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Here is my story about the Cooley Ranch ride this past weekend.
I had been looking forward to this ride since I did it last year on my then new 
gelding, Neymo.I enjoyed it so much, I wanted to see if we would do any better 
after a year of working on the "slow down" cue! But alas it was not meant to be 
for him. One of his pasture mates bit a nice chunk out of his skin right under 
the saddle a week and a half ago. I had been dressing it and icing it and 
hoping he would not be ouchy by Thursday before the ride. I saddled him up on 
Thursay and took him out for half an hour and we came back with an ouchy back. 
So back to icing and lay up.
 My lovely (QH)mare stepped up to the plate and agreed to do the 50 mile with 
me. People always ask me if she is half Arab. I tell them only the mental half 
is, all the rest is Registered American Paint horse! She is so happy to be out 
there showing off her stuff and competing for that completion. In her mind the 
sooner she gets back to camp, the sooner she can eat!
 Back to the Cooley ride. I had agreed to haul a Dick Carter's horse who was 
going to be ridden by Barbara White. After 4 hours of stop and go traffic in 
the rain, I got to ride camp. I handed over the horse I was hauling to Barbara 
and heaved a sigh of relief because I am nervous taking someone else's horse in 
my trailer with my supreme driving talent!  They were almost full up at camp 
and Ron had to haul me up through the mud with his tractor to be able to park 
in a decent spot. Some people had  to park on the access road. The rain kept us 
wet on and off through the evening. I checked in and vetted my horse and looked 
around for a porta potty only to be told that they were delayed in arriving. By 
late evening there was no sign of any porta potties!! I discovered new uses for 
cat litter!! Thank God for those portable miniscule camp potties. After a 
wonderful dinner with some friends we headed off to the ride meeting. Ruthie 
said the trails were not terrible and told us all to be careful and have a good 
time.
 It rained all through the night. The mud turned into soup! I got up at 4:30AM 
and woke up my riding buddy. She was in two minds whether to ride or not. We 
trudged through the soup to get to the lovely 'Coffee cart' that had hot 
steaming coffee and got our coffee at 5AM. She then went over to Maryben and 
told her she was pulling. A few people had pulled already. I was still in two 
minds. She then asked Ron if he would help haul her out with the tractor after 
the riders had left at 7AM. I had still not decided and went over to the start 
to wave the brave souls on. I told Ruthie I may be pulling and she said that 
was fine. Twenty minutes of watching the riders at the start, I could not stand 
to just go home after what I had been through to get there. I started to talk 
myself into riding. What was  endurance anyway if you could not stand a little 
mud, a little rain, a little whatever..!
My horse and I were not made of powder, we would not melt. And watching poor 
Ruthie standing in the rain taking numbers and trying to keep her clipboard 
from soaking just gave me the push I needed to show (myself) that I could ride 
this ride in the mud and rain and come out of it with no falls or injuries. So 
I ran back to my trailer and grabbed my surprised horse and threw the saddle on 
her back put her bridle on and hopped on. My friend who was trying to move my 
corral panels to get her rig out was so shocked.
 I go back out to the start and poor Ruthie was still there with her 
clipboard. I called out to her and told her I just had to go and ride in the 
rain. She told me to be careful and waved me on. I was going out an almost an 
hour after start time. We walked carfully through the mud and slush and even 
passed a few people to my mare's utter happiness. She thought we were on the 
wrong trails at the get go because there was nobody to snort and pass!  Then we 
caught up to Peggy who I had ridden with before and we got to chatting and we 
rode the whole wet, slushy ride together. It was one long trail ride. We must 
have only trotted for about 10 minutes in all. I decided to downgrade to the 25 
because I was not too thrilled to be out there all that longer because I was 
still on Antibiotics for my sinus infection!!
 Since my original riding buddy pulled, I had no crew bag at the vet check. 
(Her husband had the crew bags in the truck).My horse was so unhappy that I 
would not let her attack every bucket in sight.Peggy was so nice to share her 
food with us and my mare was once again a happy camper. I shared my chocolate 
covered raisins with Peggy and we were rejuvinated for the trudge back home on 
the oh so soupy trails.
 We finished our rides without any harm to either of the horses. Her horse 
tried to buck a few times because he was pretty fed up with this trail ride. He 
was under the impression that this was an endurance ride and we were supposed 
to move out!!
We did endure and had a whale of a time and I enjoyed every minute of it. Thank 
you Ruthie for everything. We will be back next year.
PS. The porta potties did show up by the time we came back to camp.
Sheila and the ever hungry Gambling feather(aka Cassy)


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