Thursday, I believe it was, Dale posted a link to ACTHA on facebook, with some details about the ride he was participating in. I checked out the link and realized it was a competitive trail challenge. It sounded like a lot of fun. I forwarded the link to many of my local horsey friends and Cheryl came over to talk to me about it, and she was really excited, having seen all about this organization on RFD-TV.
It was advertised as the Largest one day gathering of horses and riders in history, and encouraged riders to show up and be a part of the Guinness®World Record for The Largest Trail Riding Competition!
Having used up all my money on the last endurance ride, I told Cheryl I didn't think I could afford to go. She said she could haul me up there and to try and work it out. So after talking it over with Matt, I signed up online. This ride was pre-entry only, and entries for the Sunday ride closed at 3 pm on Friday.
The neat thing about ACTHA is that by becoming a member ($25/yr) you are then given $25 back in "ACTHA bucks" to spend at any of their sponsors businesses. I wasn't sure what I would want, and didn't want to spend any additional money so I was suspicious. However, I did find that Trail Blazer Magazine allows members to spend their bucks on a yearly subscription ($35 value). Oh man! I felt like I was ahead by $10 already!
Cheryl wanted to pick me and Sinwaan up at 7 am in order to make it up in plenty of time for the 9 am rider's meeting. So I got up at 6 am and tiptoed around the house so I wouldn't wake up Levi. Success!
When I went to halter Sinwaan I noticed his rump fur looked kind of messed up. Oh no. I tied him to the trailer and went back to inspect. Darn horse rubbed hair off the top of his rump again! What on earth is causing him to do this? I don't think it is quite as bad as last time, however now there is no added "shock value." I knew I didn't have a lot of time until Cheryl showed up, and there were no refunds for the ride. I knew it was a cosmetic problem and not a physical one so I pulled out the hose and cleaned him up. I added Aloe Heal to it and just then Cheryl pulled in. We loaded up horse and tack and helmet and away we went.
The drive up was fairly uneventful except that we didn't have directions and were not for sure where we were going. We got lucky and saw a horse trailer go on ahead of us while we were parked at the Spout Springs Chalet trying to find someone to ask. We continued up the road and found the ride to be incredibly well marked with two large signs out on the main road (highway 204).
We unloaded the horses and groomed them and tacked up, then I went down to the registration desk to see what else needed to be done before the 9 am ride meeting. I ran into Dale and Kittee (who gave me a big hug) and Sue Webb and her friend. We chatted for awhile. Everyone had to check-in and they gave me a number to pin on my back. Cheryl put mine on, bag and all! We also had to pay a $3/person trail-use fee. I paid mine in dimes. They also asked us to sign up on the form which time we wanted to head out. That was kind of a no-brainer, the first time available!
Shortly after 9 am George Ehmer wanted to start the meeting, so I walked up towards our trailer and shouted that the ride meeting was starting. George got up on the bed of a truck and told us the rules. He also introduced the EMT for the day. Most of the stuff George said was common knowledge for endurance riders. He had marked the trail with pink ribbons, on the right. Three colors of ribbons together meant a turn was coming up. Rider should carry water. He explained all six obstacles, the rules and deductions for each. Pleasure and Junior division riders rode at the same difficulty level. The open division riders had the same obstacles, but their execution was a bit more complicated. Due to some wet areas along the bottom of the canyon, the trail had been changed so instead of it being 6-7 miles, we were actually going to be riding closer to 10 miles today. Wahoo! Bring it on! Annie spotted me at the meeting and ran over to say hello. We were both wearing Mt Adams ride shirts.
Sinwaan doesn't have shoes now, so I had brought his red EZ Boots and I was very glad to have them as probably half of the ride was on hard dirt roads with a fair amount of rock/gravel. I put them on before we rode out.
Finally at 9:30 the first group was ready to head out. We rode down to highway 204 and waited. A gal was there to check us out, asking for our numbers (I was 132) and our names. When there was no traffic coming a man in an orange vest walked out into the road to help watch for traffic and we were allowed to cross.
In the first group was Cheryl and myself, Dale McKain and Kittee Custer, an older man named Jim on a spotted mule from Idaho, two women on Appaloosas and also two lead riders. I did not realize there were lead riders. I must not have been listening when that was mentioned at the meeting because I did not recall hearing anything about it.
