Long Leaf (long)

[rides2far@juno.com (Angela C. McGhee)]

Hi there,
Back from Long Leaf.  Quick results first:

50 miler:  1st place Glenda Weeks and Furidant 
                 3rd?  Roger Barrett
                 4th Cleon Akins?

100 miler:  1st & BC Marilynn Horstmeyer 1st HW  
                   2nd Jim Wiseman 1st MW
                   3rd 4th tie.  Betsy Reeves (on Turbo) and Karen Pruitt
                                        Both FW 
                   5 Gail (Texas) on Obsession 1st LW (we thought Betsy  
                    was a LW, so I let Gail finish ahead!  GRR! We'd have
                      had a tremendous race to the finish otherwise. HA!
                   6 ME! on Kaboot  (High vet score, 2nd in BC judging by
                      20 points even though she's HW & I'm LW and 
                      I was 2:15 behind her. :-))
                   7 Laura (from Kansas) on Bocephus (first 100)
                  This is when I went to bed.  I know Mike Jaffe & his
mule                   finished at about 3:00 AM, and another girl from 
                  Texas on a QH did her first 100.  Seems like there     
                  was one more finisher, but I'm not really sure.

Don't know anything about the LD.

Guess you could call this the ride that almost wasn't.  Ruth Gaddis had
to move the ride 100 miles 2 weeks before the ride.  Poor Laura from
Kansas went to the original camp Thurs. camped, waited and waited,
finally was able to find a ranger to tell her where the party had moved
to got to Shockaloe camp about 100 miles away late Fri. very frustrated.

This was my first time to the Bieneville National Forest.  The trails
were perfect.  Wouldn't want to be there after rain though.  Fortunately
we were on the tail end of a drought.  Level, packed sandy clay with pine
needles on top.  Very springy and nice.  The loggers had been there, but
they have chip mills that apparently take all underbrush.  Where they'd
been was just nicely thinned. However, the logging trucks were flying up
and down the road all day, so they had moved a section of trail making
it...of course...longer. :-( 

Cleon Akins had an interesting encounter.  Cleon has had a rough Autumn. 
On his way to Big South Fork a dump truck backed out of a driveway and
hit his truck and trailer with Dusty in it.  Then while he was fixing
that his cutting torch ignited the floor of his trailer and burned some
saddles, etc. and Cleon burned his hand bad trying to save things.  Now,
here he is riding in the 50 and a dump truck came by him, never slowed
down and clipped his horse with the fender!  The fender was damaged, the
horse looked pretty much O.K. Sounded like the fellow might have thought
Cleon should fix it.  Cleon said, "I've got a hurt horse, you've got a
hurt truck we're even.  Then he went on to finish top 5.

Met several ridecampers.  Glenda Snodgrass finally has a face to go with
her name!  She took pity on my probiotic whining and brought me a gift of
some Fast Track.  She didn't know that I'd gotten more advice to "let it
be" and so I didn't end up using it...but there's always next time. 
Thanks anyway Glenda.

Mountain High Valley low.  Tina Hicks did her first 100 at Liberty and
finished with high vet score, while I got pulled.  At this ride Tony was
slightly off at the first vet check and Tina pulled.  I ended up with the
high vet score.  The vets would have let her go on, but she was very wise
to stop.  This ride was a killer for making your horse footsore and leg
weary.

This flat fast ride was dangerously close to a replay of Liberty Run for
me.  The trail was just so darned springy and fast that we were holding
10+ mph without even trying.  I had already been 47 miles in the first 4
1/2 hrs.  Faster than Kaboot's fastest 50 pace, but still I was
constantly doing math and knew we'd be doing at least 1/2 of the next to
last loop in the dark and it was going to be murder to find your way.  

The markings on this ride left a lot to be desired.  There were several
factors.  First, I'm sure it was a real headache trying to re-locate the
ride.  Second, some of the markings were obviously sabataged. Third, it
looked as if a lot of different people had marked it, you'd follow a
heavily marked trail for a few miles, then you'd be lucky to see many
markers at all, but they'd be consistantly sparce.  Then, the forest
service had her move the trail AGAIN the day before the ride, which meant
the maps were off in places.

At the ride meeting we were told that our last 8.9 miles all was on the
road so she didn't mark it at all, there would just be a glow stick at
the turns.  I said, "did you put an arrow there for after the glow sticks
get stolen?" and she smiled.  The next night when Gail andI were groping
our way around the unmarked course, trying to figure out the map and
wondering if this was the part that was "not correct on the map", we
watched a 4-wheeler drive by with glowsticks hanging on back.  GRRRR. 
Another argument for the fact that 100 milers should carry guns after
dark!!!

