Re: RC: Control at the Start and other adventures

[Dbeverly4@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/30/99 11:35:31 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
BMcCrary27@aol.com writes:

<<  Wouldn't it be 
 wonderful if all rides had a nice quiet controlled start for about 2 miles?  
 Or a least one mile.
  >>

I'm with you Barbara!  The Malibu ride this weekend had a controlled start 
and it was so peaceful and quiet, the horses were all really mellow.  I don't 
think any of them realized when the "race" really started...we just sort of 
spread out at our own speeds. Unfortunately, the start ended up being more or 
less the high point of the ride for me.  About ten miles into the ride we 
were trotting along at warp speed on a nice, shady trail that had a lot of 
face-slapping brush on it, so I had my head down hoping to keep the scarring 
to a minimum, unfortunately there was a tree branch across the trail (well 
hidden by all the leaves and such) that the smaller horses just slipped 
under... Harca (15.3) and I (5'8") were the perfect height to smack my head 
into it.  The upper front portion of my helmet was crushed and if Harca 
hadn't stopped when he felt me lose my balance, I would have ended up on the 
ground.  As it was I had blurry vision and felt woozy for a couple of hours.  
Naturally, pulling never even crossed my mind (please, I know that was 
stupid).  Today, except for a sore neck and headache, I'm in fine shape.  We 
finished the ride with Harca definitely feeling better than me.  That is one 
tough 50 mile ride.  A funny story (if it didn't happen to you) .... Boyd 
Zontelli was leading the pack by about 45 minutes when he got to the last vet 
stop.  He has trained his horse to ground tie, so dropped the lead rope and 
was doing something when his horse spotted home (they live just a few miles 
away).  The horse took off down this little windy trail in the direction of 
home.  Boyd, thinking quickly, jumped in a truck and headed home to catch the 
horse and come back to finish the race.  That would have worked great except 
for a helpful mountain biker who caught the horse not far from the vet stop 
and brough him BACK to the vet stop.  The horse sat there patiently waiting 
for Boyd who was sitting at home not so patiently waiting for the horse.  
Comedy of errors.  Finally, somebody went and got Boyd, brought him back, he 
got on the horse and finished the ride (still top ten I believe). Boyd's 
sense of humor was intact and he was a good sport about the whole episode.  
Well, I'm off to take a couple more Advil (better read that warning label one 
more time...was that "don't exceed 6 or 16"?

Sylvia & Harca (watch out for those trees)


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