The lead riders, Dale and Kittee, Jim and the women on Appaloosas got out ahead of us at the start. Cheryl's mare "Perfection" was chomping at the bit to go as she does not like having horses out ahead of her that she can see. So I suggested to Cheryl that we get up ahead of everyone when it was safe to do so, so we wouldn't have to worry about going slow. We caught up to the group shortly before we came upon Obstacle 1. So we waited our turn in line.
Obstacle One - "Trot and Stop" There was lime on the ground marking the start line and lime on the ground marking the stop line. After you call out to the judge your number, name and division, you then trot your horse (open div. canter) and then come to a smooth quick halt before crossing the stop line. Cheryl wanted to do this one first (before me) and I didn't really care so it wasn't a problem. The large group ahead of us was kind and they waited while Cheryl did the obstacle. I am sure I got docked points on the halt because Sinwaan was wanting to get to Perfection so he was a little hard on the bit. They dock you for open mouth, head up in the air (Sinwaan's always is), etc. Our score: Sinwaan (9), me (10).
We were able to get past the large group of riders after Obstacle 1. We trotted on by and didn't think twice about the Lead Riders. When we reached Obstacle 2 I think the judge asked us "Are you my lead riders?" and we were like "Um, sure, we're in the front I guess, right?" Cheryl did have to specify that we were competitors so that should have been a clue right there.
Obstacle Two - The Box Turn. Make a 360° turn and continue on. (Open div - turn on haunches). This seemed too easy. I will be curious to see my score on this obstacle. Our score: Sinwaan (9), me (10).
We trotted onward together down the trail, enjoying the perfect weather and beautiful scenery. Cheryl pointed out some little flowers and other plants that were just coming out.
Obstacle Three - Turn on the Forehand 180°. I knew this one would be tougher for us, although I thought we could do it. Cheryl attempted it first and actually did quite well. When it was our turn I got Sinwaan's front feet in the box and asked him to move his hind end over and he got kind of confused and bumped the log and it moved and we had to start over again. I was thinking we had failed but the kind judge reminded me that we had 60 seconds for each obstacle, so I kept at it. We were able to complete the obstacle on our third try and by then I actually had him going around it really well! (The Open Div had to do 360°). Our score: Sinwaan (2), me (5).
From this obstacle the trail went off into the woods and turned into a single track trail along the rim of the canyon. It was gorgeous! Lots of deadfall trees had been cleared from the path. It was a bit damp and Sinwaan slipped a couple of times. I was not sure if that was because of his boots but at times it felt like we were both going for a ride and not just me. Perfection had a nice gait going and Sinwaan trotted at a medium pace to keep up. We crossed mountain streams at least 6-7 times. In some places the snow melt had caused the whole trail to be wet and marshy. I could hear Sinwaan's boots squashing and squeeking after we schlepped through some of the mud and wetness, but they stayed on.
After a turn off the single-track and a short climb up we reached Obstacle Four - Cavalettis. There were four or five small dead trees laying across the trail and the Pleasure division had to walk over them, the Open Div. had to trot. Easy! Although Perfection clipped one and moved it slightly, and Sinwaan also clipped one but didn't move it. The judge commented that she was not expecting us that soon. Were we the lead riders? Our score: Sinwaan (8), me (6) (WHAT?)
This photo is right after we completed the obstacle. Shortly after we had a woman on horseback riding towards us. She asked us if we were the lead riders. We said yes, we are out front. She said she was rushing over to get photos of people doing the obstacle and we said oh well, we already did it. She told us her partner would be shooting photos at the last obstacle. It didn't matter much to us since we both were carrying our own cameras.
Obstacle Five was the L-Back. When George announced this at the riders meeting my heart sank. I know for a fact we are no good at this obstacle. My spirits rose a little when George said that the Pleasure riders only had to back in, and not back through the whole L with the corner. The Open riders had to do the corner. So I thought maybe we could do it after all if all we had to do was back in a straight line. Ha! Cheryl and Perfection did a nice job so here is a photo of them at the obstacle. When it was our turn I lined Sinwaan up and asked him to back. His rear went to the left and his foot clocked the log and knocked it over to the right. I moved him forward and tried again. I could not get him to back up in a straight line for the life of me. He kept going over to the left, even with leg pressure on the left. I guess we need to work on this when we get some arena time again. We used our full 60 seconds and still could not get it. I am sure we scored a big fat 0 on that one. Our score: Sinwaan (0), me (0).
