[RC] Endurance, Carolina Style: Part Fifteen - Howard Bramhall
The pink loop, the second time around, was not the same loop. It had
metamorphosized into another trail completely, with more hills, climbs, and, for
some reason, even the ridgeline did not appear to be at all flat. How
did this happen?
America and I eventually caught up with Lara who was riding with another
female. The three of us stuck together for 4 miles or so. During one
downhill descent America just stopped. He decided he was tired of going
down hill and he wasn't going to continue on any further. He wasn't
breathing hard, didn't appear to be tired, but I could not bring myself to urge
him on. I dismounted and we walked down the hill
together.
This is how a horse trains a human because whenever he did this, and it was
to be repeated quite often, I would dismount and start walking. Lara,
for some reason, stayed with us and would dismount, also. The other lady
in our threesome rode on, probably wondering why on earth we would want to get
off our horses and walk with all these rocks and overall rugged ground.
About half way or more through the third loop Lara's mare went down.
She had this incredible urge to lie down and that's exactly what she did.
Scared the crap out of us all. I had spotted Phil's humvee, hooked up to a
horse trailer, off to our right and pointed it out to Lara. I told her I'd
go back down the hill where one of the volunteers had stationed himself, and
make sure they radioed for a driver to take her mare back to the barn, if that
was what she wanted. She said yes, good idea, and that's exactly what I
did. I knew the "fun" had just been removed from Lara's day and felt badly
for her.
I continued on the loop, alone, walking America with me on foot for most of
the remainder of the trail back to the barn. I must admit what
happened to Lara's horse upset me a great deal. I felt partly responsible
because I knew we had covered some ground quickly during the second loop and her
horse paid the price on the third. With America not wanting to go down
hill sometimes, when I was on his back, I started thinking seriously about
pulling when we got into camp. The day was already slipping away; we had
been out over 8 hours from our start time. This was a record time, in
length, for me and America and we still had another loop to go.
When we arrived back to camp I was depressed. I started seeing things
wrong with America that were not really there. We went through the vet
check, and, Ken, the head vet, for the first time ever, kind of urged me to
finish. He said except for the girth rubs, which is a constant
problem with America's sensitive skin, my horse looked great, trotted out
without a problem and he saw no reason why this horse could not easily finish
this ride. Yea, that threw me too, it was the first time I had ever been
encouraged by a vet, especially one I respected as much as I do Ken, to finish a
ride.
During the hold I talked with Susan K. She had already completed; top
5'd Leatherwood if you can imagine that one! Her words were similar to
Ken's. "Well, if it were me and the vet said the horse was fine, I'd try
and get that completion." I mentioned this to Ken, later that night, and
he said Susan would more than likely carry her horse across the finish line if
the situation required. Sometimes, I think Ken studies the riders as much
as he does their horses.
Well, what could I do? I must admit I could hardly walk and I knew
that being able to travel on foot would be necessary to help my horse get
through the next ten miles. We left camp with a fellow male
rider named Barney and headed in the direction of that first blue
ribbon. And, even though it wasn't the same climb that we had repeated for
the first 3 loops, it was a climb all the same. This last loop turned out
to be the trail from Hell, and it was the most difficult ten miles I had ever
done in my lifetime.
