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Thanks Erick!  It was very fun riding those 25 miles with you, even when you
got nervous about the time!  I have to tell you, his story is absolutely
true, at least most of it, because I saw parts of his rodeo.. made me glad
it wasn't MY horse doing that for a change.  Oh, and Erick GRACIOUSLY let me
have the Turtle...err.. SNAIL award, thanks again!  On the second half of
that ride I *foolishly* decided that my horse was tired enough to ride him
in his sidepull minus the bit.. by the time we hit mile 39 my back hurt, my
shoulders were killing me and my.. err.. unmentionables ACHED from his
pulling me out of the darn saddle wanting to go faster.  Apparently I had
him in better condition than I thought..  Here I was, trying to ride a SLOW
50 and my horse thought we should be competing for Top 10.. geez, guess I
forgot to explain the plan to him.  It was cool to see Erick's horse figure
out that mud puddle water really is the best kind, and that grass is best
grabbed at the running walk LOL.

I want to say thanks to the riders who helped me along too, one to Carolyn
Loedeman without who that trip would not have been possible, and another to
Peggy & Roberta for letting me tag along with them when Sal (who is an
Arab/Saddlebred cross! <grin>) wanted to be a dingbat, and to Irving and
Erick.  It was a good time, and we had some really nice conversation.

And congrats to you & your wife Erick on the new baby!  Woohoo!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ridecamp Guest" <guest-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 10:24 PM
Subject: [RC] Clity Slickers - Long boring ride story


Please Reply to: Erick paradigm@xxxxxxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
==========================================

City Slickers in Memphis, TN provided a perfect opportunity for my horse and
I to complete our first 50 and to do it barefoot (the horse not me; I wore
new Ariat Terrains).  Due to my wife having to work Saturday, I loaded up
and headed out alone.  This would be another first; my horse on a ride
without his buddy.

We have done a couple LD's and I have volunteered at a few rides as well.
But nothing as unique as this one.  I am more used to trying to find a dirt
road leading to a small meadow that is the ride camp than pulling into a
paved parking lot and unloading the horse into a lighted barn stall with
shavings!  Instead of carefully stowing all food and garbage so bears don't
visit, I walked to Wal-Mart from ride camp to buy a Rib eye for dinner.
Finally, I noticed the LD riders outnumbered the 50's 2 to 1.

It was cold Friday night!  I slept in the stock trailer, just set up the cot
and crawled in and crashed.  It had been a five hour drive and a long week.
I woke up to ice on my sleeping bag!  I've got to get an LQ trailer.  Ok
that's too expensive; I've got to get a warmer sleeping bag.  On the bright
side, the milk I bought at Wal-Mart the night before and left in the back of
the truck was nice and cold on my Fruit Loops.

The start of City Slickers has you winding back and forth across a large
field before plunging into the woods.  I dismounted, turned my horse
backwards to the start line and let everyone else leave before I started.
My object was to complete safe and sound, nothing more.  My mistake was I
didn't wait until the leaders were completely out of sight before starting
out.

My usually well behaved half Arab half Tennessee Walker was a freak!
Without his buddy to keep him company he was nervous, almost uncontrollable,
and wanted to bolt at any moment.  It didn't help that I was riding a hack
and not a bit.

Several scary miles down the trail I encountered the first of the many
helpful riders I want to thank.  Unfortunately I am bad with names and can't
remember her name or the  junior she was sponsoring.  She was riding a
beautiful Tiger Stallion that was so well behaved and tolerant of my crazy
horse I am immensely grateful.  I "parked" my horse behind hers and followed
them on to the first vet check.

A mile or two before the first vet check my horse and the juniors both
bolted at the same time.  Neither horse wanted to concede to the other and
neither of us riders could stop our horse.  We were both finally able to
steer our mounts in a circle in a large field and bring them to a stop.
That little girl is an incredible rider to not come off that horse going a
full gallop and racing my horse.  Wow, scary!

Without further incident we made it to the first vet check.  I was amazed
that after such a disastrous beginning my horse got all A's on the vet check
and was 32/36 on the CRI.  Even my new riding partners were not dissuaded
from inviting me to continue to ride with them.

But after leaving the vet check with them and experiencing some of the same
behavior problems I decided to let them ride on ahead.  Of course my horse
was not happy about that.  Trying to get off of him to walk for a while was
almost a rodeo.  A rider, I believe Irving McNaughton, rode by and asked how
it was going.  I stated that I had my hands full today.  He smiled and said:
"Son, you don't know what a handful is yet!"  That was prophetically true.

I decided to jog for a while to calm both my horse and me down a bit.  We
stopped at a stream to let the horse drink and I made another mistake.  Not
paying attention, I let the horse step on the reins and he broke his bridle
in three places.  It was hopelessly destroyed.  Of course I had no repair
kit or spare available.  I was beginning to believe this was just not my
day, but being a hard headed Swede I was not about to concede defeat.

I tied the reins around the horse's neck and took off jogging along side of
him.  I'm guessing it was a 6-8 mile jog to the road crossing.  I tried to
slow down and walk several times but every time I did the horse would push
me in the back with his head as if to say "hurry up" we got ride to finish.

At the road crossing where the police would stop traffic to let the horses
cross I stopped to reevaluate.  Finding a rope and making a temporary repair
put me back in the saddle.  I was almost afraid to climb on.  What if he
bolted again and my makeshift bridle repair came apart?  I endeavored to
keep him to a walk back to ride camp and the next vet check.  Riiiiight.

He had other ideas.  Where did all this energy come from?  Yes, we followed
a conditioning program derived from Dr. Lovings book.  Yes, he was well fed
and properly e-lyted.  But how could he be such a freak on the trail and
still pulse so well at the vet checks???  So we compromised and he settled
into the fast walk TWH gait.

I have heard some veteran riders say in the first 50 it is not uncommon for
a horse to be unsettled in the initial 25 only to settle down and have a
great second 25.  As I limped into ride camp at the halfway point, I was
sure hoping they were right.  I took the 40 minute hold to rebuild the
destroyed bridle with cotton rope.  Ugly, but it worked.

Well the second half WAS much better.  Not because my horse decided to calm
down on his own, but because we met up with Opal from Ohio and her wonderful
Arab/Standard bred.  That horse calmed mine down, taught him to drink out of
a mud puddle and allowed us to finish the ride safe and sound.  Thank you
very much for allowing us to "go to school" on you and your horse.

We finished with 18 minutes to spare.  We vetted out with all A's and pulsed
at 40.  Who cares that the winners were showered and changed and probably
already drinking wine and beer.  Who cares that our pace was so slow that we
saw turtles and snails passing us up.  We finished safe and sound.

So as I lay in my sleeping bag freezing while frost formed on my socks that
night, I tried to figure out what I should have learned from this
experience.  I came up several lessons:

1. Riding a horse named Memphis in the city of Memphis could be trouble.
2. To finish really is to win.
3. Conditioning is not everything; your horse must have manners too.
4. Endurance riders are wonderful tolerant people
5. Memphis is cold in March, really cold.

Hope to see everyone at LBL.  I'll have a horse that is much better behaved
by then.  Oh, BTW, even though my wife missed this adventure she was home to
see our new mustang give birth to a beautiful charcoal grey philly!  Funny
how life works out, huh?


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Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp

Ride Long and Ride Safe!!

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