all three days!!!!

At this point I decided rider’s meetings were optional – this is the first 
time I’ve ever missed a rider’s meeting. I figured as long as I had the ride 
start time and the color ribbon we were starting on I’d be fine :> I also 
decided that I needed sleep worse than Tony needed a midnite walking so 
after a late feeding and a final walk it was off to bed for a whole 6 hours 
of sleep – what a luxury!

Last day again turns out nice though a bit warmer than the last two and bit 
more ominous looking for rain. The pack is a bit larger for this start as it 
is Saturday and several folks arrived just for today. Again I let the pack 
take off and started with the last few folks. I planned on moving on a bit 
more today as the trail was mostly on top of the mountains so was pretty 
easy relatively speaking and because I was afraid of mutiny by my crew 
from boredom :> 

The first loop of 16 miles went by fairly fast – much to my chagrin. It 
really is true they get stronger the more days you do – Tony felt like he 
was starting on any normal 50 – not the third one in a row – unbelievable! 
After shocking my crew by arriving in less then 3 days to a check <g> we 
vetted through fine, waited out a nice long hold which Tony spent grazing 
on nice green grass, then we took off on on the second loop which was 
22 miles.

This loop turned out to be one of _ those_ loops – the kind where you get 
scraped completely off the horse by a huge branch as he tries to skirt a 
mud puddle (I’m so glad no one was there to see that – they would have 
fallen off from laughing I’m sure <g> and no I didn’t land in the puddle 
but very, very close); the kind of loop where you end up getting Lyte-
Now all over your shirt instead of in the horse (I know, I know, I must 
just be electrolyte impaired); the kind where you get to spill the entire 
contents of your cantle pack while a group of about 10 ATV’ers quietly 
watches from a distance (I can only imagine what they were thinking); the 
kind where get caught up in a pack of trail riders out  for the day riding 
horses that are gaiting at just the wrong pace so you can’t really pass 
them but you also can’t pull your horse off of them as it’s along the river 
and you can see forever ahead of you.

Sigh…. We just weren’t having a good hair day on this loop :>

To top everything off we’re trucking along minding out own business 
when Tony is suddenly head bobbing, three legged lame….:< Uh-oh :< I 
jump off, don’t see anything, check easyboots, check back feet for 
stones, look for major blood/cuts/pulled shoes, heat, swelling, 
something and find nothing

Oh dear….We walked for a bit and he seemed to walk out of it. I get back 
on and can still feel it here and there so we trot when he feels like it and 
walk the rest of the time. That really kills any chance I had of finishing in 
less than about 30 hours for the day :> but whatever it is doesn’t seem to 
be as ominous as it first seemed. 

I’m thinking it might be a rear muscle something which I really don’t like 
as I know we have one more huge hill to go up. We ease up it – me tailing 
and him stopping to rest his right hind from time to time. At the top of 
the hill we finally make it into the check where I am berated by my crew 
for taking so *^%&( long :> but they clam up when they realize it’s 
because Tony has a hitch in his get-along. This check is 10 miles from 
home – so here I am 140 miles into a 150 with a sudden, inexplainable, 
inconsistent lameness. The day was not looking so good right now.

When I take him to the vet and explain what happened we have a 
conference and decide that it’s iffy right now – no sense going on if I 
won’t complete at the finish, but he’s not bad enough to pull him on the 
spot. So the vet (Dr. Ken Marcella for you SE riders) wants to see him 
again in 30 minutes to see if it’s something that’s getting worse or better. 
I am very happy with having the chance to go on and we put his hind foot 
in ice water (I still wasn’t sure that it wasn’t something in the foot like a 
stone bruise) and begin to massage his right hind – thank goodness for 
having a crew! 30 minutes goes by, we trot again and it’s much better. The 
management trailer is full and leaving and they need to know if they 
should come back for me so Ken has me tack up and watches him trot 
one more time – for reasons unknown to me Tony was almost sound on 
this trot out!!!!! So he gives me the clear to go back out, take it easy and 
have a good ride.

I head out at a walk – determined to walk the last 10 miles on foot if I 
needed to (I had plenty of time) to both prevent it from getting any worse 
and to get the completion if I could. By the time we got to the finish he 
felt great (yeah!!!) so I went straight from the finish line to the camp 
where I dropped tack and went straight to Ken, told him how much better 
he felt, we trotted and completed - with great marks all the way down the 
card! Major dancing all around <vbg>.

Then when we got to the rider’s meeting it was really major dancing – of 
the 30 horse/rider teams who signed up to do 150 miles on the same 
horse only 9 completed <insert shameless brag here> and we had done it. 
If I hadn’t been so tired I would have been more excited I think :>.

The other neat thing was that for being the turtle I got a gift certificate 
from the horse/rider massage therapist who was there – I had him look at 
Tony and he pinpointed a minor muscle sprain high inside his right hind – 
nothing a week or so in the pasture shouldn’t take care of.

So the adventure was over, much fun was had by all, and we went to bed 
and didn’t set the alarm :>

Thanks to Karen Clark, her crew, and the folks at the BSF Recreation 
Area for putting on this fantastic ride!

Tina 
tina@autoairbagcovers.com