Birthday ride

Typically for my birthday there is one thing I always have on my to-do list, and that is riding. Today was no exception.

I was a bit worried last night, when what appeared to be a monsoon threatened with wind gusts and rain all night long. It was scary out there, and I was in town where there is some shelter offered from neighboring houses. I couldn't imagine how bad the winds might be out on the farm.

At 7 am when I took the dogs out it still looked wet, dark and windy. I went back to bed. My darling husband made us a fine breakfast, during which the sun came out and shone brightly through the front window, tempting me to chance it.  The weather report on the computer said 60% humidity/rain and high winds, but looking to the west it was clear blue skies so that decided it.

Ellie had picked out a pink hair bow for my birthday gift. One for me and one for herself, so I wore mine to the barn and we took some photos.

It was windy, and bright at the barn. 

Sinwaan was fairly calm, considering the elements.

We loaded up for the Lake. I thought because of the sun and the time (10 am) surely there would be a number of horse trailers at the lake. There was only one. Two gaited horses heading out as I was grooming. Sinwaan was a little edgy. He wanted to go with the other horses.

Ellie has found that this is the perfect spot for her. She can grab Sinwaan's lead rope and pull his head over to give him attention and she is up off the ground, giving her a little more height than usual.

There is a wooden rail along the perimeter of the parking lot that works great as a mounting block. The grass growing alongside it is an added bonus for Sinwaan. Usually he will grab a bite but today he was too interested in where those gaited horses went!

As you can see we had beautiful weather complimented by the fall leaves.

Sinwaan thinks posing is silly. He would rather be moving!

He stood nicely for a couple of photos before we set out on the trails. We walked a bit but he was really eager (combination of the lack of other equines + the wind I am sure) and a working mind and body always helps both of us. So off we went in a trot, leaving the family on foot to hike the trails.

We rode around the outer loop and then back on the inner loop. I thought perhaps we would meet up with either the gaited horses, or Laurie, but never saw any of them. Sinwaan had a couple of good spooks but this saddle is great at keeping me secure in my seat. Sometimes I think he jumps just to make sure I am paying attention.  We were a bit short on time (birthday lunch with family) so I trotted when it was safe to do so. We had to walk in a couple of muddy sections but overall I was impressed with the trails considering all the rain just hours prior.

As we were heading along the canal I looked across and saw Matt. I yelled and he heard me. He picked up Ellie so she could see me and wave, then Levi had a turn. Matt hollered "We'll race you back!" I said "ok!" They had the advantage of being on the right side of the canal, I had a little ways to go yet to the crossing point. Sinwaan was happy to trot along and it was only a couple of minutes before I had them in my sights. At that time I saw a deer jump across the trail behind them. Levi was focused on beating me and he was jogging pretty fast. I cantered to catch up to them. Ellie was up on Matt's shoulders and turned around to see us running up to her and she was delighted. Once we caught up we just walked but it was faster then Matt was going so we passed him and Ellie and followed Levi. He stayed ahead of us and beat us to the trailer.

When I ride on my birthday I can't help but think back to my first horse Dee. My last ride on her was on my birthday, four days before she died, 10/24/06. So this was a celebratory, and memorial, ride for me.

Mounted Orienteering

Mounted Orienteering is something that I have been wanting to do for awhile now. It hasn't worked out  mostly due to time and distance limitations. There seem to be a fair number of them up at Tollgate, which is over an hours drive with a trailer.

The last ride of the year (Blue Mountain Mounted Orienteering) was held at Bennington Lake, on my own conditioning trails, so I knew I wanted to be sure to attend.  I tried to rally some of my friends to go with me but they already had other obligations for the day.

Other then the ride managers, Shannon Perkins and Karen Wilcox, I did not recognize a soul. I did not understand how that was possible since I have been a member of the local ladies riding club for a number of years and thought for sure I would see someone I knew to pair up with.  As it turns out, a lot of the entrants traveled over from other towns.

I thought my trailer stuck out but now seeing this photo I realize it was just camouflaged!

The nice thing about trying a ride like this for the first time is the discount. Only $5 to participate!

Karen had brought a compass for me to borrow and I was glad for that. There was a short orientation meeting and I thought I had everything figured out.  As I looked around I felt kind of out of place. Everyone else was riding Western, dressed in multiple layers, and it wasn't until I met my teammates that I even saw another grey horse! I was also one of the few with a helmet.

After the mandatory safety meeting they asked everyone to split up into groups so they could see what they had. They decided to put me on one team, then I got bumped over to another team. I was trying to learn names and keep things straight but it was tough! The team I settled into was a group of beginners, everyone new to the event except for one woman named Michelle.

