ridecamp@endurance.net: Castle Rock (CA) ride 6/24th

Castle Rock (CA) ride 6/24th

Lucia Humphrey (laneyh@ix.netcom.com)
Mon, 26 Jun 1995 13:36:42 -0700

Dear endurance trailmates -
I can't believe I'm the first to recover sufficiently to stagger to
my computer & post something about the Castle Rock ride. What an
experience! Barbara & Lud and all the other McCrary's are incredibly
dedicated and caring ride managers who have put on one of the best
rides for 27 or so years. But this year all their caring, concern and
dedication couldn't overcome the weather. Originally they had to
postpone the ride from its traditional 3rd-weekend-in-May date to the
only weekend in June without a ride - the 24th. Being right on the
central coast of Calif and normally totally fog ridden, the month's
delay shouldn't have made a difference. BUT...after a winter and
spring of unremitting rain and cold, we had a heat wave to contend
with. I hope someone with more access to facts and not hearsay & rumor
with eventually post something but I do know that the head vet stopped
the Big Creek 70 at 55 miles when the temperature reached 100 and the
humidity 55 (I grew up in Tennessee & I know horses & people can deal
with that but not horses & people not conditioned to it!) At the
awards dinner Sat. night Barbara McCrary could positively identify 24
horses/riders who finished the entire 50 mile course before the 6pm
cutoff out of 127 who started. There surely are others who did & there
are also a number (including me) who were told at the last vet check
not to do the last 6 miles including the last of 3 monster hills and
just get into camp by the shortest route possible (none of us had been
pulled by the way). The trouble was that there were conflicting ideas
about what to do among the people in charge and the result was total
confusion. It will all get sorted out, I'm sure, and everyone will get
recognition for what they & their horse accomplished.
One of the reasons I love this ride so much is that it demands a
high degree of strategy and planning. The first 25 miles or so are
flat, cool, wide trails which lure the unsuspecting rider into going
too fast. Every year in her Fri. talk, Barbara warns against this and
every year horses fall by the wayside as they confront the first of the
long hills that go on and on and on after the first vet check. Not
only does the trail go up, it goes inland away from the cool coastal
fog and breezes (and for you who don't know coastal CA, the temperature
goes from a cool,foggy 60 to a blistering, sunny 100 in a couple of
miles). There was not a breath of air and the humidity was unusually
high for around here. I think the hottest part of the 50 miles was
before lunch when the trail was up on a ridge of "chalk rock" that just
soaked up the heat and threw it back at you.
I don't know when or where most horses got pulled but I'll bet it
was at lunch. A friend was doing P&Rs and she said she had never seen
so many horses whose respiration wouldn't come down. She also advised
me to really push electrolytes which I did. This was my horse's first
ever endurance ride so I had already planned to go slow. I'm patting
myself on the back and giving her lots of hugs for her tremendous heart
because we finished looking bright eyed with all As & Bs, no lameness
and no swellings to speak of.
This was a ride to test the skill of any rider and beyond. It is
almost impossible to condition for ride conditions such as these in the
Bay Area and I know a lot of the sport's best representatives who
pulled their horses voluntarily in order to protect them.
I hope others of you who were there and know more will also post so
we can get a more complete picture.
Thanking the angel riding on my shoulder that Tara & I will have lots
more HAPPY TRAILS
Laney