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[RC] Oconee Ride Story (long) - rides2far. by the way i feel people in ride camp should talk about stories of what happens at rides more I think you're absolutely right Sir Scott. I kept waiting for somebody else to report on Oconee since I'd exceeded my limit of postings the first day back, but since everybody is sooo silent guess I'll give *my* report. The Oconee ride (midway between Atlanta & Augusta) is one ride I'd never been to. Something about South GA. in late June sounded a little extreme to say the least, but Ann Cofield was organizing a seminar for beginning endurance riders and really going to a lot of trouble so when she asked me if I'd participate I thought it was the least I could do considering how much trouble she was going to. Only problem was it was Bonnie's (oldest daughter...calls herself the *other* daughter) 18th birthday. Add one more family event to the list of events I've missed because of endurance rides. :-P She assured me an extra gift would make up the difference. The real bummer was I had nothing to ride so would waste the free entry Ann offered me. I'd pulled Kaboot's shoes for a vacation and knew that if I tried to borrow Ben from Josie she'd swear he was too out of shape to go. Then Claude Brewer (ridecamp lurker, zillion miler) called and offered me his mare Dalyte to ride. I asked Josie if she'd like for me to sponsor her by riding "Claude's Tevis Horse" and she suddenly decided Ben was in great shape and agreed. I got a bit of cold feet after agreeing. Sometimes people overestimate my love for adventure and it occurs to me that just because my horse is an idiot I won't be scared of someone else's horse that's an idiot but I got *very* lucky this time. Dalyte was a dream to ride. Could have controlled her with a pair of silk threads I believe. No horse like a heavyweight's horse to have religion. :-) The forecast was for overcast with afternoon showers. I pulled into camp just in time to put up the picketline and run over to the tent and do my part of the seminar. There was a big group of very attentive riders, several who had done several rides already. Ann had everything very well organized and I was wishing that I had one of those "beginner's packets" she was giving them. I learned some things myself when I got to listen but the sky started looking pretty threatening so I rushed over to set up my tarp/awning over my 2 horse. I look enough like the Keystone Cops putting this thing up to be self conscious, but this time was really stressful since I'd parked right in front of the seminar and they all got a chance to see my strange "how to hook up tall things when you're short" system. Scott the "token teen endurance male" came by and whisked Josie away with his harem of females so I was doing it singlehandedly. Scott basks in the favorable "buck to doe ratio" in endurance riding. About 3 PM Fri. the bottom fell out of the clouds and within an hour there was 3/4" of standing water in the grass. Most vehicles were officially "stuck" so traffic in and out of camp was minimal. Unfortunately the ride farrier's truck was about 1/4 mile from the vet check when he got stuck so when the shoes started getting sucked off Saturday there was a fair amount of walking for us to do. Peggy Clark the ride manager had a wonderful set up and was as hospitable a manager as I've ever seen. I had been a bit lax in my packing (forgot to go to the store) so had pretty much brought a loaf of bread and a pack of turkey to be the staple of every meal. :-P Peggy saved the day and fed us grilled burgers during the seminar, and even though her caterers had all sorts of problems managed a speghetti dinner Sat. night, and a goodbye cake for Ann Cofield's granddaughters who are moving to Iowa. :-( There were 21 horses in the 50 and 5 riders were juniors...plus Samantha Thompson is as she says, "not a junior, but still a minor" (rides with a letter) so 6 out of 21 riders were under 16! I believe there were 30 riders entered in the 30 miler. Now for the ride. They decided to start us at 5 AM to avoid as much heat as possible. It was pretty darned dark but we had 3 miles of road to do first and they led us out with a 4 wheeler. The 4 wheeler set a good pace and all went well for us, but the clouds were so thick it didn't lighten up as soon as they expected. When he turned us loose at the planned spot we all promptly headed down the wrong road so he called us back and continued to lead. Quite a few of the trails at Oconee aren't exactly established. I don't believe they're open to horses at any other time so they're really sort of paths through the woods marked heavily from tree to tree so you can hold a line. There's quite a few holes to look out for where pine trees have a tendency to die, break off a ground level, then the underground part rots away and you don't know the perfect deep hole is there till you hit it. Good reason to take it easy. Josie & I let the pack get away and were just enjoying the ride. The marking was super heavy so there was none of that separation anxiety you get on a sparsely marked trail when left behind. I was really impressed with Claude's mare's total indifference to him leaving us with her pasture mate. Just to show how slow go it was I believe the first 12.7? mi. took 2 hrs. and we weren't far behind the leaders. The vets, again to get as many miles as possible in before the real heat hit, decided the first check would be a pulse down & trot out with with no hold. If we hadn't stopped longer it would have been 26 miles till the first real hold and I wasn't "feelin' that" so we just went to our spot and did our usual stuff. Ate a sandwich, electrolyted, potty break and all that good stuff. The horses ate some which I like to get started early so I was happy. Otis fussed at me for hanging around. He went out to New Mexico a few weeks ago and darn it, everybody that comes back from out west gets into this long loops, less holds thing. I hate that and I enjoyed my sandwich so there! >g< Josie was a little worried that we were letting everyone beat us but I really do think it's important to get the horses to start eating early so