There were a couple of newbies in our group that seemed to know each other. Tracy was a nice woman on the black and white paint mare. After talking throughout the day it seemed like she would enjoy endurance riding. We had some nice chats and I enjoyed her company.

A small older woman on a big white horse (on the right in above photo) they called "Mom." I will be glad to see the results so I can try and put some names with the faces.

It's a shame I didn't take a camera because it would have been fun to have shots of the ladies working the stations, looking for clues and plates.

As we talked strategy in our group Michelle asked who could read a map. I told her I had limited experience with maps since I do endurance riding, and mostly I follow ribbons. She told me that was good enough and I would be the map reader.  One of the riders, I think it was Tracy, asked me about my saddle. It started one of my nicknames for the day "dressage saddle person." I was also "map-reader" and "endurance gal." It seemed that most of the ladies were having trouble remembering names.

When we were given our maps and clues at the start it took me a little bit to get my bearings. I ride these trails all the time but putting our location together with the map was a bit challenging! They thought we were starting with #8 and no matter how many times I told them that #8 was behind us on the other side of the parking lot they would disagree with me and make me really question myself. Michelle took her job as our leader a little too seriously and I found her to be a bit harsh at times.

While we did find the clues and plate for #3, we were really stumped on #2 and they were close together on the map. Part of the problem may have been that at the time I was not using my compass right. It wasn't until I asked for verification at our third station that I realized that and boy was I embarrassed!

The clues were not too tricky (aside from #2), but finding the plates were really difficult. When I talked to Karen about this after the ride she said that last year when they hosted a ride here the groups were done within an hour and they decided to make it a lot harder this year. As a beginner I would have liked it to have been a little easier to avoid a lot of the frustration that our group experienced. However I can also see how people who do this a lot and travel a ways would want the challenge.

For example, one plate was in a tree, and under a pine limb. So you had to be directly under the limb, looking straight up, to even see the plate! At that particular station I did see a familiar face, Dr Sarah Campbell, riding in another group.

As the ride progressed my map reading skills got a lot better and my confidence went up. My group expressed a lot of thanks after the ride for they would not have found a couple of the stations without my guidance. Score! Although I can't claim much in the way of finding plates. My count for the day was 1 out of 10 on discovery.

Towards the end we joined up with another group and that made for a lot of us going down the trail. Because we had spent so many hours out there looking for clues and plates I was ready to be done and wanted to do more trotting. We had done some trotting throughout the ride and our group seemed fine with it (We had briefly discussed riding speed before mounting up). We had a road crossing and I was out front so we walked until I thought we were all across (but I couldn't see the end). I heard someone say "we're through" and I gave another couple of minutes before picking up the trot. We were single file, with our group ahead of the other group. Then I heard some shouting, so pulled to a stop.  Once we were all able to gather together we discovered that a youth rider got stuck at the other side of the crossing and there had been some traffic so she got left behind. She was crying and quite upset. This is the same rider that I observed earlier (ahead of me for a bit) strategically holding her horse back so she could canter to catch up again multiple times. I felt badly that she was so upset, but why wasn't her sponsor with her? How did this happen?  That was just before our last station, so I directed most of their group on how to get back to the parking lot since they were ready to be done. One of their people stuck it out with us in searching for that last clue.

 

Beat the woman in the green jacket across the finish line!

At the finish was when my group realized that everyone in a group has to be across the finish line before the placement is recorded. We had all stuck together, but the other rider - all of her group had already made it in, we had to beat her to place ahead of them. It was silly but we all started trotting and trying to block the sole rider.

In conclusion, I would definitely do this again. However, I would want a team of people I normally ride with (friends) to be with me. It is always nice to meet new people and make new friends but going into it solo like I did opened it up to too many variables. Too large of a group, too big of a chance the horses won't get along, and riders will disagree on speed, etc. Also personality clashes. I think Michelle did a good job in teaching us a lot about the event, but I also found her a bit hard to take at times. Her horse was misbehaving a lot and she would shout and I was never sure if she was shouting at him or at one of us riders. None of the people in my group had ridden at Bennington before, so they were really relying on me to get them back to the parking lot. I felt like I couldn't have left early if I wanted to. And because the plates we so tough to find, we were out there all day long. I barely got home in time to shower and then take the kids to a birthday party they had been looking forward to.

Thank you Karen and Shannon for hosting the event. With pouring rain the night before, we all got very lucky with the weather! A bit of wind but overall nothing to complain about. I hope to do this again in 2013.

