Beaver Meadows - ride story

[Wendy Milner <wendy@wendy.cnd.hp.com>]

I'm still sore.  Drake appears to be a little slower than normal,
but overall recovered.  We did a good 43 mile training ride.
The endurance ride was 51 miles.

Started out mid-day on Friday, and picked up Michele, my first crew.
Michele just moved out to Colorado from California.  She is an
endurance rider that contacted me a few months ago looking for a 
place for her horse.  She wanted to be introduced to the local
community of endurance riders, so I said, sure, come crew for me:-)

We got to Beaver Meadows - Michele was suitably impressed with the
landscape of the area.  Parked the rig, got Drake set up, and went
over to register.  Went back to truck, got Drake and vetted in.  He 
was a little low on gut sounds, per normal.  Otherwise was doing fine.  
Went back and let him graze.

Watched this crazy driver try to pull a long RV and horse trailer
through a little muddy ditch, up a steep bank and around the trees.
Must be nuts.  Later found out this was Joe.  Hi, Joe, nice meeting
you.  Talking to Joe, Drake got jealous or something and managed to
hog tie himself with his rope.  Nothing major, he's a calm boy, but
I needed to stand by him so he wouldn't do it again.

Saturday morning I woke up when the 100 milers went out a 5am.
Took care of Drake. Michele got the water boiling for coffee or
tea.  Had a small amount of breakfast, then time to saddle up.

Drake was a bit cold.  Each time I let him stand still, he would
begin trembling.  So I walked around while the riders assembled.
At the start, I let Drake trot out with the leaders (Mistake number
one.).  He was not willing to listen to me for the next 24 miles.
After about a mile, I missed a turn a little bit.  There was fork
and I took the middle one, the trail took the right one.  So, I
moved back to the correct one.  There were many people in front,
and Drake did not like that at all. His manners left a lot to be
desired. Luckily, the other riders had better control of their horses.
At mile 2 we got onto a hard dirt road.  Here the front runners extended
the trot, and the lead.  Do you think I could get Drake to slow down?
Don't bet on it.  

The road was hard packed dirt.  There were lots of pot holes, or really
dried mud holes.  Sort of like washboarding, but not as regular.  You
really had to watch where you were riding.  The shoulder was the best
place, in most cases.  Drake did one sidewise teleport after a killer
stump tried to get him. Other than that, and going faster than I wanted,
he was fine.  

The weather was a bit chilly and clear.  After awhile, it warmed up,
and I wondered why I had on my light jacket.  But, due to the fact I
had a water backpack on, I couldn't get the jacket off without stopping.
So, I sweated a little.

After a few miles, the road turned into a trail. Flagging was minimal.
There were permanent trail makers that gave the number of the trail.
With my eyesight I prefer flags.  With five sets of eyes, we managed
to make it without getting lost.  Then we came to the section that 
sort of followed a trail.  I've got no idea what sort of animal made
the trail, mountain goat maybe?  It helped if your horse was really
good at pole bending.  The woman in the lead had helped to mark and
clear the trail earlier, so we had a good guide.

Came back onto a reasonable trail and booked along some more.
And found water.  Its called a river out here, a brook out east.
But the horses were knee deep.  Drake played a bit, and drank a lot.
We crossed several more knee deep streams.  And there was plenty of
grass, which I had planned on using as a rest stop, grazing spot.
Drake didn't want to.  So we stayed with the group.

Up, down, round and about. The lead changed frequently, but the same
five rode together.  A guy who had run with his horse occasionally
was in the lead.  I trotted up behind him, maybe a full horse length
between the two of us, and suddenly I saw a hoof about as high as my
head.  Had I been any closer, it would have been all over.  After
my swearing the guy says, "Don't get too close.  I've seen her kick
high enough to buck her rider off." There was no red flag on this horse.
I supposed this must be an effect trick for keeping the lead. No one
wanted to pass him then.

The first loop was 24 miles.  We made it in just over 2 hours. At the
end, one rider asked if the others wanted to walk in.  Everyone but
the one guy said yes.  He said no.  So, we went in fast.  

Since I had told my crew that I planned to ride in the middle, she was
very surprised to find me in the lead. She was all set up - boy is that
nice - and had been recruited to help with the P&R.  We weren't sure
if it would be kosure to have her do my P&R, so I called on Linnea.
It took Drake much too long to come down for my taste, although, it
seemed to be about average for the group.  He drank well, but wasn't
too interested in eating.  This showed up when the vet checked him out.
Really low gut sounds.  She also said he was dehydrated based on skin
tenting, but since his skin was soaking wet, of course it tented.
Hand walked him through the grass, which he ate some.  Back at the 
trailer, he was ready to hang out.  He figured he'd done his race and
was done.  

