Ridecamp: Re: [RC] Snake Hill 50 Ride Report (PA)

Huge kudos to Kim and Denny Bookhammer and Mary Coleman for the fantastic job they did on what we all hope is the First ANNUAL Snake Hill 50 Endurance Ride!  (They've been running ECTRA CTRs for years, but this was the first endurance ride they held on these trails.)
 
This is a long ride report with no details about any wild races to the finish.  <chuckle>

Due to Mother Nature, our businesses, and life in general, this was our first endurance ride in the NE this year, and my hubby, Richard, and I were thrilled to get to see all the old, familiar faces (some older than others) once again!  There were some bittersweet moments, as this was our first ride amongst our friends since losing our mare, Sari, this winter to colic.   I'd ridden her several times on these trails, and in her last CTR here, she won Best Part Arab.

We arrived early (Friday) at the Bland Farm near State College, PA, and settled the horses in.  We got a nice parking spot down toward the bottom of the big hill that is the Bland's cow pasture, and base camp for the Snake Hill Ride.  Plenty of potties (even at the top of the hill this year), plenty of water, and plenty of smiles and hugs as we greeted folks we haven't seen in over six months.   (This is one of the best parts about endurance riding!)

Hubby's horse, Shantih, has had a tough time completing in his last couple of rides, some iffy hind "offness", and at Leatherwood, lack of interest in eating.  You know, the dreaded "this horse ain't right" syndrome.   I brought my 8 y.o. Arab/Trakehner, Ned, for his attempt at a second career 50 -- he'd had some good conditioning in early spring, but a friction/saddle fit issue meant he's had the last six weeks mostly off, with just some dressage schooling (his other career) and short hill climbs around home to keep him legged up.   So it was safe to say we were both looking for just a nice, easy completion with no crises on this ride.

This was the first time hubby and I had ridden a fifty together.  No crew, and Snake Hill was set up with three vet checks away from camp at two different locations.  This meant lots of planning for each check, and that we rustled up just about every muck bucket, feed pan and syringe we owned to make sure we had what we'd need out there!

I am constantly grateful for a husband whose goals are usually the same as mine -- take excellent care of the horse, stay safe, and keep on smiling and laughing, no matter what!  He's more likely to want to be up front than me, but indulges my need to stay on top of Ned (who tends to enjoy displaying high school dressage moves, none of which I've actually taught him, when he gets wound up), and is willing (so far, anyway) to take it easy with me at the start.

We had a chance to ride the finish line on Saturday.  What a great finish!  Wide, grassy, well marked and relatively smooth (made even smoother by volunteers who filled low spots with dirt).  Also had a chance to shop at Snake Hill Supply, Kim's shop, which has more stuff crammed into a 12x14 (?) building than one would believe possible.   Picked up some gloves and some ProBi (hoping this would help Shantih's desire to eat at vet checks).  Could have done much more damage, but hubby was just outside, so he could see what I was carrying out.  :-)

We kept our fingers crossed that the weather would be as predicted, highs in the mid 60s, possible shower, for Sunday's ride.  "Morgan riding weather" as Mary Colemen likes to call it.  Not to be.  Awoke Sunday morning to temps already in the 60s, and muggy.

Although he was itching to be with "the pack", hubby stuck with me as the controlled start headed up the hill through camp, led by Cindy Simcox.  Ned stunned me by performing no airs above ground, and only getting "puffy" when horses nearby were whirling or cavorting.

Within the first mile, we'd settled into a nice rhythm with six or seven other horses, settling in for what we knew would be a long 18.5 mile loop into the first hold.  This loop had it all -- stretches of long, gravel, forested roads;  climbs up significant hills;   one rocky section (where you could almost hear our horses cursing -- we don't have much opportunity to condition on rocks);  and some beautiful single track trails through the woods.

At one creek crossing, Rich noticed that Arlene Spinnler's (sp) Zeta had blood on his front leg.  We had no vet wrap with us (note to self -- pack VET WRAP in pommel bag) so we were able to do little more than tell Arlene, and hope that it looked worse than it was.   (Turned out that was the case, thankfully.  Zeta looked pretty chipper at the vet check and went on to finish in fine shape.)

Snake Hill's trails are primarily through experimental forests owned by the college, so vehicles are forbidden (imagine measuring ALL of this trail with a hand wheel!), and the trees are beautiful at this time of year, just leafing out and blossoming.

We took it easy and came into the first hold after 2 hours and some change.  Our hand held monitor showed the horses' pulse still high, so we did some sponging and removed tack.  After a minute or two, I asked someone nearby with a stethoscope to see if we were really still high, and nope, both boys were down.   Ned, in fact, was at 48 when we pulsed through.  Both boys trotted out nicely sound with all As, excellent CRIs and settled into their slushies without lifting their heads.  Familiar faces to us in the NE, the ride vets were Nick Kohut, Art King and Bev Anderholm.   And of course, Buck Shrader was the timekeeper, ribbing us (as usual) as we vetted through and talked about the first leg of the trail.  Ken Cottrell and Greg Senseney assisted as timekeepers too, so familiar faces all.

Headed out for Loop #2, which saw us passing (in the opposite direction <chuckle>) the front runners a few miles out.  Some of the usual, familiar faces whizzed by -- Cia Reis, Cindy Simcox, Nancy McAninch, Janet Brown, Georgia O'Brien, Mary and Missy Coleman . . .   

The humidity kept on, but this was a fun loop, and both boys trucked along happily.