Saddle shopping

Through the past couple of months I have, through trial and error, learned more about saddles. How they fit the horse and how I feel in them. All good things to learn and it surprises me I never encountered all this trouble sooner in my horse-back riding travels. I have come to the conclusion that I really dislike saddle shopping. Part of it is my meager budget and part of it is just all the time it takes to track down something that "might" work and then ride a trial and realize that no, no it won't. I am a bit envious of the people who know what exactly they want/need and can just go and purchase it and have it work for both them and their horse.

With the help of some riding friends who know significantly more about this then I do, we have looked, and put numerous saddles on Sinwaan to see how they fit him.

The first one I really liked the look of, a leather english saddle that had both black and reddish tones. It was a medium tree and what I thought I needed at the time based on the measurement of the pommel gap for the withers. Mine measured 5" and so did this new saddle. However, after just looking at it, Cassandra put her fist in the pommel and quickly showed me that although they appeared to measure the same, mine actually was wider by about 1/3 a fist. That was amazing to me. So no need to trial that saddle. Cassandra also pointed out to me that placing the saddle up on Sinwaan, it wanted to slide down farther onto his back then was correct, and also did not sit level. The cantle sat much lower then the pommel and it just wasn't right.  Another thing she pointed out to me at the time was that Sinwaan's sheath appeared swollen, but that is a topic for another blog post!

At this point I had a list of about 10 local saddles available in a medium tree and my hopes diminished when I realized none of them would work and I would have to start over in my search.

I am thankful to have the resources locally of a ladies' riding club and a dressage club with which to inquire. Word gets passed around and soon various people I would encounter would ask me if I had found a saddle yet :)

Looking for a wide tree resulted in a much smaller selection. There was one about an hour's drive from me, and while it sounded great I hesitated due to the distance. I wanted to be able to put significant time in the saddle before purchasing it. The local tack shop would have let me try anything but they did not have what I was after.

Finally, during a lucky conversation with Annie I discovered that someone that I see every week (Bethany) had exactly what I was looking for. Annie had been planning to buy the saddle from Bethany but was changing her mind about it because she wasn't sure she would be doing much dressage with her current horses. It was a Wintec Isabella dressage saddle, very similar to what I have, but better because of an interchangeable gullet system and knee rolls that were also adjustable. Annie delivered the saddle to me and the next day I was able to go out for a very long ride to try it. I love that it has the same suede ("sticky") seat that I am used to, and I feel very secure in the deeper seat.

I trailered out to the Lake and did the short loop alone, then met up with Laurie and some other riders, one of whom I ended up doing the rest of the ride with, a lady named Stefani. All told I was in the saddle for about 3 1/2 hours doing all gaits, hills and flats. Sinwaan got sweaty but it was really hard for me to tell what was going on with his sweat pattern, other than there was a good air strip down his spine. When I dismounted the outside of my knees hurt. I wasn't sure what to blame it on,  but in talking with Heather later she suggested changing my stirrup length. Bethany's saddle had a deeper seat then mine, and I had used my own stirrups on the trial ride. So it is possible they ended up being just a bit short.

Within about 15-20 minutes the pain in my knees had subsided and overall I was pleased with the saddle but wanted a chance for Cassandra to look at the fit to Sinwaan and tell me her thoughts.  In the meantime I saw Laurie again and she gave me yet another saddle to try, one Betsy had gotten and wasn't using.  So the following week I had Cassandra come out to look at the two saddles. She felt that Bethany's saddle was a good fit for Sinwaan, and with the adjustable gullet it was a great choice because undoubtedly his shape will continue to change as his fitness level changes. He is very fat right now! We put Betsy's saddle up on him and it was ok,  but not as good a fit as Bethany's. So that confirmed my thoughts and I took Sinwaan out for another ride that day in Bethany's saddle, this time adjusting my stirrups down a hole.

I only had a short time to ride at the Lake so I started with the shorter inside loop and ended up on the outside longer loop and was pleased that I managed to do it all in an hour's time. Sinwaan and I encountered two does. One seemed curious about us and ended up jumping the fence and crossing our trail just about 8 horse lengths ahead of us. That was neat to see.  There was one other trailer at the lake but we never saw the other horse(s). It was a beautiful day for a ride. Fall is here and it was 57 degrees at 10 AM.

This time I didn't have knee pain, but with it being a much shorter ride it is hard to tell much at this point. Except for the fact that the saddle seems to be working out just fine. I am so happy to have finally found one! Sinwaan has gained more weight again since he has had a vacation during this summer, so it will be a priority for me to get in a ride every week to try and burn more calories. That seems to be the most efficient way to keep his weight down. Easy keeper!

