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[RC] Pine Tree 50: Impressions from a Rookie Rider with a Rookie Horse (Part I A) - Sharon Kenney

Sorry... Part II will have already arrived in your mailboxes... accidentally made Part I too long the first time.  :(
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Hello all,
 
I'd like to thank Tom and Kathy for a very smooth introduction to Endurance riding. 
 
As some of you may recall, my horse (Zephyr) is a 7yo RMH/Arab.  We have done several CTRs - two 25s (Hidden Brook and the Northeast Morab) and the Acadia 50.  Pine Tree was my first Endurance ride.  I wasn't sure I should stay in the 50, because Zephyr and I haven't trained much in the heat, but I decided to go for it because I'd made arrangements with a couple of women who also wanted to ride really slow.
 
I hooked up with my ride partners, Margaret Farnham and Lory Walsh, and we rode out after the front runners had already left.  The start was much different than I've gotten used to - I'm accustomed to leaving two at a time, and being passed occasionally.  Zephyr was jazzed, and tried to gallop, but I held him to a slow (bouncy!) canter to match the horses trotting around us down the two-track.  Eventually the pack spread out a bit, but we ended up playing leapfrog with some other folks for a while.  The three of us had decided to go faster than our intended average speed while the air was cool, so the pace, for me, was fast. 
 
Zephyr was eager and happy, as was I.  The first 15 miles went pretty quick.  At some point, Margaret and I stopped to water the horses at a crew area, and Lory went on without us.  When we arrived at the first hold, which was 30 minutes, I suddenly realized that I had no idea where my stuff was.  I had no crew, so I'd put my hold bag in Irving McNaughton's truck and promptly forgotten what it looked like.  I finally found it - Terry (sp?) saw me panicking and muttering, and asked me if she had my things!  I said yes and she showed me where they were.  It was then that I realized several things.  One: it is extremely difficult to unsaddle a horse while you are holding it, especially if you have a breastplate and a heart monitor (which you're not used to using).  Two: Once the girth is undone on one side, the horse will be perfectly happy to unsaddle ITSELF by dumping the entire thing off the other side onto the ground, in his effort to reach his neighbor's beet pulp.  Three: Heart monitors are a pain in the butt to deal with when you're trying to extricate a horse from its tack while it is trying to eat his neighbor's beet pulp.
 
Finally, I untangled his legs and removed his bridle.  He had his rope halter underneath, so I unclipped my sponge-on-a-leash (note to self: include extra un-leashed sponge in the hold bag) and dunked it in my neighbor's sponging water.  Hey, it was the only water around.  :p  He'd been pulsing around 64 when I rode in, so I headed over to do my P&Rs.  He pulsed in at 48, and his CRIs were 48/48.  He got all A's.  I returned to my stuff, gave him some beet pulp (which he didn't eat) and some carrots, which he sucked down like... well, like carrots, actually.  I reset his front left Easy Boot (he's barefoot and booted all around) because it was twisting slightly.  Before I knew it, it was time to saddle up.  Needless to say, it was even harder to do than unsaddling had been - ended up begging someone to hold him for me.  Margaret and I rode out about 6 minutes after my out-time (9 minutes after hers).  Zephyr, who has never been unsaddled at a hold, was exceedingly confused.  He told me in no uncertain terms that he was very unhappy at this nasty turn of events!  We walked for a while, while I waited for his heart rate to normalize again.
 
To be continued....