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[RC] Oconee/volunteer story - Laurie DurginWell , I'll help Angie some....I'd wanted to go, but Rascal wasn't up to par yet, husband had another commitment , and my truck braked controller was still sitting in the box, and the vet bumped me for the coggins date, but thought I'd go do what I could. I had to take my 12 yr old who isn't one of my helpful kids... think, "moan and groan" He used to ride and was good when younger, but no longer. We went planning to tent camp, though it has been raining, I kid you not for at least a month to 6 weeks, I have maybe had 3 days without rain at my house... After taking my life in my hands trying to cross Atlanta west to east on Friday afternoon after picking son up from VBS and getting a late start cause they had a party after... We had 3 slowdowns on interstate to 20 mph. Once there were 8 or so cars with flats in a mile long area. Two rain storms, so took me an extra hour to get there. Arrived , asked for work, got to go help the vets scribe for check in (fri).Heard the "dinner voice"-- after we did the last horse we got a nice spagetti supper, seems the cheerleaders who were going to do dinner said forget it on Monday as there weren't enough applications yet..... Poor Peggy who was very kind, cheerful and gracious with blood still on her lip from the wreck. And I believe someone else who was helping ,spouse had to be hospitalized that week too.... After the meeting she offered me her couches at her house, The ground was soaked, I still hadn't set up our tent and tarps, looked like it was going to pour again, so I accepted, (am old enough, to know a good oppurtunity when it is offered :0) We did sleep in a bit, I was fighting a cold, and not much rest the night before , had even napped that day. We got up at 6:30, but didn't get there till 8:15..Went to vet check area, stood around a bit. Peggy asked us to help her kids when they came in so helped crew for them a bit. Then was hanging with the PR , when the x-jockey (josh?) came in, he mentioned he didn't have a crew, and had lost a shoe and seemed to have some other questions... He said he was waiting for his horse to cool down...Joe said to get some water on him... He said on the track they didn't ,cause it would cause tieups, I said they had learned with endurance horses it was ok, and to do it on the neck, chest, belly etc, just not the rump if the water or weather was cold...so I offered to help him . We walked back to his stuff and I sponged his horse (sweet boy), and helped him get his tack off. He went to find the farrier, I offered his horse some 'slop' in my hand as he didn't want to eat... He ate some from my hand , but wasn't real interested otherwise. Josh came back, said he doesn't eat much, he gets too nervous... I offered to take horse to the farrier so he could get something to eat and drink and take care of himself.He said his horse liked me ,(well how nice was that?). I walked his horse over to the farrier, he came over a little while later. He mentioned he used to be a jockey ,high in the standings..I mentioned I'd seen that documentary on jockeys a couple weeks ago, about the one who was having to have a kidney transplant cause of all the bulimia... He said that was why he quit, he weighed too much and the bulimia was too much for him. I said it was criminal to make them weigh so little when we have endurance horses going 100 miles with Heavyweight riders.... He said they have recently gotten the weights up and other good things,)after he quit, he said they got all the stuff they'd wanted). I said my husband said when we viewed that film, ,"what do you expect in an industry based on gambling...... Josh said he jsut rides endurance for fun, he really seemed to care about his horse..... Then I went over to PR as the vets seemed to have scribes and I'd done that two other times,Joe Schmoech(sp?) was there, another lady and Elaine Gooch(sp) was the timer. I eventually got to do some PR with a handheld and Joe gave some good tips about that versus a stethoscope (he used both). When Angie came in I let him do her and I did Josie >g< Now , here is my cowards tale. I was going to unflag for Peggy, had never done it, but was game. She was going to lend me her 18 year old pony who had done the flagging and was going to even go with some of her girls to help... But the person bringing the pony had a truck problem. So another rider who had done a loop on her chubby QH(18) was going to lend him to me,and I was going to do it alone instead.OK, I thought , though company would have been fun. He had on a hackamore and neckreined...HHHmmmm I ride snaffle with two reins....I'd have to concentrate a bit and not rely on habit. Her reins were wet, I had a pair of emergency reins, much thinner, I wonder if that had something to do with what happened. Anyway I started towards the finish line going out.Well trying, he didn't want to go out, I kept having to squeeze him forward,and he kept stopping and trying to turn around or go over to the side"What is going on here?" I muttered with the owners assurance"if you can ride at all you can ride this horse". I tried to concentrate on not single reinging him, but when I gave him the loose rein she said too, and just squeezed he kept tring to turn around.Well we got going in a mostly forward direction. Then he saw a horse coming in in front of him down the trail. He stopped and froze. I squeezed.He still stared, I said "it's just a horse" patted him, sat there a second, then urged him on again, as the horse came up, he tried to turn and follow. I stopped him, and urged him on again, He angled across the road. Got forward again. Other riders approaching, He froze, did the tryiing to turn and follow them back thing. I began to get irritated and concerned. When turning him, he began to flip his head (I hate hackamores for this reason...had this happend before with my horse, --I do like lateral control....) After 3rd set of horses and same response I dismounted and decide to walk a bit to try and get him past the incoming riders and get my plan together. When they cleared out, I tried to remount (3 attempts--he kept trying to turn and face .... the way back)---Now my gut was diffinitely getting tight.I managed to mount, he felt "a bit coiled" Man--- I know about horses who are coiled springs--- I again tried to head out, he again tried to turn around and angled across the road. ---"Thats it; I am trying to ride a horse I don't know , on a trial a don't know, doing something I have never done before, alone with a horse who doesn't want to go out, and I can't seem to connect with him,it's as if I am not even there.... " I have dwelt with barn sour horses before... and he is suruuure beginniing to act like one.... and how in the heck do you do this in a hackamore?????? So I got off and walked back. Peggy had told me if anthing happened or was a problem to come back.I did. I just told her , I was really uncomfortable with what he was doing, and we were arguing the whole way out. I felt really bad about failing to do it for her. I really wanted too, but there were just one too many variables that tipped it into chances I wasn't going to take. My gut was in knots and my confidence was shot. I felt bad , as his owner ended up deflagging the loop and she looked pretty beat,(I saw her on the way home and she stopped to ask which way was camp).I apologised.She had said "he is just playing games with you , you should have got after him...." --- I just don't 'get after' horses I don't know. And mine , are real sensitive, if you get after them and they are afraid you get a fight or a bolt--if they are just lazy that's different. I have met a few who were abused and you could get real surprises if you did, 2 were afraid of crops and would bolt, our tb and a lesson horse I rode once. I figured later I didn't want to ride a horse who wanted to play games with me alone on an unknown trail. So I felt like I failed , but went over to PR and did that for a while. I had to leave in late afternoon Sat. as my son had to be ready to go to boy scout camp Sun. AM and I work as a Nursery Supervisor at 9:30 . The rain did hold off, and it was cloudy, no bugs at PR! But the humidity was at least 70-85%. Joe mentioned the horses out west came down much faster at loops when they were there compared to here cause of the humidity. The horses looked like it was somewhat tough, one was even panting. One little girl, poor thing, was crying, her horse had been pulled , the 3rd time for the same thing . She was so dissapointed and must have only been 8-10 years old. Then there was the horse that had jumped it's electric corral to follow a buddy that morning, but I was them bring her in Sat. (I think Angie said she did it again later?...) But heard two guys tracked her crawling thru underbrush for miles.Then owner rode her and did her ride. _________________________________________________________________ Make the most of your family vacation with tips from the MSN Family Travel Guide! http://dollar.msn.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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