Camas Creek Canter, Saturday

(Singsong beeping) Alarm went off as scheduled at 5:30 mountain time. Laurie got up. I think I stayed in bed for a bit. I was so doggone tired. I had not been getting much sleep up to this point and I really could have used a good nights sleep before the marathon that would be today. Oh well, I have never slept well before a ride, and I reckon I never will. Heather was up and about, making hot water for coffee and oatmeal.

After a little while I decided to get up and take some photos of Laurie heading out on her 50 mile ride. She wears a yellow life vest to counteract Otto's, shall we say, adventurous nature? This makes her easy to spot! I hiked out a ways to get a decent photo with nature in the background instead of the ride camp. We all love ride camp, but let's face it, it can be a little distracting when what you want is a rider photo.

She waved as they went by and asked me if I had captured Otto's shenanigans at the start. I was sorry to have missed that. I guess he gave her a little trouble but they looked great as they went past me.

It was a beautiful morning indeed. I headed back to camp. It was still too early to tack up. I pondered going back to bed, but our start time was 7 AM and I knew I would need a substantial amount of time to get ready. I ate my dried fruit and tried to fight the butterflies.

Thankfully it was a very easy-going morning. There was plenty of time to get it all done. We even had help! Laurie had brought along two of her riding students, Marci and Eliana, and they were crew-in-training.  While tacking up I went ahead and put on my HR monitor. I haven't used it since Bare Bones, last October, and shouldn't have been surprised that it didn't even turn on. Dead batteries. I removed it. I didn't want the extra equipment on if I wasn't using it. Everything else looked fine, except my right stirrup was looking like it wanted to slide off the end. I have quick release hangers, only this safety feature was looking less safe all the time.

Before mounting up, I had forgotten something in the tent, so I asked Eliana to hold Sinwaan for me. Marci must have taken this photo at that time. It is nice to have a photo of my helper for the day. I would let her crew for me any time!

Heather and I headed out at 6:45 to warm up the horses before the start time. We meandered all around the alfalfa fields and the horses were well behaved. It was a nice way to start the day. (Marci or Eliana took the above photo)

We got to the start a couple minutes early and I think the circling started to make Sinwaan a little crazy. When they said "The trail is open," Heather and I were right there and put the horses into a trot to start our journey. A couple strides into it and Sinwaan started bucking a little. I am sure the excitement had gotten to him. A couple of strong growls from me straightened him out. He was just feeling good. We set a fast pace in the lead and it was fun. I like to be out front when possible. There was a third rider who stayed with us and leapfrogged us quite a bit. She had a very fit looking horse and when Heather started talking with her, discovered he is slated to go to Tevis in two weeks. This was just another training ride for him. They ended up winning the 25 mile distance, and taking BC. It was well deserved.

There were a couple of times that some of us would miss trail markers, and the others behind would call out to let the others know to turn around. The first time Heather and I missed the turn, 2 or 3 people got ahead of us while we turned around to go back for it. Then those people missed a turn and we called them back. It was leapfrogging like this for a while. Everyone we rode with seemed exceptionally nice, and I must say it was one of the nicer experiences I have had on the trails.

At one point there was a very steep downhill on a rocky surface. I would have liked to have gotten off to lead Sinwaan down it (I don't have a lot of faith that he won't fall on his face), but it was scary enough that I had no time to dismount before I looked down and saw the trail. It was the only technical part all day. Unfortunately, no photo of that descent.

Much of the water on this loop was early on and from natural creeks on the side of the trail. We stopped multiple times but the horses weren't interested in drinking. At about 8 miles in Heather and I both e-lyted the horses. This is the first time I have ever done that and I am thankful to Heather for helping to teach me more about how it can be done. She had syringes pre-made and we carried them with us to give along the trail. The vets had said at the ride meeting that you could not over e-lyte your horse on this ride. Because of the mountains, the temperatures and the breeze, it makes for a very deceptive environment. He was right. The horses hardly looked sweaty, I didn't sponge on the trail all day, and it was cool the first 16 mile loop.  Even despite the e-lytes, Sinwaan did not drink.

Bunny is an ex-racehorse and can trot over 15 mph, so it is fair to say Sinwaan did a lot of cantering in those first 10 miles. We three (or four?) front-runners set a blistering pace. There was a lot of up and down and hardly any level surfaces, though the grade was not exceptionally steep and it was double-track dirt roads. Great footing most of the time. Heather and I had agreed early on that we would both ride to our horses' ability, ride our own rides, and if we could be together, wonderful. If we couldn't be, that was ok too.

