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Please Reply to: Sandy Holder sandy.l.holder@xxxxxxxxxx or 
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Heh fellow endurance riders!  Well by now you probably have heard from a few 
other folks about the Cooley Ranch ride this past weekend.  To say the least, 
the riders that left early or decided not to attempt it, really missed a good 
time; particularly the large bonfire at the post ride dinner.  As my lovely 
daughter calmly stated to me as she crewed at the last vet check, it?s an 
?endurance? sport and this weekend we?re having an ?enduring? time!  She could 
say this of course because she was ?volunteered? to crew for 5 of us riders who 
decided to tempt fate.  We told her we?d try not to get struck by lightning 
(just kidding ? it wasn?t THAT bad) and restrain ourselves from taking mud 
baths.  Of course at the end of the ride, she was the one liberally covered in 
obnoxious stuff, primarily from 2 of the horses wanting to rub on her after 
they?d filled their mouths with gooey slop!

For me, this was a personal journey.  Last year, attempting to actually get to 
the ranch, my riding buddy (father figure and mentor) and I overcame a very 
difficult spell ? mentally recovering after the brake on our trailer failed, 
boiling one of our tires in Friday afternoon traffic in the midst of the 
freeway.  We did actually make it to the ride to volunteer, but only after 
being rescued by some very nice fellow horse people who boarded our horses 
overnight for us and to MoTow who put my 2 horse slant-load Circle J on the 
back of a flat bed trailer (now THAT was a sight ? but I digress).

So our plan this year was to head up to the ride early.  Of course, the shadow 
of aggravation had carried over from last year, so we had some challenges of 
getting 4 horses to a ride when we only had a 3 horse slant load (thank you 
Sheila), and trying to sync our travel with her and others (10 or 10:30 or 11 
or 11:15 or I think it was close to 12:30 p.m. by the time it all ?happened?), 
did I mention that the truck broke down on Monday before the ride?  Anyway, I 
guess we should have expected that if we did actually make it to the ride, it 
would at least rain on us!

It was a bit muddy when we came into camp around 3:30 p.m. on Friday.  The good 
news for us was that we spied a large space on the side of a hill that looked 
big enough to fit us and our two companions that were traveling ½ hour or so 
behind us.  Taking the horses out of the trailer, Dick put his big new Ford 
F350 in 4 wheel drive and ?blazed? to a good spot.  Our two friends didn?t get 
quite the same running start and were pulled by Ron?s tractor service but were 
able to safely exit without any assistance.  By the way, Ron?s big smile and 
?we can do it? attitude kept us all in pretty good spirits even when we found 
out the porta potties had gotten lost on the way to the ride (thank you Lord 
for the little portable one Katie picked up for us at the camping store).

Vetting our horses in was a treat as one of the vets was a lady that didn?t 
ride endurance.  By the time she?d noted all the noteworthy marks of my 
pastured horse (he and his buddies have way too much fun), my card looked like 
a bookie had been writing bets on it for the Sunday running of the ponies!  I?m 
glad that Lucky went to the head vet (who?s vetted this ride probably from 
inception) as I?m not sure they could have gotten all of his little ?love 
bites? from his mates written on the same 8 x 11 card.


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