Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

An early competitive start for us this year.  Off to USA East’s Cranberry 
Ride to benefit the Old Dominion, in south central New Jersey.

We’d conditioned with Mary Coleman, and I planned to ride Ned with the Mighty 
Morgan, Hawk, in Saturday’s 50, since the two seemed a well-matched pair of 
big-moving horses.

Every time I’ve been to New Jersey, it’s either been cold, windy and rainy, 
or cold, windy and sunny, and this year it was the sunny version.   Chaps your 
cheeks and lips and makes the water buckets freeze, but it sure beats the rainy 
version of their climate.

I was a little timid about the early start to the season, since it was hard to 
get in as much riding as we’d like with the brutal cold and footing this 
winter, though Ned seemed perfectly jazzed and ready for the effort.  We 
discussed how it would be perfectly okay to finish in the bottom third of the 
ride, as long as everyone finished sound and plucky.

Mary agreed that we’d start “after the pack”, so it was a calm walk to 
the starting line when most of the other horses were out of sight.    Ned, at 
16+ occasionally-airbound hands, can be a lot of horse at the start of a ride, 
particularly when there are other pumped up horses around.  When we hit the 
road and began trotting, Ned realized it was a new day.  No longer was he asked 
to keep a slow, easy trot for the smaller moving horse behind him.  Today he 
was behind the Mighty Morgan, and he was allowed to trot his big trot in all 
his glory.  He was loving life.

Like the weather, you can always count on certain things about the trail in New 
Jersey.  There will be sand, there will be pine trees, there will be a total of 
four feet of elevation change during the ride, and there will be puddles.

I could feel my cheeks chapping and hear the rump rug flapping as Mary would 
call out to riders ahead, “Mighty Morgan passing on the left!”   And so we 
did.  

I was tempted to call out “Arab-Trakehner hangers-on also passing on your 
left!” but this seemed rather anti-climactic.

When passing other horses, Hawk finds another trot gear altogether, one that 
forced Ned to canter to keep up.

There was a little problem with the canter.  Flying lead changes.  Now, mind 
you, I do my fair share of dressage schooling, and Ned and I have schooled 
flying changes, but this was another matter entirely.  Suddenly, Ned knew two 
tempi changes.  Spontaneous, unaided tempi changes.  Canter left, one stride, 
buck, canter right.  Mostly clean, certainly expressive, but we’d lose points 
on relaxation in the dressage ring for sure.  This continued for much of the 
first several miles of the ride, always while passing, much to the tremendous 
amusement, I’m sure, of the other riders.

(I finally figured out it was the rump rug.  We’d trotted plenty in the thing 
in the past, but not cantered much.  I’m planning to sell a bunch, at a 
tremendous mark-up, to some dressage trainers later this week.)

And thus went the first loop.

As Mary would say, it was “Morgan riding weather” and both boys walked from 
Charles the in-timer to the P&R and pulsed directly through.  In fact, it’s 
the first ride where I haven’t put water on Ned.  Mighty cold.   All As and 
the boys tore up much of our pitcrew area, eating one another’s feed, and 
still feeling fresh after the first 12 miles.

This ride has three loops, with the second loop being 20 miles.  It’s an easy 
ride to ride too fast early on, and be left with little or no horse at the end. 
Mary and I had talked about that judgment error and were determined not to 
make it.

Headed off after the hold, and soon realized the boys were feeding off one 
another, trotting bigger and bigger.  Behind Hawk, Ned flipped his head 
indignantly.  When Ned led, Hawk pouted.  We rode with the hand brake on for 
much of the loop but found that slowing to a walk was the best way to ease up 
the speed of the two horses with the fewest discussions.

We enjoyed trotting side by side on the wide, sandy roads, but found it nearly 
impossible to do so without one of the boys attempting to sneak ahead a bit and 
accelerate the gait.   We had much fun scolding one another for allowing the 
pace to increase.

Electrolyted on this loop, and walked into the check far earlier than we’d 
intended, despite taking a few long walk breaks and allowing several riders to 
pass.

Cindy Simcox was running around, seamlessly taking P&Rs and also crewing for 
the two of us.    No trouble with pulses, and once again, both boys passed the 
vet check with flying colors.  I got to see Cindy trot Ned, or rather Ned trot 
Cindy, and it was clear there was PLENTY of horse left.

Ned peed and ate, and did something I’d never seen him do at a check before.  
He actually rested.  Not uncomfortable, not sore, not crampy – just resting.  
No doubt that this was a faster pace than he was accustomed to keeping during a 
ride, and I took it as a sign that we needed to slow down.

After the hold, we left out on the final loop determined to ride at a 
competitive trail ride pace, “pony trotting” we called it.   Or “riding 
the hand brake.”  Or “pissing them off.”

This was all well and good, until a few riders passed, and I suddenly found Ned 
sneaking into his turbo gear.  Walking and letting them out of sight turned out 
to be the best answer to maintaining our slower pace.

Finally, when we crossed back on the trail and realized we were only a few 
miles from camp, and clearly had plenty of horse left, we let them trot and 
canter along, crossing the finish line side by side.  Graciously, Mary let me 
give my number first, and I was eleventh, Mary twelfth, at the finish.

We walked the rest of the way to the camp, with Ned attempting to teach Hawk 
just how fast an Arab/Trakehner can walk, with Hawk indignantly jogging up to 
place his nose in front, and explaining to the young punk that with 4000 miles 
of competition, and being the elder at 16 years of age, he’d lead the way 
back to camp, thankyouverymuch.

Easy pulsing down, and great vet checks later, both boys eyed one another with 
a bit of grudging respect.   The proud veteran and the young punk.

After three years of slow, steady fifties, I am tickled to realize that my guy 
appears to be ready to move up just a bit.  What an honor and a privilege to 
have such a wonderful partner!

Thanks to Mary for allowing me the opportunity to alternately “ride too 
fast” and then worry about it.  Thanks to hub for driving 18 hours to allow 
me to ride 50 miles in just over 5 hours.  And thanks to the whole USA 
East/Cranberry Ride Team, and the many volunteers, for providing the 
opportunity for us to ride.

--Patti Stedman (WNY)
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The air of heaven is that which blows between a horse`s ears. 
~  Arabian Proverb

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