It didn't take long for me to realize that something was horribly wrong with my right stirrup. A couple of miles in I realized that I could hardly reach it and definitely couldn't put my weight in it with my heel down like a good english rider. It was incredibly frustrating trying to figure out what was going on. Every time I tried to force more weight into my foot, my ankle would shake and roll over to the side. It was painful. So painful, and so frustrating that I finally slowed Sinwaan down because I couldn't take it any more (this was between mile 10-12 by my guess). Actually, I lost my stirrup and couldn't get my foot back into it as we were cantering along, so I had to slow him to a trot, and then a walk to get everything back together. By then the others were gone. Then it was his turn to be frustrated. He fought me a little and whinnied for his friend(s). But I knew he wasn't fit enough to keep up with Bunny the entire 25 miles, probably not enough the entire first loop of 16 miles. He found an intermediate trot that I could half sit and half post with my thighs.

All I could think about was my early years of riding at a summer pony camp in the East, where they gave me a giant horse and an english saddle with no stirrups. We had to learn to ride with our body and then we could have the stirrups. I was never more thankful for those lessons then today. I realized that by cantering, I had managed to get that far into the ride without realizing how bad off I was, because at least at the canter I could sit and not worry so much about my foot, or posting. By now I wanted to quit. I wanted to be done so bad I could taste it. But I am out in the woods on a mountain side and the only way in was to get there myself. (All vet checks were in camp) Either by riding or walking. And the way my ankle was feeling, I doubted walking was an option. So Sinwaan and I meandered, sometimes trotting and sometimes walking, as he pushed me for more speed to find his beloved.

When I saw the turn into camp I was so relieved. I had a rider pass me shortly before the turn, and she had missed it. So I hollered to her as I saw her through the trees climbing the ridge for the second loop. She was very grateful that I had saved her the distance. We rode back down the single-track together the last couple miles to camp and Sinwaan pulsed down just before her. He was looking quite well considering we had just done 16 mountain miles in only 2 hours. He vetted through fairly well, thanks to my new crew Eliana, who trotted him out for me and did a beautiful job.

I hobbled back to camp and tied him to the trailer with hay and water and he took it easy. Heather's hold was about over but he was glad to be with Bunny for a spell. Heather's grandfather was also there, he had made the trek over from Ronan to see the ride and it was nice to meet him. He was a huge help to me as I tried to figure out what was wrong with my saddle. He quickly pointed out that my stirrup holder was broken, it was shifting up and down and it should have been secure in the "up" position. The fact that it was falling down was adding inches to that right stirrup. No idea how to fix that, but I thought if I punched a new hole in that stirrup it should at least make it possible for me to finish the ride for a completion.  Forget Top Ten at this point, I didn't want another failed ride on Sinwaan's record (or mine). What's another 9 miles, when you have already done 16? I had spent so much money to get here, there was nothing wrong with my horse, how could I quit now? (It's funny the things that motivate you, or at least me) Finding my spirit once again I borrowed a leather punch and succeeded in putting another hole in one stirrup. Hoping that would be my miracle answer, I went and sat down in as much shade as I could find. I snacked on some trail mix or honey roasted peanuts, drank as much as I could handle of my Powerade (I didn't drink nearly enough on the trail) and rested up for the second loop.

I don't wear a watch, which is something of a handicap when you are trying to figure out when to be back at the trailhead for you assigned "out" time. Thankfully my new crew Eliana did, and she let me know when it was time to mount up. Initially the shorter stirrup felt great and I had new confidence that we would finish this ride, and well. That didn't last long. Long enough for me to get out of camp and realize everything was still out of wack. Oh well.

We met up with the same woman we rode in with (I learned her name was Dawn) and she and her Paso Fino (he was 21) helped to drag us along as we left on the second loop. Sinwaan was done by this point. He had put in a lot of fast miles and he was all too ready for an extended nap. He kept stopping and just standing around. He did seem to enjoy the Paso's company however, and that was the little motivation that we needed to keep going.

