Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

And the miles started to melt away until
we were really riding alone.  It was at this point that my pony started
to question me and for me to start thinking (not always a good thing) about
not having any of my riding partners of the past 4 years there with me.
 As I started to become a bit melancholy, a piece of advice that a
very warm and loving person (did I mention experienced rider) shared with
me prior to my attempt at Tevis.  “Ride your ride not like it’s
a 100 mile ride, but from vet check to vet check”.  I’ll give you
a hint who said it – she has 27 Tevis buckles and both she and her family
(including her famous mother) have given a tremendous amount of encouragement
to both me and my lovely daughter.
        Coming
upon the photographer (and trying hard to smile), I noticed someone jumping
up from a chair and calling out, “you’re here already?!”. . . it was
Dick, my riding buddy, stealing away from work to come out to the first
vet check to greet me.  Wow!  It was hard not to tear up given
the thoughts that had just been racing through my head!!  Anyway,
I hopped off my boy as I came into the vet check, pulled his bit knowing
his pulse was already down and gave my pony over to my wonderful crew Katie
and Dick.  Taking in the surroundings, I noticed an open area with
all the right things, particularly a Porta Portie (even if the closest
one did say “Men” – which had at least one woman in it that day).  The
McCrary’s had thought of everything.
        In
and out of the vet check – good, well with the exception of gut sounds
(only B-).  All morning long Tally had been nervous – I could tell
because of the mess he’d left on his hocks.  This wasn’t a total
unknown to me, but still, he’d not been like this since his second year
in endurance (this being his fourth) and the less than ideal guts sounds
played on my paranoid mind (and would throughout the day).  So with
only a completion as my goal, we stayed in the vet check for an extra 10
minutes to allow him to continue to eat, which he did quite voraciously.
 We let him eat until he stopped and went into ‘power snooze’.  After
a minute or two we finally decided to depart.  Of course, the only
problem with hanging out sometimes is that you’re all by yourself with
no other horses going out with you.  I’m sure you can imagine how
‘excited’ (yeah, right!) he was about leaving, so with a mile and a half
of payment, I decided to hand walk him until we found good footing.
        Coming
off the road, we entered a fairly large stream and found a photographer
sitting on the other side.  I found out later when my daughter presented
me the photo at breakfast the next day just how good a photographer we
had – a picture definitely for the house wall.  In and out of the
airstrip (and friendly encouragement from Kiki and Peter), we continued
on, vet check to vet check, sometimes riding with a group and sometimes
alone.  It was during one of these ‘alone’ times that we came upon
Frank and his pretty little mare Gypsy.  Evidently Gypsy had pulled
long and hard on Frank and had come into the first major vet check at 8:30
a.m. (we didn’t come in until after 10 a.m. but doing the 100 had done
a longer loop).  He thought she was ‘done’ but as nothing obvious
appeared to be wrong, was hand walking her to the next check.  I believe
he’d been walking for quite sometime and for an ‘older gentleman’, it
appeared to have taken a bit out of him.  We walked for a bit and
talked and as we were talking, I noticed that Gypsy was taking quite an
interest in my handsome gelding.  It didn’t take a rocket scientist
to see that Ms. Gypsy was just a bit lonely and so with a little encouragement
and us stopping to wait, Frank and Gypsy became our new riding partners.
. . and riding we did.  Here’s where I think I need to share with
you that little Gypsy had either gotten really rested or had been bluffing
her dad that she wasn’t doing too well.  Either way, Frank suddenly
had his hands full of a lively mare.  It was fun keeping Tally at
a steady pace and watching Gypsy alternately take the lead and fall behind
us.  As we approached the coast, we were joined by Lori Olsen, another
QuickSilver Endurance Rider, and rode a beautiful stretch of trail (even
though it was a bit slippery occasionally) to the lunch stop at a ranch
on the California coast.  The weather had been tremendous all day,
misty and cool with the sun poking out to warm us (but not too much) as
we enjoyed our ride.  
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