From that obstacle we headed down a hill and back up a hill, the whole time climbing over fallen trees and around little trees and watching out for holes. Cheryl found the way and I followed her. Later we were talking to George about that spot, it is the only section that had no real established trail to follow, and he said he marked it on foot. He was careful when marking that if you could see one ribbon, you could see the next one too. The whole trail was that way, so all you had to do was look around to keep from getting lost.
After that spot we went through a little meadow. I asked Cheryl if she would like to pose for a photo and she said yes so I took her photo. Then when I was trying to line Sinwaan up for his photo he decided it would be a good time to have a pee break. So after that I moved him to a different spot and Cheryl got this nice photo of us.
We had a pretty good lead on the other people due to all our trotting so when we came up on the last obstacle there was no judge. The photographer, Sibbea Browning chatted with us and explained that they were short on help for the ride and the judge for #6 was also the judge for #1, so once she was done with the first obstacle she would come down to this one. So Cheryl and I waited. I let Sinwaan nibble on what grass he could find. After a solid 20 minutes the group of others descended upon us. One of the ladies said "we didn't think we'd ever see you two again" and Cheryl said "You wouldn't have if the judge would have been here." Then Cheryl got to looking at the woman and noticed two of them were wearing the same shirts and she asked her "Are you the lead riders?" The lady said that "yes they were." We apologized as we had not realized that when we passed them. They were just glad we were having a good time and had not gotten lost.
After waiting around some more Sibbea asked if we would like a group photo, so we all lined up and she took some with her big lens and then agreed to take one for me on my camera.
Dale and Kittee got tired of waiting so they crossed the obstacle and headed back to camp without a score.
I figured we had waited 30 minutes we might as well keep waiting and sure enough within 5 minutes the judge showed up. Obstacle six - Tarp. Perfection did pretty well going across the tarp and while we were waiting our turn Sinwaan got very naughty. He started acting like a little kid having a tantrum; stamping his feet, tossing his head, trying to take the bit, just being very bad. I thought that was strange since we had gone over enough obstacles by this point for him to know that Perfection would wait for him. (Which she was, standing patiently at the other side) When the judge said ok we moved across that tarp like the wind. I don't think he even saw it. He only had eyes for Perfection. I will not be surprised if we get a low score due to his behavior at the start. I don't know how much of that they judge. Our score: Sinwaan (9), me (10).
Once over that obstacle we trotted onward down familiar trail back towards camp. We caught up to Dale and Kittee and passed them. Shortly after that we had a nice little canter and Cheryl turns back to look and says "You lost a boot, I can tell by the sound" So we turned around to go back and look for it. Dale and Kittee hadn't seen it, I must have lost it right before we passed them. We found it there in the middle of the trail. Thankfully it was easy to put back on and I hopped astride and off we went again. Caught up to Dale and Kittee and passed them again. When we reached the last natural water source we paused to give the horses a chance to drink and they were not interested so we continued on. The man in the orange vest was waiting to help us cross the highway and that was easily done. The gal at the finish was there to check us in.
Riding into camp it was eerily quiet, kind of like a ghost town because we were the first ones back in. Too bad it as not a timed event! LOL There was a great turnout for this ride, about 40 entrants. We took the horses back to the trailer and got them untacked. I put some water on Sinwaan to clean him up a bit and got his boots off. Cheryl and I went down to the registration table and we both got a certificate of completion and a little participant ribbon. There was also free samples of Vetericyn so Cheryl grabbed one for me. Maybe it will help with his rump. We decided not to stick around for awards because they were scheduled to be after lunch (after all riders were back in) and it was already close to 1 pm. I had told Matt I would be home by 1! Oops... we still had about an hour drive home.
This event was a lot of fun and I have some specific areas to work on now. Cheryl and Perfection were fantastic riding partners. (She asked some questions about endurance while we were out on the trail too). I appreciate how close it is to home and how fun and family are encouraged. I think George and all his helpers did a fantastic job putting on this ride. I hope to attend another one soon.
Later Annie told me she had placed 3rd in the pleasure division, and Cheryl emailed George and found out she had placed 20th. I will post all results once they are available online.
1 comment:
Not bad for a first try, love the one pic of you and Sinwaan :)
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