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[RC] Fwd: Our first open endurance ride - LONG - Maryanne Stroud Gabbani

One of my itinerant riding buddies is Kelly Anderson who lives near Aukland and works at the airport in Bio-Security. She's one of the folks who will confiscate your old golf shoes if you fly into New Zealand so that you don't bring rogue grass seed in. (Note to self: when visiting Kelz, bring new boots) She's come about three times to Egypt, first on a tour sort of thing and after that two Sept/Oct trips when she literally rode her butt off here and went home noticeably smaller. After a couple of years of dragging her all over deserts and farmlands, she naturally became interested in endurance. She gave me permission to cross-post this to Ridecamp. I thought you might find it interesting. Kelz is a great sport and would be an addition to anyone's ridecamp. She's unflappable and has a wonderful sense of humour. Last trip she'd picked up a digital camera of some very cool sort that took stills and film, and we took a couple of movies riding in the desert and the countryside. They were utterly hysterical to watch and could make anyone seasick! Hard to get filming from a horse right, but I'll bet that she's getting better at it.

Enjoy.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
www.alsorat.com

"The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for" Louis L'Amour


Begin forwarded message:

From: Kelly Anderson <kelzone@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun Sep 12, 2004  23:55:16 Africa/Cairo
To: EQUINE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Our first open endurance ride - LONG
Reply-To: Kelly Anderson <kelzone@xxxxxxxxxx>

---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: Discussion forum for Horse fanciers <EQUINE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Poster: Kelly Anderson <kelzone@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Our first open endurance ride - LONG
----------------------------------------------------------------------- --------

Well, this weekend Tammy and I travelled the furtherest ever for the two of
us for an endurance ride down in the Central Plateau of the North Island,
pretty much at the base of Mt Ruapehu. We drove down on Saturday, and even
getting stuck behind an idiot driver for about an hour, and letting Tammy
out for a bit of a stretch part way we made it down in 5 1/2 hours. After
setting up the pen we went down and registered and then thought what the
heck, why not vet now. So we (being myself and two friends of mine, Debbie
and Simon) gave the horses a quick brush and vetted them through. We had a
barbeque tea in the back Debbie and Simon's truck had a chat with one of the
other guys from Counties, and in the end went to bed early. I woke up
during the night, and could hear Tammy contentedly munching away on her hay,
and I could see a glow in the sky from the ski field up at Whakapapa.
Woke up early again (no curtains in my 4X4) and fed Tammy and watched the
80km riders ride out before grabbing some breakfast for ourselves. Then
down for the rider's brief and then saddle up for the ride out. At the
riders brief I was a bit concerned. This was Tammy and my first ride as
open riders not novice. Here I was thinking I would do it at a similar pace
to the ride a fortnight ago, but that would have put me almost over the
maximum time. Sorry Tammy, we need to pick up the pace here.
There was a fair bit of private road in the course, but mainly it was
through farmland. I followed Debbie and Simon around, knowing that would
put me in pretty good time. In fact we went around the whole course
together twice, except for about the last 3km. My main aim here was to
qualify in our first endurance ride, and I was mindful of the fact that we
were competing at altitude as well, so the last few km's I let Tammy choose
her own pace, which meant we lost Debbie and Simon, but meant that about 7
minutes after we got back we could have gone through the vetting process
with an okay heart rate. I planned to walk across the line, but Tammy had
different ideas. She knew she was almost home, so she trotted on past the
stallion whose rider I had been talking too, and trotted across the finish
line. After giving her a quick wipe to get off the worst of the sweat (the
weather was much colder than what we get at home, followed with a biting
wind and light rain) I took her heart rate. At 52 we were already below
the 60 required. So put on her under rug, took her over to the trough and
then walked over to the vet ring. There I checked heart rate again - 50,
okay, so I called Time early - I didn't want to run the risk that she might
stiffen up in the cold. The vet took her heart rate - 46 - I'm impressed -
she is obviously a lot fitter than I thought. Then I took of her cover to
trot her up for the vet. The minute I asked her to trot, you should have
heard her sigh. Which was nothing to the sigh from BOTH of us when the vet
asked us to trot out again. But we passed and have now qualified in our
first open ride. I'm so pleased with her - 245km we have covered since we
started endurance riding in November last year.
She had brushed her back legs somewhere around the course, but before we
left for home I checked that she wasn't showing any signs of lameness.
The drive home was reasonably uneventful. Only trouble with heading home on
a Sunday is all the Auckland drivers that are heading back from their
weekend holidays. They think they own the road, and are so used to motorway
driving they don't have a clue about overtaking. You certainly see it all
when you are towing a float.
About half way home, coming into Otorohanga, everything started vibrating.
I thought Oh no, not a flat tyre, but I stopped in Otorohanga and checked
the tyres, they were all okay. As I was driving along, I remembered. Tammy
must have been very tired. When she gets tired she leans against the butt
chain. This puts the balance of the float out slightly and everything
starts vibrating. But not long after that we got to a place where we could
unload the horses (I was following Debbie and Simon at the time) so they got
Abu and Jasmine out, and I unloaded Tammy. They had a bit of a feed and
some water and a chance to stretch their legs. And then came the last bit
of the drive home. It was sooooo good turning into the driveway.
And now today I have to unpack the car - Bugger.
I also hope to have photos up soon as well. Especially the ones of the
horses in camp, looking out to see the snow at the base of Mt Ruapehu :)

Kelz
and Tammy, Lee and Trillium,
Precious and Richie
Auckland, NZ


And when I asked if I could post to Ridecamp
Hi Maryanne,

Yes, you can, I was also thinking about making a bit of a longer story about
it as well. I have just got the camera out of the car, and I'm about to
check the photos - at least if I can find the right cord to connect them.
I'll let you know when I work out where I am going to put them. One thing I
forgot to add in there was Debbie and her horse Jasmine led the way for most
of the ride. But apparently at the finish line, Simon and Abu started to
drift ahead. Debbie asked Simon if he was going to beat her after she had
led all the way and he said "Well, come on then". She couldn't be bothered.
Turned out, when we went to collect our books and the certificates that
Simon had a nice green rosette for coming in fourth. Oooops.

Kelz




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