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[RC] 100 miles in 1 day? Swanton Pacific, my first 100 miler: Part 3a of 3b (toolong) - sandy . l . holderTrotting out once again, Tally was virtually all A’s with the exception of gut sounds. Once again I wondered about my talented mount and waited for Cory to check and subsequently recheck my boy. When possible, having the same vet see your horse throughout the day, particularly if he’s both an experienced vet and endurance rider helps. We trotted him out twice (½ hour into the vet check and then just prior to leaving) to do CRI’s on him and consult on his gut sounds. A few questions and soliciting Cory’s opinion gave me some sage advice, “take him slowly to the next check and we’ll see how he does there. I think he’ll be fine.” Of course, going slowly is not a problem when you leave and ride by yourself on an inexperienced (at riding alone) horse. With no one in site, we walked and talked to each other quite a bit. As my daughter later put it, he walked slower than Sister, our 1100 lb mare that thinks walking only means stopping to get another blade of grass. With 25 minutes between us and the group behind us (we’d encouraged Lori to leave while Tally continued eating and Frank had RO pulled with Gypsy reasoning the RIDER was unfit to continue), we went so slowly over 10 miles that the folks riding 25 minutes behind us DID catch us. . . only to find me now on a ‘raging’ mount - too full of himself to want to listen! Ugh – talk about extremes!!! The good news about having some riders catch up was that I met Debbie and her horse Remfire. As it turned out she was a really caring rider and she and I were to continue through the night past the Saw Mill vet check together and even into the finish. It was with her that Tally and I experienced our first true night ride (oh yeah, you’re suppose to have DONE THAT already right?!!). And then it happened. . . it was night and we came up to the top of the bluff by the ocean. The clouds parted and the glow of the full moon exploded with bright light! Oh man, what a magnificent sight!!! So beautiful that as I relaxed to enjoy the view, my lively boy decided to take advantage of me and jumped forward, almost breaking into a canter, to pass the two riders in front of us. I’m sure I heard Jonathan mutter something less than flattering to his riding partner about my horsemanship at that point. (I did apologize profusely and fell back behind them. Hopefully he understood when, toward the end of the ride, I decided not to challenge either one of them for a higher spot in finishing as we all rode in together). n"iǬj{,znz)ߢ*'hb)zw^v+z(ޞح0'!جikz uݙ{Zw(z{bjVw+WyٚjP'ʷ+zڞɢȨج额bz+^ +" j|rب)zXǮ+"+bv{(؞azaj{az)zw^vج!y ʋyǢm+"뢺ey rim jw]zWz^^&~&j|jnϮ' ^.ਢϊƃzVjhybiܩjgz!ߢ{
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