Oakland Hills Ride Story

["Kathy Myers" <kathy@nvolve.com>]

As told by Gabrielle Robinson who kindly trailered quite
bit out of her way to pick up Blue and I.  She tells
the story so well...
*********************
Hi all,

Well it has been 2 years since our last 25 mile endurance ride and we
finally were back at a ride! I trailered Kathy, her new horse Blue and
Dixie (my horse) to the Oakland Hills ride. We caravanned with Kathy
Ruiz pulling her new rig (really nice Aluminum 4 star
gooseneck)...driving her horses Tam and Alarm.

We got a fairly early start and were on our  way over the San Mateo
bridge when this car drives alongside us and rolls down his window... He
yells "your horse is bleeding out of it's nose"... Great, exactly where
do you pull off on the San Mateo bridge? So, we called Kathy Ruiz on her
cellphone (who was right behind us). She sees two horse butts and Dixie
is alternately poking her nose out the trailer and then looking back.
Everything seems o.k. There is not much we can do until we are off the
freeway so we wait... We make the left turn onto Redwood Ave and I watch
my trailer follow, only to see blood spattered all over the side of my
trailer... We pulled over, dreading to look...and were relieved to see
it was only a small cut on Dixie's lip... Boy do lip wounds bleed... By
the time we got to Bort Meadows it had stopped, but what mess...

How quickly we forget all of the prep work that goes into packing,
setting up camp, and finally going on a short ride to do a tack check!
And I brought a book along to read...yeah right! We set our alarms for
5:15 and finally made it into bed by around 10:30pm. Just after I took
my glasses off, I could swear someone was lurking outside the truck. I
said "Kathy, I swear something just went by...should we lock the doors?"
Kathy started laughing hilariously and mentioned we are in the middle of
a sea of trailers and people...duhh... All is quiet when we hear someone
yell, "horse", "loose horse"! Kathy checks for her horse Blue, I put on
my glasses and hear someone yell, "anyone loose an appaloosa?"... I look
out and sure enough, no Dixie... My Dixie waited until all was quiet,
unclipped her brass lead snap and went for a stroll! There was a really
fine Stallion she was wanting to visit (but luckily never found )... I
collected my horse from somone I could not see, more less recognize (if
that was you, thank you so much) and I pulled out another lead with a
bull snap and finally got some sleep (I think)...

The weather was perfect, overcast, but not too cold. One of the
stallions dumped his rider, so he could romp around camp. He was finally
caught and headed down the trail. We left shortly thereafter and saw
very few riders. We rode really slow and people kept wondering if we
were the drag riders! Kathy's new horse Blue and Val's horse Haley did
great! Oh, and of course Dixie was great too! She is 17 and has done
this stuff before, so she had the time of her life!

Thank you very much to Gary and Laura Fend for putting on a great ride!
The barbeque was especially scrumptious and the trails were well marked.
I have been enjoying my 25 mile ride award with each morning cup of
coffee!

   (\_/)..     		Gabrielle Robinson
  /  "' `\\\\\ 		Clinical Information Systems
 !    o  `\\\\\\		Roche Palo Alto
 /      ) \  \\\\\\\	Phone: 650 855 6587   Fax: 650 855 5988
 \_~//   \\   \\\\\\\	Email: gabrielle.robinson@roche.com