Waited out the full hour and then some.  Went back to the vet. She said
his gut sounds were better, and I could go on.  Probably prompted 
because most of the front runners had already taken off, and I said I
would be taking it easy.  So out we walked.

The out road was a bit of an incline.  Drake's heart rate was high, 134.
This is not good.  I almost turned back, then thought, I'll wait till
the stop sign.  His rate went as high as 148, at the walk.  Then finally
settled down.  At the stop sign, he was in the low 100s, so we went on.
A bit further up the road, a couple of riders came trotting up. Drake
immediately picked up the pace.  "That's all he needed," the  guy said.
Not what I wanted.  As they passed me, both horses threatened with ears
layed back.  Neither rider did a thing.  I tried to hold Drake back,
but he was getting more fretted being behind.  So I figured I'd just
ride with them. Ha!  As we came up, the grey horse (Number 72) kicked.
"Don't get too close," the guy said, "He kicks." No red flag.  So,
I passed in the middle of the road, one horse on either side, and both
horses threatened.  Neither rider did anything.

Trotted on ahead, Drake's rate climbing.  OK, get to the water tank at
the top and maybe I'll just quit.  But at the water tank, his rate was
good.  Guess I have to finish this loop then.  

Along the way the two riders passed me, horses kicked, I passed them,
horses kicked, etc.  I finally made a comment, "That's what a red ribbon
is for."  After that, at least they tried to do something with the
horse, late and ineffective, but doing something.  As they came up
one more time, I pulled off the trail, hung out in the trees until
they were completely out of sight, and then made Drake walk.  I was
afraid there would be another set of riders soon, but noone else came
up.  

In a nice meadow, sandy trail, lots of grass around, at a walk, Drake
tripped over his own feet.  He went to the ground with both knees and
nose. I stayed on, barely.  A quick check said he was OK.  Another mile
or so, and his heart rate was way down, and he wanted to go faster.
OK, a slow jog and occassional slow canter.  Unfortunately, this 
brought us up to the other two riders.  Passed them and stayed ahead of
them, until we came to a gate.  Ugly wire gates.  They hung back until
I opened the gate. Then the guy said he'd close it.  Good. I got on and
hurried off.

Got back to the hard road, and decided to go slow again.  Drake's heart
rate would go up too fast and not recover fast enough if we trotted.
And I ran out of water.  This hurt more than anything.  Dry sticking
throat is not nice.  The two riders caught up and passed.  This time Drake 
didn't fight too hard when I made him walk.  We mostly walked the rest of 
the way back in to camp.  Another 19 miles down.  And at this point, our 
nice weather was very cold and blowing hard.  At camp, it hailed.  Where 
I was it was just a bit wet, but very cold.

The first thing my crew said was "What happened to his knees?"  Blood
was dripping down his legs.  He had taken a quarter sized hunk of hide 
off of both knees.  I called it enough.  We probably could have continued,
but I had thought I felt a bit of unevenness in his gait once or twice,
might have been the road, and I was not really happy with his recoveries.
So, I told the vet I was pulling.  First vet started our vet out.
Then the second vet came over and asked for help on a horse in trouble.
(This horse had only done 15 miles, and very slowly.  He was wobbly,
and tended to fall over.  They hadn't figured out what was going on 
before I left.) Second vet came over and finished the vet out.  His
gut sounds were still low, but over all looked just tired.

Took care of Drake, and me.  My crew had already packed the truck.
I like having a crew.  And we headed out.  I promised her dinner
some time after I recovered.

So, we made it passed the 25 mile mark.  43 miles is almost a 50.
Next time, I'm just going to wait at the trailer at the start until
all the horses are out of sight.  Maybe we can ride my ride instead of
Drake's ride.  And I won't let him go to sleep on the trail again.

--
Wendy

                    \|/
          /\        -O-         
         /**\       /|\         
        /****\   /\            
       /      \ /**\   Here there be dragons
      /  /\    /    \        /\    /\  /\      /\            /\/\/\  /\
     /  /  \  /      \      /  \/\/  \/  \  /\/  \/\  /\  /\/ / /  \/  \
    /  /    \/ /\     \    /    \ \  /    \/ /   /  \/  \/  \  /    \   \
   /  /      \/  \/\   \  /      \    /   /    \
__/__/_______/___/__\___\__________________________________________________

 Wendy Milner                     HPDesk:   wendy_milner@hp4000
 Hewlett-Packard Company          e-mail:   wendy@fc.hp.com
 Mail Stop A2-5UB3                Telnet:   898-2182 
 3404 E. Harmony Rd.              AT&T:     (970) 898-2182
 Fort Collins, CO, 80528-9599     FAX:      (970) 898-2038