That loop was slooooow compared to the first one. We did most of it at the walk. Partly because Sinwaan didn't want to go faster and partly  because I was still having trouble with the stirrup.  In one section of the trail we were riding along on the double track dirt road and I looked over at the view and noticed blue ribbons on the trees below us. Hmm. Did we miss a turn? I pointed them out to Dawn. They looked like they were on the wrong side of the trail but we turned back to check it out anyway. Dawn said "I can't believe they would want us to go down there" as the descent was steeper and more dangerous looking then the last technical part of trail we had covered. There were fallen logs in the way and it was just very steep. Dawn shrugged and went for it anyway. I gave her some room and then held  my breath as Sinwaan followed after her. When I was about half way down this terrifying "trail" another woman rode by on the road above us. She said "I don't think you guys are on the trail." We said "we see ribbons down here" and she replied "Well they are on the wrong side. I will ride onward and tell you if I see more up here." I had stopped Sinwaan at this point because I didn't want to do any extra climbing if I wasn't where we needed to be. Within seconds she called back "The trail is up here, I see more ribbons." THANK HEAVENS. I was at a good spot to turn around so back up the steep embankment we went. It was like a 70 degree angle. It's no surprise that with that last surge from Sinwaan to make it back on the trail my stirrup came all the way off. He wasn't in any hurry to catch up to anyone at that point so we took a minute to get it back on. What a HASSLE.  Dawn rode along below us until she saw a good place to come back up and rejoin the main trail.

I didn't catch the name of that third woman but she was on a pretty horse that seemed fairly green to endurance. There was a long-awaited water stop about 5 or 6 miles in and Sinwaan finally dove in and started drinking. He stuck his whole head in up to his eyes and shoved the water around in the tank. The woman on the pretty horse dismounted to sponge and asked us to keep going as she planned to wait there for a bit to get her horse to settle down.

Dawn and I continued to ride together, mostly, her horse would get ahead and Sinwaan would lag, then eventually we would catch up again. We talked a little bit, but not in depth, and it was just a really mellow stretch. I was concentrating on riding and trying not to whine about how ridiculous my saddle situation was. My foot had resumed hurting long ago.

The trail back to camp surfaced, and Sinwaan knew the way. He found something inside of him and started asking to go faster again. Then forget asking, it was just me gripping with my thighs and trying to stay balanced as he trotted in the last couple of miles. I am pretty sure he has learned how to count and knew he was done for the day. The woman on the pretty horse had gotten ahead of us at some point and we caught up to her at the end as she was leading her horse in. I thought about doing that and then realized maybe I couldn't walk, and since we had walked so much of the loop Sinwaan should be able to pulse down fairly quickly. I was right. I dismounted, both Marci and Eliana were there to help me cool him down, sponge him off, along with an additional teen there to observe or help. Sinwaan got them all pretty wet as he tossed his head around in the water, part playing and part drinking. I think we pulsed down ahead of both Dawn and the other woman, although there were others who had gotten past us on the first loop so I didn't think I was still in the Top Ten. After pulsing down the scribes were asking if I was in the running, because all Top Ten horses had to be vetted through by the same vet for consistency in the BC judging. By the sounds of it, I was still in the Top Ten so we waited for that vet while I let Sinwaan eat some of the beautiful camp hay. Eliana again trotted him out for me and did a wonderful job. The vet's comment was "Well he looks ready to go out again!" That was nice to hear. He scored well on most things but he was dehydrated. They gave us a time to come back for the recheck in an hour.

Back at the trailer Sinwaan was glad to just take a nap. I was glad to sit and drink and drink my water and Powerade. I felt so dehydrated myself. Heather and her family decided to go out to lunch so I kept an eye on the horses and lazed about. I did see Sinwaan drinking some more water, but not a lot. When our hour was up, I asked Eliana to go with me and we took Bunny back with us to the vet check so Sinwaan would not be calling for her or acting up due to his separation anxiety. Most of the time he is really good, but when we come to camp with other horses he likes to be able to see them. Eliana held Bunny nearby for me and then we traded so she could trot him out again. His CRI was not as good as they would have liked, he was appearing more dehydrated and no gut sounds. The vet asked if I was planning to ride tomorrow and I said no. The vet seemed glad to hear that. At that point the vet was worried about him. We talked about how he would be able to rest tomorrow and I would be leaving camp that night. He asked that I bring him back to be checked before I left. We took the horses back to the trailer and Heather returned soon after. She and her mom gave me Larissa's leftovers, which were amazing. A black bean burger and fries. Oh man was that good.

After eating we led the horses over to the creek bordering the field to let them graze. On the short walk over there Sinwaan stumbled, and also peed. It was very dark. On to the grasses, at first Sinwaan was not interested in eating but it didn't take long for him to slowly start nibbling. Once he was nibbling he started perking up and eating more. I was glad to see him come around within about an hour. Back at the trailer again he ate his mash and drank more water. All good signs. I had planned on heading back to Ronan before the ride dinner, but after all of this concern over Sinwaan I thought staying to keep an eye on him would be the best call. Ride dinner was at 6:30 PM so I took Sinwaan over there a little after 5 PM and he was looking so much better. The vet had all good things to say. Great gut sounds, hydration looking much better, no more worries. Yay!