Kaboot tried to give me a heart attack again this ride.  I was riding
with Kati Walker (lurking out there) and her horse Majik.  Kati was
trying her first 100 and doing a great job when a stone bruise from last
week made him go off at the 66 mile mark.  Being a true friend, I said,
"I'm sorry, he's probably going to have to pull, I've got to go" and left
her. :-( 

 Then Kaboot just quit eating again.  Replay of Liberty Run.  This was on
the tail end of a 22 mile loop that was bringing us into the 70 mile
point.  I should have electrolyted 1/2 way and forgot.  Got to camp and
he did the "stare" treatment.  My heart hit my feet.  He recovered well,
but yawned all the way through the vet check...and stared.  His CRI was
up 8 beats (52/60) the vet said, but the vet seemed pretty inexperienced,
and was doing a 15 sec. count.  I had already decided I wouldn't leave
unless he started eating, even though he passed the check.

 Rosco Weeks yelled across the parking lot that his horse sure had
enjoyed eating my Coastal all day, and I said, "then bring me what you've
got because he's stopped eating".  Rosco brought over some beautiful
orchard grass  and Glenda brought a bag of apples. Kaboot ate the apples
and slowly chewed the hay, sort of thoughtfully but not enthusiastically.
 I stayed an extra 30 minutes, so he managed to do some eating.

 I watched the people I'd vetted through with leave, and knew there was
one more pair that was about 30 min. behind us, then about a 2 hr. gap
before the next riders who were still trying to complete would be in. 
While I was standing around thinking about it, I suddenly saw Gail from
Texas leaving and knew it was now or never.  So I grabbed my stuff,
tightened the saddle, (meanwhile Laura from Kansas left) put on glow
sticks (at 3:30 in the afternoon no less!) double dosed with electrolytes
and headed out as fast as I could to try and catch them.  It was a 19.5
mile loop and we knew it would get dark on us.  There were some pretty
lax markings out there and I wasn't at all confident that there would be
any glowsticks around the huge open fields that we had to cross.  Turns
were marked only with 3 yellow ribbons, no pie plates or anything, and
they didn't stand out much in a field of tall sage.  

The three of us hooked up and made it though.  It took a long time, Laura
thought her horse felt a little off, so we walked the last 5 miles or so
with her to get her back to camp.  She said her dad was there so we
figured he could drive with her on the road loop if the horse was O.K.

Enter "Super Bill" my husband.  Something about the sun going down
apparently inspired him and boy, talk about a spirit booster.  He was
driving my dad's huge 3/4 ton custom van, and  was he a welcomed sight
whenever we were unsure we were on the right road and those running
lights were shining in the distance.  He scouted the whole grid out, saw
there were no glowsticks, reported them being stolen at camp to which
they replied, "yes, they have a tendency to do that here".  He would
drive ahead until there was a turn, then park until we got there.  Sure
was nice to ride along chatting and dozing instead of keeping your
flashlight on looking desperately for landmarks.  The flakes of hay he
handed me came in handy.  Kaboot ate an entire flake of hay while I
walked at one point.  After getting us through, he went back and helped
Laura who was by herself behind us.  THANKS BILL!

Gail and I discussed who would finish first.  We were going to finish 5 &
6.  She's in a tight points race and I'm not ranked, so she needed the
points more.  Besides, what's the difference in 5th & 6th?  So we agreed
she'd cross the line first.  Then every time someone asked me "How'd you
do?" I had this horribly competetive streak that was dying to say FIFTH!!
 :-)  Got to the awards and it turned out Betsy was a FW, so Gail got
first Lightweight.  SHRIEK!  >eg<  Gee, I try to be nice, but not that
nice!  Don't know if either horse would have trotted if we had asked them
to race 10 ft. though.  We'd walked almost the entire 8.9 miles, much of
it on foot, and they were almost asleep.

Got back to the vet area and Kaboot was bright eyed and inhaling every
bit of food in his reach.  He cleaned up a pan of beet pulp while they
did his completion check, did a nice trot out, then ate a pan of soaked
shredded alfalfa and bran while they did his BC exam.  One of our fellow
ridecampers (I'm sooo sorry I can't remember your name, from Louisiana)
was very complementary of Kaboot all day, kept my spirits up by pointing
out his finer points.  I think she and I have the same taste in horses. 
She'd known how worried I was about him earlier, but now it was great to
hear her and the vet saying, "he looks better than anything we've seen. 
He's not shivering or anything. He looks so fresh, look at those big
round feet, etc."  My chest was swelling.  That may explain why it hurts
to take a deep breath today. 

Anyway, he got something like 486 on his vet score.  I checked the stack
since that's the only thing I figure I might actually get a shot at and
sure enough his score was High Vet.  I was fairly surprised to be 2nd in
the BC scoring by only 20 points.  That was icing on the cake.

This whole ride weekend I was asking myself, why the heck do I want to
ride 100.  For some reason it wasn't very fun.  I think it was the fact
that I was coming off that 80 mile pull and was so paranoid that I'd get
the rug yanked out from under me again.  Then, at the ride meeting when
Mike Long made some comment about "you all are the elite of endurance
riding", I got that braggy feeling, and was proud I'd managed to join the
club.  Yes, I'll want to do another one.  At the 70 mile mark I had this,
"why am I doing this to my horse" feeling, but he looked great at the end
and this morning, and I was terribly proud of him.

Angie and Kaboot Herlong (3 for 4)
       





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