rusty red dirt - Tevis temps - tie ups

[Lucy C Trumbull <elsie@foothill.net>]

Maryben wrote:
> Tevis should be great this year.  I would expect the temps to be mid to high 
> 80's.  It is high overcast here and the forcast for Sacramento was 84.   
> Should be a good year, weatherwise, for Tevis. 

It was blimin' *freezing*! It was gusty in the Valley floor
and up at Watson's Monument it was blowing a gale. My hands
got so cold that I couldn't get the card thingy out of my
camera (that's my excuse if I missed anyone).

I hope all the riders I saw in T-shirts were active enough 
to not get chilled, but I bet a few of them were glad to get
down in the trees.  :)

Incidentally, I think the low temps were one of the contributing
factors as to why my friend Sally Toye's lot ended up pulling
with tie-ups. They had two mares in their group and had been
travelling the last few days with a stallion. Apparently the
stallion was quite talkative and the mares came into season.

She suspected that it was that, plus the coolness that had one
of them tie up and have to pull at ~5 miles at the hw-89 under-
crossing. The other mare got as far as High Camp ~10 miles before 
it went out. They were lucky enough to catch it really early
though, and although it was v. stiff and crampy in the back, it
was at least eating and drinking.

And best of all, for the first time, they were able to offer
an "emergency trailer service" down from High Camp. After a 
couple of incidents up there the last few years, it was deemed
a good idea. Rho Jacoby's husband (she's been involved in the
ride for years, and is part of the SOS sweep team) kept a
trailer down at the parking lot and was able to bump up the
dirt road to the top to fetch the poorly horse out.

The poorly horse loaded OK, but Sally's horse seemed totally
unnerved by the oddity of it all and didn't want to play, so
she ended up riding it back down to the Valley floor behind
the trailer.

Watching that made me think "Hah, my two load perfectly...
into a step up trailer... which this isn't". It was just an
ordinary two-hrose staight with a short ramp. Which made me
vow to make sure that I had this covered - I'm pretty sure 
mine would baulk at the ramp. Time to do a bit of extra trailer
training, eh, on someone else's trailer? Just in case...
-- 
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Lucy Chaplin Trumbull - elsie@foothill.net
Repotted english person in Garden Valley (Sierra Foothills), CA 
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