The awards meeting was right after dinner so I was able to be there for some of it. I was actually packing up the tent when I heard them call my name in 8th place. Not bad. I ran over to get a photo of Heather receiving her award for 2nd place. Way to go Heather and Bunny!!  Awards were a lead-rope and bucket. One was for completion and one was for Top Ten and I can't recall which was what but I was ecstatic to get a RED lead-rope! That was lucky. Heather got a black one.

I have all good things to say about this ride. It was a mountain ride for sure, with  lots of ups and downs and elevation changes. Nothing too technical (If you stayed ON the trail). I would have liked some water a couple miles in on the 9 mile loop. The vets were really great, the ride was managed well (thanks Jennifer!) and I had fantastic company. I am so glad it all worked out for me to take Sinwaan this year. (Trail photos above were from when I  hiked it in 2011). This is a ride I would like to do again next year. For now I have to solve my saddle problems.


A HUGE thanks to my mom for watching my kids so I could attend with no worries, my grandparents for the loan of the car and tent, Heather for being such a great riding partner and friend, Heather's mom for the protein brownie bites after the ride and the conversation, Laurie for hauling and friendship, and the girls Marci and Eliana for crewing. 

Camas Creek Canter, Friday

Everything had been leading up to this. Every training ride, every decision I made this year was based on the ONE ride that I had budgeted for. In the week leading up to it Sinwaan went in for his coggins and health certificate for crossing into Montana. I hear they are picky there about paperwork and I wanted it to all be in order.  Well, even though they squeezed me in for an appointment on Friday morning, I didn't get the papers until the following Wednesday just before closing. Close call, since that is the night Laurie came to get the horses. It all worked out, though, and it was a big relief to have him loaded in the trailer all bubble-wrapped with his red shipping boots.

Laurie was awesome and offered to let him ride in the front stall since there was a full-length partition for that one, no chance of him scrambling and getting banged up by (or hurting) another horse.

The Camas Creek Canter was a long 378 miles from Walla Walla. Laurie had her saddle in the shop for repair and it wasn't due to be done until 9 am on Thursday morning. I don't know what time she left town but they made it to camp by midnight.

I had left town Thursday morning with my mom and kids on our way to Ronan to visit my maternal grandma Joyce Baer. We made good time and enjoyed a fantastic and healthy meal for dinner on our arrival.

Friday morning was spent with the family and I headed out after "lunch" around 3 pm to ride camp.  I teared up as I pulled away on my adventure, alone. This is the first time I have ventured out without my family. My grandparents had loaned me their little car, tent, and self-inflating air mattress so I was all set for a night away in comfort. I was a little worried when I noticed the car had 214,999 miles on it,  but it was fuel efficient and only cost me about $15 in gas for the 3-hr round trip. I had been checking the weather report off and on in the weeks leading up to the ride and every time it had said 0% chance of rain. I was not so sure that would be true when on the drive over I went through a pretty strong rain storm. After the ride I did last year in the rain, I didn't want a repeat and was a little worried.

Is there a happier sight to an endurance rider then ride camp? And nestled at the base of such a beautiful mountain range! Ahh, this is my paradise. This lovely ride camp was in an alfalfa meadow on a private ranch in the Blackfoot Valley.

Sinwaan was all settled in next to Bunny tied to the trailer. He looked great. Laurie had pulled out my stakes for his electric corral but had not set them up. When I tried to put my stakes in the ground I found it was near impossible, the ground was so hard. He looked content on his long line so I decided to leave well enough alone and let him stay where he was, I put my poles away.

I don't recall the exact order of things but it involved getting checked in, and the horses vetted through (Sinwaan was looking great), setting up my tent (car and tent on far right in above photo) and once that was all taken care of, we tacked up for a pre-ride. I was slightly disappointed that my number was 8. I had put a note on the entry form asking for my lucky 21 if it was available. I decided not to ask (whine) about it. Jennifer (RM) was walking around with a grease stick and tagged Sinwaan for me, the interesting thing was at this ride they only marked one side of the horse. No red, unfortunately.

Photo by Eliana Kearns

As you can tell in the photo above, I was ecstatic to be in camp, and astride my horse for a pre-ride. I don't usually get to camp early enough to do that. With this ride being so far away, we wanted the horses to have time to recover before and after the ride.

