(Not the best shot of us, as he fought me most the way here and looks tired and sweaty..but gaiting well in the pic! This was about 1.5 miles from the vet check... Photo by Barry Thorpe)So to the ride we went. Got up there on Fri before the ride, started unpacking, and realized: no electric fence! Ack! Oh well :( So he was going to have to just get tied to the trailer the whole ride. We vetted in fine (got a nice comment from the vets about how nice he was...even THEY had to look to see he was a stud, LOL..score!), then I decided a both would be good, since it was a relatively warm day and we had access to water. This would be his first bath in who knows how long! It made him nice and shiny and soft...sighhh...purdy horse! ;)
(This is after the vet check...much better, he has settled down and is much more relaxed and got to rest for 1/2 an hour. I am riding with Elicia Kamberg and her nice gelding and we'd done a training ride together earlier too, so these boys were happy to ride the rest of the way home together. Photo by Barry Thorpe)Tied him up again and all was well...til that evening after the ride meeting. During the day I had him on a sort of 'zip line' on a rope hooked up inside the trailer, tied to the inside tie rings, rope fed out through the windows. Worked great, and gave him a little more room to move around. Problem was, the metal runner loop would clang around on the trailer. No way I was sleeping (or NOT) with that all night. So I decided to just tie him to the corner tie ring overnight. Tied him, went to get some mush for him, after which I was going to move his water tub (to block the bottom of the door-corner...) and hay bag. Came around the corner with his mush bucket, and his head was down eating grass...rope under the corner...uh oh! Sure enough, he sees me, up goes the head...well, 6' where it is stopped by the corner. Course all hell proceeds to break loose! Storm is flipping out, setting back on the halter. Rope is going NOWHERE (stout rope, good snap, rope halter=a stallion that stays where he is parked all day/night). Trailer is rocking, I am on the wrong side of the trailer from the knot (which, btw, I tied a different one from normal, that is SUPPOSED to be a better quick release than my normal fare). My friend Vanessa was on the other side, and she couldn't get the knot to release (from now on, back to my other knot). I was trying to calm him down, yelling at her to find a knife (of course, this WOULD be one of the few times I was NOT carrying one on my body...sighhh...Murphy strikes again). Finally, after several attempts at undoing the snap (bullsnap, hard to do anything with, let alone with 1100lbs of horse on the other end setting back) while he would set back, come forward, set back, I finally got him to give his head enough to unhook the danged thing! All three of us were adrenalined up at that point, and it took a while to settle down. I retied him (even SHORTER..just barely able to reach his water and mush), got his water bucket moved to the corner, and checked him over. Had a little scrape on his cheek from the halter, but 'seemed' fine. In the morning (it was dark by now and most ppl were in bed), I'd have the vet check him over (he REALLY was set back hard...on a rope halter too) before I went off on the trail.
Went to sleep, though woke up at every little sound of course, since I was now tuned to trouble. So didn't sleep well. Good thing it was only an LD I'd have to get through. Took him back to the vet (who also is into chiropractory) before taking up to make sure he was still good to start. He was a little sore in his poll, but not bad and got the green light to go....goody! So I tacked up and got set to go. He was nice and mellow, even with all the 50's leaving and the LDs getting read to go and wandering around camp. So that was a great sign. At the start, we all kinda hung back, no one wanting to be 'first', LOL...lots of hotshoes in the LD, huh? ;) The starter practically had to kick us up onto the levy to head out, LOL. I hung back and hand walked him to the actual trail head, then mounted up. He was calm walking and mounting, but spooked like a dork at the trail head sign (which he has seen a dozen times at least and never spooked at! What a dolt!) and then.... a MONSTER on my hands! Not sure what he did when he set back, but must have sparked some little competitive streak that was up til now hidden in him. He would NOT walk! (I walk up the first 1.5 miles of this trail usually, as it is a significant hill and didn't want to tucker him out at the start) He kept pulling and wanting to gait out or canter and catch other horses...not like him at all! This proceeded not only up the first hill (which I THOUGHT would wear him out...riiighhhttt...nope), but for the next 16 miles...basically all the way to the vet check! What a ding bat! He'd pull and try to run, I'd circle him, he'd try to run, etc. When the footing was good or there was a nice stretch of trail, I would ASK (after the pull/circle cycle of course) him to move out... and OUT he would go! What fun! a super smooth and fast gait and just zip zipping around switchbacks, trees, etc... kinda crazy, but thrilling :) He was never out of control, mind you. If I really need to say ENOUGH and WALK, I could circle him to a stop easy, then let him just STOP for a minute and get his head on, then we could go on again. It was just that he wanted to really GOOOOOO! Which he normally doesn't (lazy SOB usually!). If I knew he were in shape to go fast, I'd even ask him to keep that up. Since he's not though, I kept asking him to rate back a lot, which he really wasn't happy about, but somewhat complied.
Finally, near the vet check turnoff, I met up with my friend Elicia (we'd done a training ride together on our two horses before, so the boys really liked hanging with each other) who was doing her horse's first LD and was trying to slow it down as well. The rest of the way to the VC (bout 1.5miles) we finally were able to slow gait or walk on a loose rein...aaahhhh...bout time! So after getting all hot and bothered most the way to the check, I was able to get Storm to slow down, which hopefully would mean we could actually pulse in in a decent amount of time. Both Elicia and I were figuring out the VC plan, thinking we'd have to strip tack and do lots of sponging to get the ponies pulsed in (as both had gone a bit faster than their normal pace). 1/4 mile from the VC, we dismounted and loosened the girths...Storm was around 72 on his HRM and then it quit (doesn't like loose girths). WE got out our vet cards, handed them to the checkers, and since nobody was around, the pulse takers came over to check us (this was at about 1 1/2 mins into the check)....no way did I think Storm would be ready, but since no one was in line, figured I'd see how 'close' he was..... DOWN! says the checker (and he's a long-time e-rider, not a newbie volunteer either, so I knew if he said we were good, we were!)...he hands me back my card, and Storm is at....56!!...well, so much for thinking we were going too fast! Hmmmmmm...... Elicia's horse was down a minute later too, so not a problem :) We decided to hang together and ride the rest of the ride together from there on.
