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[RC] Farewell to Silver State - Dream Weaver

After something like 25 years (give or take), the Silver State ride is now history. It's kind of sad, I will really miss the ride. It was the first multiday ride (3 days) on Weaver and the flag print bandana that I still wear on my helmet was what we received for completing all three days. That bandana has done several thousand more miles since then, I'm going to keep fixing it with duct tape so it will last forever. I think all of my horses have gotten their great starts on that ride. First Weaver as his first multiday, then a couple of years later I rode Rocky two days in a row on that ride and that is where he finally "got it". He was trying to eat the cholla by the 2nd day he was so hungry and from that point forward he became a really good eater! Then Chief came along and got to do a day of Silver State as his first ever point to point ride. This year, my newest horse Zenos also got to do two days of the ride including his first point to point. I am probably really fond of this ride simply because I have had so many great rides there over the years.

The BLM is closing down some of the trails for 3 years to all recreation. There was a fire in the Blue Diamond area that they want to 'reclaim'. It's unlikely that we'll ever get the trails back, and besides a new cargo airport is going to be built at Jean, Nevada. Claire hasn't found a new place to move the ride to yet. :-( The BLM classifies endurance riding as a speed event because they think we travel at "25 miles per hour".

I really like smaller rides. Especially when you know most of the riders. This year was great, we had about 35 riders the first day, which was the 55 mile day. I brought two horses down so that I could alternate them. I had already vetted Chief in for the first days ride when Dave Rabe came over and talked me into riding Zenos instead, he said he'd ride with me. I thought about it and realized that yeah, it would be good for Z to do more than just a one day ride, he is definitely ready for it and it'll be great for Chief to do just one day. I've been trying really hard to cut back on riding him on every ride, every single day. It's not been easy for me, since I love riding him so much! So I went ahead and vetted Zenos in for the 55 mile day. I put Epics on his front feet, so he wouldn't be walking around camp barefoot on all 4 feet and went over and vetted him in (it's really rocky there). These end of season rides are great for all of the point chasers. It is such fun to watch all of the goings on and see who is doing what and so on. I love it! It of course is more fun for me, since I'm not riding for points, and already was far enough ahead in the mileage category to not have to worry about it.

We started in the back of the pack and when others in front would stop we stopped and fiddled around. Mostly that was so that Dave's horse wouldn't pull his arms out trying to catch up with horses in front. Zenos didn't really seem to care, and it was good experience for him learning that he can stop and be patient and just watch horses trotting off ahead of us, or by us. He handled everything extremely well. We had a great ride into the vet check. There is only one 'out' vet check on the ride each day, and it's remote. If something happens to your horse out there, you won't be hauling him back in a horse trailer. So you keep that in mind and try to be careful out there. The trail is extremely rocky, moreso this year because other trail users loosen up the dirt and it blows or floods away leaving only rocks and hardpacked dirt. There are also lots of washes so you are constantly going up and down. Zenos handled all of the footing and terrain changes traveling smoothly and with grace. At one spot there was a washout that just dropped off, Dave's horse jumped off it and kept going. Zenos stopped and looked at it and waited for me to tell him what to do! I was so pleased :). We made it to the vetcheck, and Z pulsed down to 60 right away and we went over and vetted. Everything A-ok. So over to find our crewbag and get fed. I barely got the food out and mixed with water before the horse had it all gobbled up. I put elytes in each of his baggies of feed and he ate it all, then tried finishing off some of another horses food.

We had volunteered to pull ribbons down on part of the next loop since we were last and that section of trail was only going to be done on that first day. Luckily Dave brought along a plastic bag -- which we filled up completely stuffed with ribbons on clothespins! They really way overmarked that trail (lol). That was also great experience for Z, as he got to stop and let me lean over to pull off some of the ribbons, and was the only horse :* that wasn't afraid of the plastic bag filled with ribbons. Once we got thru there we were able to leave all of the ribbons at the water stop with the radio guy. We stayed there a few extra minutes to let the horses eat before heading in. We made up some time there and finished at about 5, just as it was getting dark. That wasn't too bad since we had until 7:45 to make it in by. We were last. We entertained ourselves by reading the big flashing billboard on the sign in front of the casino as we headed towards it. They had a special, for $10 you got an hour of dance lessons, 4 hours of dancing and 2 drinks. I don't know if anybody from the ride went or not, but we did make it in that night to have prime rib for dinner in the restaurant.

