Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Summer Breeze ~ Daniel Boone Distance Riders

Just wanted to say a public THANK YOU to the determined, stoic, manic, men 
and women, their spouses, and any other endurance deranged person that got 
hooked into helping them put on a splendidly run endurance ride this weekend!! 
Management experience, good Vets, and lots of volunteers really paid off under 
most difficult conditions. The gallons of sweat, running during that ride and 
the 
many days preceding it, could have raised the ocean levels....

With heat advisories, heat indexes passing 100, only occasional breezes to 
tease, lots of sun, astute management, wonderful camping facilities, yummy 
riders meal, and lots of it, great trails, which were well marked, awards well 
earned, we all had a great time!!!  But, I have to say, as a rider, it was one 
of 
those events that gets better as the memory fades.... You know, the one you 
can talk about for years, and so glad you survived to tell the tell....and hope 
to never have to endure it again.

I had promised to take my granddaughter (who is 8) to at least one more ride 
so she could do a 25 mile LD before school started. She had done a Novice 
(ctr) 15 mile ride in the Spring, and thought it was great. But, I was a little 
concerned about that promise though, as the heat in our area just kept getting 
hotter and hotter with humidity to match. Ugh, misery for all living things. 
But, off we went to the great new location at Willow Creek for the annual 
Summer 
Breeze with fingers crossed. At least mine were. I had planed to ride the 
first day on the LD to take the edge off of my horse, as he can be a stinker 
for 
several miles. As it turned out though, the heat seemed to take that silliness 
out of him. Well, at least by ride time on Sat. morning. Check-in without his 
buddy on Friday, was an unpleasant sweat slinging, vein popping, effort. 
<sigh> Even with the heat, he did well, and finished the ride in 9th place... 
Paige was jumping up and down with anticipation for ‘her' day....Especially 
when 
they were passing out completion T shirts and she was wanting one, bad...

Paige and Jack's day finally arrived and she was all business. Jack, 
foolishly thought he was out for yet another short ride and was glad to be out 
of his 
corral....ha! He evidently hadn't been listening to his buddies that kept 
telling him about their weekend adventures with me... We proceeded along like a 
big Oreo ~ Mary Lynn, on her bay horse, Breezee, with Paige in the middle on 
Jack, a grey, and myself on my bay horse, Slick. She thought that was funny, 
but 
it kept her in the middle most of the time as we switched leaders during the 
ride. We were having a great time, trotting, cantering, etc. then Jack decided 
to unload his rider when we started to canter around the bean field. And did.  
Ho, ho...my concern for him, and the heat, (he hadn't been doing as much 
conditioning and just started doing rides this year) went right out the window. 
Paige sucked back the tears dusted herself off and got back on. A wet 
neckerchief, and swallow of water with a Tylenol, and we were off again. No 
mercy for 
Jack now.  Jack is not a horse that likes to work much, so it wasn't too long 
before she was having to do some pushing. I swear, I could see in his face that 
he was regretting his little nasty.... Made it around the first 15 mile loop 
in good time, and that stinker pulsed down a minute before my, much more 
conditioned horse. That pleased Paige to no end...<g>
We just had enough time to get back to the trailers, down a quick snack, feed 
the horses their slushies, and we were off for the final 10 mile loop. Heat 
was getting really sticky, and the horses were panting like overloaded freight 
trains. Jack  wanted to trail along behind, and when I stopped my horse to 
wait on him, he would stop too....He didn't understand the Oreo theme, nor 
cared. 
He has to be the most ‘no go' Arabian I've ever known...But he makes a great 
child's horse.
Despite the uncomfortable heat, the trails were beautiful, and much 
appreciated. I would go back there any time.
Water on the horses, water on us, trot, trot, trot, then finally we were off 
walking into the timer again. Pulsing down this time took longer, and I have 
to thank the many people on hand to help the riders with that effort. My 
goodness, the water would heat up the instant it went on. Water on, water off, 
water 
on, water off. Don't know who brought the big industrial fan, but it was much 
appreciated. Still, just the short walk to the P/R would jump up the pulse 
again. Finally, we got down to the 60 mark, and we went to the Vet. Got much 
better marks there than I was expecting, and Paige was all smiles with her 
completion, and REALLY earned that T shirt!

I am so very pleased to be a member of such a hard working group of people 
who make up the Daniel Boone Distance Riders!!

And, as always, my hat is off to those wondrous creatures that work so hard 
to make us happy ~ our horses!

Jan ~ a.k.a. Granny Jan

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