I led the horses to a nice shady area and set the boys up with hay (we provide hay for riders at the RW rides if they want it) while she went to find her crew bag. Then she watched the boys while I got mine. Both ate like crazy and drank well, and of course each wanted the OTHER horse's mush and hay. Her horse was constantly in Storms dish, nose to nose, and he pretty much coulda cared less... what a good pony :) Just before we were ready to leave, we packed up the bags and then went over to the vets. It was only a 1/2 hour hold, so tack was left on and we barely had enough time to get ourselves fed, but I like shorter holds as it gives you more time on the trail to take it easy, and if you NEED to stay longer, you sure can, so no big deal :) Anyway, we went over to the vet, and she did a CRI. Basically you take a pulse, trot the horse out for a set distance, trot back, wait a minute....usually during which the vet checks the rest of your horse....and then pulse again. This goes back to the important RECOVERIES thing I talked about earlier....you want the second pulse to be the same or within a few beats at most higher, than the first. If it is lower, all the better, and of course the lower the actual number of both (48/48 vs a 56/56) is even better... This indicates how fit the horse is, and how tired at that point in the ride the horse is, or other things that may be wrong. Not all vets at all rides do this, so it was kind of fun to see what Storm was at. I figured in the 50's I'd be happy, and if he was the same pulse, really happy :). What was his CRI???? 44/44......NO WAY!!! I thought I had misheard her! She also gave A's on everything, A- on guts, which was fine with only a 1/2hr hold and what he had at the pre-vet anyway... Handed my card back, and yes! 44/44! WOWZER!!!!! You really can't appreciate how excited I was about that one, as I thought a) he was still not in such good shape (guess he'd only fooled me with his laziness at other rides) and b)he had gone too fast to the VC (guess not...seems he was ok to handle that), and c)even for Arabs that was a darn good CRI, let alone a gaited horse that "those don't do endurance well"....Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Elicia's horse vetted out fine as well and we went to mount up and head home.
The plan was to walk more and relax on the way back...bout 11 miles tops. Well...we know how plans go, right? Storm knew we were heading home (problem with riding on the home turf) and he was wanting to GO again...especially after having rested and refueled. The first few miles were on a nice, open, flat, good footing logging road as well. So I let him out a little and we cantered quite a bit and gaited a little. I also knew the next two miles after that were DOWN hill and flat, before it finally went uphill again. What FUN it was! Elicia's horse and Storm were kinda egging each other on as well and feeding into it all... At the downhill it turns into a less maintained two-track, then into a single track. We walked most of it with a little slow gaiting and then walked the really steep downhill. This led into another flat, old logging road that we gaited on, and walked the bad spots (some bogs and ditches and stuff you have to negotiate). Then UP UP UP for the next 2 miles until you get to what we call the Alder Trail. A fun, single track, rolling whoopie-do trail that takes you for 2 miles to the big switchback hill that you come up in the morning. We flew down that again (poor Elicia had me slow down the pace a few times, as Storm really, REALLY knew that the Alder Trail meant we were close to home and he was feeling GREAT!) at a good pace, then finally popped back onto the trail for home. Both E and I decided to get off at the 'cave tree' and lead the rest of the way back down (another 1.5 miles or so) and get the boys to settle down. At the bottom of the trail, we hopped back down to ride the last 1/2 mile or so on the levy to camp. The hand walking seemed to have worked, as both were mostly content to walk on in on loose rein. E and I were bummed we were doing an LD, as it would have been fun to 'race' (trot/gait..neither of us wanted to go hell bent for leather or anything) in to the finish, just for the heck of it , but since LDs don't finish til the horses' pulses were down to 60, we didn't want them to go flying in. Oh well...so we strolled across the finish line instead. We hopped off and got our pulses taken right away, and Storm was again at 56... great! All done! E's horse was down too :) After untacking (Storm didn't even seem bothered by leaving E's horse and going to his own trailer, though her horse whinnied back at us a few times I think), we came back for a final vet out.... All A's again, except guts, which were still at A-...no biggie :) And a GREAT score card. I know the cards really don't mean that much, as they are just a brief glimpse into what your horse is doing that very minute, and you really need to just pay attention to what he is doing all day.... But (esp since he was doing so well all day and had lots of energy to spare at the end) it is still nice, when you get that 'straight A' report card :):)
After vetting, I let him eat and relax for an hour, then took him down to the creek for a good role in the sand, a drink out of the river (he tanked there..he loves running water over trough/bucket water any day), along with standing his legs in the cold water for 10 mins (even better than ice boots!) and then grazed him for a good half hour on the nice grass out there. Then back to the trailer to have the rest of the day off, while I relaxed a little myself and waited for the 50's to come in. All in all, this was an excellent ride for Storm, and I was extraordinarily pleased. :) Now I am thinking we'll do his first 50 sooner than I had thought, since he came through this ride so well!
In the 'Cave Tree' while out trail marking...Storm and I all decked out in ribbons.. :)
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