The volunteers were smiling and friendly, we had our photos taken by Patty Lambert (no doubt, I'll be forever immortalized on film with electrolyte splooged on the front of my shirt!), and amongst the volunteers were military folks, in camouflage, parked at road crossings with their humvees.   (Hubby had a hard time not stopping for several minutes to admire the vehicles.)  It was humbling, particularly on Memorial Day, to call out our numbers and a "thank you!" to these soldiers, and also to pass by a small cemetery.

We came into the second vet check at the same location, and I was quicker to ditch the HRM for the stethoscope this time.  Now it was HOT, and I wished I'd brought a towel or a fresh t-shirt out to the hold.  Both boys were in good shape metabolically, but Shantih was a bit funky behind.   From years of crewing for him, I knew he had to urinate.  Could tell by the way he carried his tail and his hind end, and we were cleared by Nick to head back out, as the there was only a funky step or two.

On Loop 3, we slowed down quite a bit, stopping at just about every grassy patch to graze and urge Shantih to pee.  No such luck.  We were more or less in a group of six horses, occasionally passing one another, catching up.  No one was racing (we were all WAY out of the Top Ten at this point!) and we were all just out to finish.   This seemed like a really long loop, mostly because of our pace, and because it was becoming quite warm.  The highlight of this loop was a long steep descent in the woods, fairly loose.  The sit and slide type of descent.  These were life threatening types of hills when Ned was younger -- he's 16.1 or 2-ish and all legs, so it took a long time before he learned to sit down.   He's got it now, I grinned all the way down as he sat on his hiney, and didn't have to say a single Hail Mary!

We walked into the third vet check, knowing that if we cleared this one, we had only 4.5 miles to the finish.  This hold was at Kim and Denny's house, and the horses were pretty well spread out at this point, so it was fairly quiet.  Ned urinated immediately, then looked a bit stiff behind, and stretched out again.   He passed his pulse immediately, but just at 64 and a bit "jumpy."  Given his looking a little odd, we headed over to the vet immediately.  Bev checked him over, and even as she vetted him, he seemed to perk up and seem all right.  His CRI was okay, metabolics just fine, and he was perfectly sound, so as he started grabbing grass, then look around bright eyed and with his ears up, we knew he was okay.   I told Bev we'd take our time at this hold (it was only 20 minutes) to make sure he seemed fine before heading for the finish.

Shantih was still a bit off behind.  At this point, his bladder had to be incredibly full.  Bev asked to have him rechecked, so we headed off to give the boys slushies and lytes, and to get something to drink ourselves.  

It's funny that we endurance riders spend so much time worrying about the horses that we find ourselves dizzy and faint as the ride goes on.   Rich and I both drank some Gatorade, made sure we chewed on a Power Bar, and willed Shantih to pee!  He didn't.

Ranae Procyk, one of the great volunteers (and Ride Manager this year for the FAHA Rides) was willing to re-trot Shantih out for Bev (although perhaps it was the offer of a cold beer that won her over).  Shantih looked pretty okay, Grade One - only off intermittently, even on a small circle, so Bev allowed us to head back out. 

We took that last 4.5 miles pretty easy, and just like in his first 50, I found myself nearly overwhelmed with pride in my horse during that last mile or so.  Still striding out strong, chipper and cheerful, grabbing at leaves (his desire is better than his aim, however, and I think his leaf grabs are about 1 for 10), I just kept patting him and telling him what a brilliant horse he was, carrying my carcass all this way.

We walked over that beautiful finish line to the cheers of the volunteers at the finish line, pulled our tack, and laughed out loud as Shantih stretched out luxuriously and peed for a long, long time.  (It looked just fine, by the way!)

Vetted through just fine, and Shantih looked brilliantly sound both up and down hill at the trot out, now that his bladder was empty.  Nearly all As for both boys, and Nick proclaimed Ned "not as tired as you think he is" as he vetted through.

We broke no land speed records, but "to finish is to win!"

Hopefully someone has, or will, post the ride results, but I did catch some of them.  Cia Reis won the 50 on Catch A Wave and Jennifer Sapira on her striking bald-faced sorrel gelding, Boomerang, was BC (and this was her first Top Ten!)  Mary Coleman's machine Hawk was First Morgan.   

To my knowledge, there was a pretty good completion rate, and no horses treated metabolically, which meant sensible riding in what turned out to be muggier and warmer weather than what we'd all anticipated.  Good job to all!

Georgia O'Brien's lovely and tough Morgan mare, Cora May, made the milestone of 1000 miles at this ride, after coming back from a nasty pasture injury.  She looked wonderful, and no doubt will carry Georgia (with DRAG perhaps being a better description than carry, according to Georgia!) many more miles.   Donna Shrader (I think it was Donna) bought her a beautiful cake to celebrate, complete with a little plastic horse atop it that looked JUST like Cora May!

Hubby and I were pooped, but I knew that sitting down would be a bad idea, so I spent the evening ice booting and poulticing and brushing and scratching and fussing over the horses (and the dogs, who were ticked we couldn't ride significantly faster and get back sooner!).

It was dark, with heat lightning flashes from time to time, as I finally sat outside, one dog at my feet, sipping a Mike's Hard Lemonade, listening to riders and volunteers laughing at a camp nearby over the sound of my happy, sound horses munching their hay.   Rich was sound asleep in the trailer.  My butt was sore, my calves throbbed, but I couldn't help but smile at how blessed I am.

Happy riding to all, and again, thanks to everyone who made 
this ride happen!
 
--Patti Stedman (NY)



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