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[RC] A Newbies Ramblings & A Heartfelt Thank You - PartII - Leslie

The first smart thing we did was park into the wind.  The wind and sand probably
only gusted to around 50 mph the next day so this was invaluable.  Now Kathy's
trailer was a handy little Circle J steel 2 horse slant bumper pull with a tack 
room.  Quite nifty as all the partitions are collapsible.  So you just bring a 
broom,
sweep it out, and lay down a tarp.  It's an open trailer so don't forget a 
second
tarp in case it rains.  Next fold in a cot and add a sleeping bag.  All those 
handy
tie rings make a great place to hang a lantern.  Last but not least and my 
personal
favorite, a 5 gallon bucket filled about 1/3 full with kitty litter for a 
midnight
latrine.  WahLah! You're snug as a bug in a rug.  Never mind that you really 
won't
be able to sleep because the horse tied to the trailer has to rattle his bucket 
every 5 minutes or so just to make sure it's empty 

Now if you ever end up crewing for Kathy here are a few tips.  Although she'll
bring enough fancy fixins' to make Martha Stewart proud, the only thing she'll
really eat is cold Kentucky Fried Chicken and Cherry Yogurt.  So don't waste 
your
time waving all the rest of the stuff under her nose.  The one caveat is she 
does't
really drink so just go ahead and plan on hooking her up to an IV once she quits
foolin' with the horse.  

TRAINING  (Some Riding Skills Required)

Kathy, being my mentor and all was in charge of our training and conditioning.  
To fully appreciate this challenge a little background is required.  I've been
riding for about 5 years but I'm still pretty novice in a lot of ways.  Plus 
Merlin
is my first horse and although I'll credit my inexperience to much of his 
misbehavior
he can still win the certified butt head award all by himself on occasion.  
Given
all this, endurance riding is very very technical for me. There are things like 
SPEED and HILLS to contend with.  And then there is Merlin, who'd just assume 
combine both! 

I'll never forget my first ride out at Kathy's place in Cerrillos.  Kathy has
access to the most wonderful trails for endurance training.  The down side of 
this
is that there are lots of hills.  Being completely terrified, I dictated that 
trotting
was only allowed up hill - otherwise we would walk.  As you can imagine it was 
slow
going and even then SLOW DOWN was my word for the day.  This is really where 
Kathy
gets put up for Sainthood.  She's very very patient with terrified newbies.  I
survived and slowly started to build a little confidence.  Once I could contend 
with HILLS and SPEED a little better we had to work on Merlin's behavior with 
other horses.  He's generally just fine as long as he's in front, however, if
asked to take a secondary position all hell generally breaks loose.  So Kathy 
enlisted
her horse Blue to learn us better.  Now this is where Blue gets put up for 
sainthood
as he had to endure hours and hours of Merlin riding up his butt, biting his 
butt,
and all manner of torture and wasn't even allowed to defend himself!  


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