I have thought about writing
this post all week and finally talked myself into it so here goes my BVS
endurance ride story. I love these trails and since am able to train on
them I think I know them rather intimately. I started the first BVS
ride back in 1984 however I didn't finish that year on an Appendix QH
that was my first endurance horse. That first year we had to ride the High
Country trail twice in a clockwise direction so I'm sure Scott can appreciate
why I didn't finish that first year on my non-Arab. We ran out of gas and
time somewhere up on the High County trail during our second loop. I
counted up my BVS starts and found that including this year I have started
the ride 13 times and have finished it 11 times.
I try to have a goal for each
ride season and sometimes that goal isn't determined until after the ride season
starts. It may be to try to finish in the year end regional awards, ride a
new multi-day ride far from home, ride X number of miles, or attain a certain
mileage goal for my horse. Notice that none of my goals include speed as
even year end regional award have been earned by riding 100 mile rides and
getting the bonus points. This is my choice because I firmly believe that
with speed you sacrifice your horse's longevity and miles. This year's
goal has turned into getting Koztarr+ to the 3,000 mile level and with luck we
just may get there before the end of November.
We started the ride with my
good friend Jane McGrath on her great horse Fire Mt Scamp near the end of the 50
mile horses. Two weeks earlier we had ridden most of the first 30 mile
loop so we knew what to expect. We were glad that no one in our small
group got stung by yellow jackets on the back side of Sycamore Canyon, since
Jane got stung numerous times during our ride two weeks earlier. One of
the great things about these trails are the natural spring water boxes on the
trail and the horses sure appreciated them! We climbed into the first
vet check after about 3 hours of riding. The horses pulsed down and vetted
through fine and soon we were climbing the High County trail. It is a
tough climb as Scott indicated in his post, but our horse did fine as they
were familiar with the trail and we all knew what to expect. Back at lunch
Jane decided to pull Scamp as she felt he wasn't recovering as quickly as
he normally does and seemed a bit dehydrated. My helmet is off to Jane for
knowing her horse so well which I guess should be expected as
they have 3,615 miles together. Since she was planning on a ride and
tie this weekend I know she wanted to err on the side of caution for her
horse.
Without Jane and Scamp,
Koztarr+ and I started out on the last 20 miles by ourselves. It wasn't
long before Don Bowen and Willy caught up with us and we rode together for the
rest of the ride. We started up the San Juan trail and before long the
trail markings took us off the regular trail onto a section that Jim
Mitchell later called the Frankenstein trail. I think it is officially
known as Fred's trail named after our head vet, Fred Beasom. In my mind we
were going the opposite direction that we needed to go in order to get to the
next vet check. However, we rode by another spring box and the horses
had an opportunity to drink and eventually the trail turned back and we
hooked up with the San Juan trail I was familiar with and rode into the vet
check which was at the same location as the morning check. Don filled
me in on his and Willy's antics while training for the Tevis this summer.
During a training ride near Michigan Bluff the trail gave out and Willy and Don
tumbled about 500 feet over the side of the trail. Don ended up with a
broken leg and Willy got a helicopter ride out of the canyon. Instead
of riding Tevis this year he was up there volunteering for the ride. The
BVS ride was their first ride since their accident in June and they picked
one of the toughest rides in our region for their comeback. We finished at
5:30 with 45 minutes to spare and there were still riders that finished after
us. BVS is one tough ride and I'm sorry that Cheri isn't planning on
putting on the ride next year but maybe she will change her mind.
Congratulations to Don for receiving an honorable mention in the Golden Buns
Award.
Scott, I really wanted to
e-mail you about the trail but since I read ridecamp on the archives e-mail
addresses don't show up. I was hoping that others would tell you about the
difficulty of the trail but unfortunately hearing about a trail and riding it
oneself sometimes are two different things. I was parked a couple of rigs
to the east of you and my other Bakersfield friends were parked next to you and
behind you. I have found that non-Arab horses can do fine on flatter rides
but hills like BVS really catch up with them. I'm glad everything worked
out okay for you and Solitaire.
Since it was only an hour drive
home I drove home after dinner and the awards getting home by 10:30.
Koztarr+ couldn't wait to get out of the trailer to roll, pee and start
grazing in his pasture. All in all I had a great ride with a horse that
drank and ate well all day and looked great the next morning, especially after I
hosed all the dried sweat off him. Now if we could just
solve his laying down on the job issue. :-)