Photo by Laurie Logsdon

One exciting thing for me was that the 9 mile loop was the same as last year. I had hiked it with Matt in 2011 and remembered a lot of it. We did our pre-ride in the opposite direction, though. As you can see, there was a really lovely strip of single-track that was shady and grassy. Before this photo was taken, we were riding out of camp and the horses were feeling good. We had started at a trot and they ramped up to a canter. Then the raindrops. I couldn't believe it. It felt so refreshing and was so short-lived, but it really made me doubt that 0% weather prediction!  It had been dry here all season so the small water crossing I had remembered at the out gate was bone dry.

There was one little stream that gave us some excitement, however. Bunny tried jumping over it every time!

On the way out Laurie started a conversation about riding without putting our weight in the stirrups. I gave it a try as Heather told me what she saw from behind, and we all tried it out. This would later prove to be an important conversation and practice. My right stirrup felt long but I didn't think to shorten it. I attributed it to whatever issues it has been having when it falls off every time I pick up the saddle. 

We had a really lovely ride about 2-3 miles out and then decided to head back for the ride meeting. At the turn-around point there was a nice view so we snapped some photos. Here is Heather on Bunny. Bunny is an off-the-track Standardbred mare.

Laurie, our hauler extraordinaire, and her gelding Otto. Otto is 3/4 Arabian and 1/4 TWH, and no he is not gaited. Otto used to be owned by my friend Ruth, but he was a bit too much trouble for her. Thankfully, Laurie and Otto get along great and he has found his calling with her as a distance horse. They rode a 50 mile ride on Saturday and placed 11th, then did the 25 mile ride on Sunday.

Photo by Laurie Logsdon

Laurie shot this photo of me on Sinwaan, taking a photo of Heather. That's Charlie the dog on the left.

Riding back down the single-track I spotted something flailing or fluttering around in the tree tops and then WHOOSH a Red Tail Hawk swooped down and flew right in front of me down the trail, just above our heads and about a hundred feet out. It was awesome. (The photo above is from my hike last year)

We got back in time for the ride meeting and learned all about our loops and ribbon colors to follow, and what not to follow (forest service ribbons), where the water was, and what to expect. The hold for 25s was 60 minutes, so I knew we would not want to waste time either on the trail or in camp since this was a mountain ride, we would need our five hours to get it done. Jennifer pointed out that in the first couple of miles on the single track there were some gopher holes that were not marked, to watch out for them. We had discovered them on our pre-ride so were aware of what to watch for. It seemed like a nice bunch of people.

At some point in the evening Heather's family visited and cooked up some hot-dogs (vegetarian) and when we were done with our pre-ride Heather offered me one. I was so excited to eat that hot dog, it was ridiculous. I admit, I did not pack very well when it came to the food for myself for this ride. My grandma had made some good homemade bread that I made a couple sandwiches with, and I had bought some trail mix and dried fruit, but otherwise it was meager. I was able to share with her some cherries I had picked that morning :)

We were done with the meeting with plenty of daylight left to braid manes. As I was working on about the fourth or fifth braid, Sinwaan started thrashing his tail and stamping his feet. I looked around and saw a big horsefly under his belly. I waved at it and thought it flew off. Not a minute later Sinwaan acted really agitated and was thrashing his tail and stamping twice as much as before. I was carefully looking all around and could not for the life of me see the darn fly! Laurie was sitting in camp observing and said "I wonder if that fly went up his sheath." WHAT??? I did not think it was possible but she offered to (ahem) dive in... and for that I was very grateful. She put some mineral oil on her hand and went in after it. Lo and behold she found it and dumped it on the ground. Sinwaan was visibly relieved. A closer look at Laurie's hand revealed some blood. Poor Sinwaan!! That mean old fly was biting him bad. Glad to have that taken care of, I finished up the braids and he looked ready.

The sunset was gorgeous. Montana in general just takes my breath away. The mountains, the trees, the fresh air... I was so happy to be here.

I had plenty of room in my tent so Laurie moved in for the night. And eventually so did Charlie. We had fun catching up and chatting until nightfall. I set an alarm for her on my phone, as her start time was 5:30 AM. Montana time. Back home this would be 4:30 AM. Let's just say I didn't get much sleep.  I always think that I am not sleeping all night long and then I wake up. So I probably got a couple hours here or there. I am always listening for the horses. About 2 AM one of them was pawing, so I got up and went to check on them and use the bathroom. All was quiet. Back to bed.