thought I was justified. We headed out on the second 15.somthing mile loop and the morning stayed amazingly bearable. The clouds were thick and when you were in the open there was a breeze. The deep woods felt thick though. If felt so rain foresty that it didn't seem that strange when I saw a huge dark oak tree that had ferns growing all along the limbs...looked like the canopy of the rain forest. The trail was getting pretty torn up and it pretty much was a case of let it rip on the roads and road shoulders and walk, shuffle, walk in the woods. We took 3 hrs. to do that 15 miles and galloped lots of road so that should tell you about the woods. The worst part was we knew we had to do this loop next also and we were dreading it. The good part was there were plenty of good puddles for drinking and cold creek crossings for sponging. Claude's mare decided it was fine for me to sponge on the fly and we were keeping them reasonably cool for GA in June. At one point I was at a good hand gallop on this big Anglo-Arab going down a dirt road and thought, "shoot, I shouldn't push Ben this fast" and looked over and that 22 year old 14.2 beauty was just trotting along beside us like a machine. He is one heck of a trooper. At the vet check I trotted Claude's mare out and her CRI was 14/14. The secretary said that was the best they'd seen. Apparently lots of them had been really high. Guess it pays to put a little woman on a horse that has carried a heavyweight through Tevis is you want a good CRI. :-) Ben had lost a shoe...first I ever recall in competition so I got to do the long walk. Bernie Morgan saved the day for us and a lot of other people by driving all the way to Oconee just to tack on shoes. Thank you Bernie! All day long we were racing the expected afternoon showers thinking how the trail was going to go to pot as soon as they hit. Headed out on the dreaded repeat of that loop and it was a new trail! The sections that had been slow and slippery three hours before had dried some and we knocked 20 minutes off our time for the first half of loop 3. Unfortunately the woods part was worse and the "trail" became a "connect the dots" game. you just looked at the next marker (you could always see 3) and took the driest course you could to get to it. When we went through the vet check Otis said, "Ya'll just keep on coming and you're gonna be in it". I was surprised since we hadn't passed a soul on the trail and didn't dare ask what place we were in. The sun finally came out at this check (2 PM) and it was HOT. Debby Ivey was already finished, she'd won on her dad Bud Davidson's gray, Toby. I was impressed. Ya gotta love Bud. If you ever think endurance is becoming a rich man's game and nothing's like it used to be just watch Bud riding in his blue jeans & baseball cap, western saddle and mechanical hackamore, smiling from ear to ear as he kicks our tails week after week after week. If you ask Bud if he thought a trail was tough he always grins, "This is nothing compared to how we train! We do a lot worse than this when we go riding for fun!" For Bud's horse, winning a 50 is an "easy day". >g< As we left the last check Josie announced that she had 999 career miles. I am pretty good about knowning how many I have but don't usually figure it at each vet check. :-) The last loop was HOT, thick, no breeze, with quite a bit of time out in the open. We'd done our best to make time earlier and now it was time to just "get'em through". We did all we could to take extra time sponging at creek crossings and offer water often which they really went for. At one place we stopped at a RED thick looking mudhole. I tried sponging out of it but the water felt hot enough to make coffee from and they DRANK AND DRANK AND DRANK. Nevermind that they hadn't wanted the last cool creek crossing's water. We passed I think 3 horses that were walking that loop and when we trotted in at the finish they told us we were 7 & 8 place. Both horses came right down, Ben's CRI was 60/60 and Dalyte's was 48/52 so I was really proud. For years Carman Blaylock used to pass me on the last loop when my horse was tired and she'd paced herself evenly and it felt good to finally pull that off for once. Funny how your priorities change but stuff like that excites me more to me than placing lately. Maybe someday I'll really get it all together and *win* by pacing perfectly. :-) Peggy Clark did a great job managing this ride...stayed friendly through finding loose horses, dealing with heat, worrying about storms, etc. Did she make a profit? Hmmm, ask her what it's gonna cost to fix her pickup that the log truck plowed into while working the ride. :-P She still had the scratches on her face from the wreck. Ann Cofield's clinic must have helped since if I heard right they had a 100% completion rate in the 30 on a tough course! As for finishers, I'll tell what I can remember... Debbie Ivey on Toby 1st & BC Lucy Snook 2nd (note...only 2 horses stood but it wasn't that everyone else was lame, it was just that these guys were way ahead and nobody else would have gotten any time points so the vets recommended we not bother to stand and just get the horses on back to camp to relax) 3rd. Josh? Our new rider/former jockey who has great campfire stories 4? 5? 6? Samantha Thompson had the really sorry luck of having her mare get a cramp after finishing 6th. Hard luck award for Sammie. 7 Angie McGhee on Dalyte 8 Josie McGhee on Ben Amil (we stopped and dropped the reins at the finish and my horse moved first. >G< 9?Claude Brewer finished soon after us, not sure if 9th? 10,11,12,13 Jody Buttram deserves an award for sponsoring FOUR juniors. Ann's 2 grandaughters, her daughter Joanie...and ? 14 Suzanne Solis on Lady 15 Julie Canton I am one sore puppy from riding a ton of cantering on an unfamiliar horse but loved every minute of it. I really wanted to get that 4000 milestone behind me and didn't have any horse to do it on any time soon so THANK YOU CLAUDE!!! By the way, Claude's a RC lurker who didn't bother to get his name on the list for 100's....he's done THIRTY ONE! Angie ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. 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