Riding with Dave is a lot of fun, he's always so patient, and so considerate. He just can't hear real well. We had fun all day comparing our horses heart rates, then finally at some point I kept hearing a beep beep beep sound. I asked him if that was his HRM -- and he didn't know, said he couldn't hear it! <G> Sure enough, his HRM was not attached and was beeping. It kept doing that, so I kept telling him "there's that bird again". Dave was able to tease me because my horse was trying to eat orange rocks, and chew on bark on the joshua trees (now he knows that stuff isn't edible) :P

The next day I rode Chief-- we started out in the back and I got him thru the first part without him getting too excited. He always wants to catch whoever is in front, as well as stay ahead of whoever is behind. Next year I can ride him faster and he won't be mad at me for making him go so slow. I've been practicing on the last few rides letting him canter a little bit here and there. We do that a lot on training rides, but in an actual endurance ride he tends to want to gallop like his tail is on fire. So we're doing little stretches where I work on our transitions in a speed that is in control, and he is getting better and better about it. We soon started to pass other horses, especially going up the steep climb up Cave Canyon. He is great on technical trails and goes well over the big boulders and rocks and doesn't need to stop and take a break, so up we went up and up and over the top, then down trotting thru the sand into the vetcheck. We caught up Kathy after lunch and rode with her into the finish. I really wanted to let Chief go more, but thought better of it until I have more time to back him off of doing so many miles in a season, so I kept him at the same pace and we finished the day with him looking as great as he always does! I was happy and sad, knowing that he'd just finished an incredible ride season and sad because it was over and knowing I'd never get to ride him on that trail again. I think we finished around 13th out of 28.

The third day started out a bit windy. It had blown most of the night at Blue Diamond. I still planned on riding Zenos. He was handling everything so well, the day I rode Chief he was trailered to the new camp and when he got there he spent the day eating and drinking. Another horse got loose and ran around camp and Z just stood there calmly and watched. About 3 a.m. I heard a loud commotion outside, but with the wind I couldn't tell what it was. It sounded like a horse had gotten into a wreck, or had gotten loose so I went outside to look. Both of my horses had eaten all of their food and drank all of their water and they wanted more! So got them all refilled on their rations and back to bed for another hour or two before getting up. We started at 6 a.m. I got Zenos boots on, tacked him up and walked him over to vet. He was fine. yay! I remember feeling his legs and checking him over and thinking that you couldn't tell he'd done a ride, that was great. His attitude was good too, as we headed out. He seemed happy to follow Dave's horse again and off we went. We had a small creek crossing in the first few miles, and he calmly walked thru it, yay! I really like how he stays calm when horses pass or he sees them up ahead. A couple of times I would pull him back a little and let Dave's horse get farther up ahead just to see how he'd handle it, and he did fine with that. I don't want him to get too attached to another horse. On all three days, neither of my horses had their HR's go above 140. Actually, maybe 133 was the highest they got to climbing the steep hills. I used the Garmin 301 so it measured the distance, elevation, HR and all that jazz -- so I can put it on the laptop and view the graphs. Mostly I use it to keep an eye on my average speed, and also the speed that we are going at. It's almost scary how much your average can be thrown off when you stop and fiddle faddle around, or are pulling ribbons or whatever.

The vetcheck was shortened to a half an hour because of the cold and wind. That was just long enough for the horses to eat well. They had sandwiches for us along with chips and drinks and candy. The last part of the ride went really well, we had more downhill to do since we were riding back to Jean. Zenos was well mannered when I led him on foot down Cave Canyon. Then I got on and trotted the wash part. We didn't have any ribbons to pull today so didn't lose time there. When we got to the water stop the radio guy told us that we were 6th and 7th out of 19 riders. We'd been figuring that we were the 19th riders <G>. Wow, how did that happen? I guess we had been doing a lot of steady trotting, not fast but we weren't fiddling around and goofing off either. So we kept on going occasionally letting the horses canter where the terrain allowed it. What a great day it was, we had the best time. Since we'd started so early and had only a half an hour hold, we finished at about 2 o'clock! That was great, I had plenty of daylight left so the horse could get dried off and cleaned up. It was sad saying goodbye to everybody. They did a great job at the ride this year all around. The trail was well marked, the lunches were awesome and all of the volunteers and vet were terrific. The group of riders were also all the best. I will miss Silver State.

Congratulations to all the riders and their horses that met all of their goals in 2005 and good luck next season!

Karen
in NV

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