[RC] cost of rides and riding crewless - Marlene Moss
The cost of the rides themselves is already getting scary. We’ve got rides in the Mountain
Region where even the LD is $85.So
for one, I’m going to take my very green horse and do the fun ride
instead!Gotta
save my bucks for Grand Canyon!
And this past weekend, my husband and I rode mostly crewless
at our first 55 of the season.Ride
management was taking a truck out with bags to one site that would be used for
2 holds and said it might make it back to the 3rd.So we learned that you need to pack
buckets – I was thinking that my horses could eat their beet pulp out of
a plastic bag and that didn’t work as well as planned.So we begged, borrowed and stole buckets.Also realized for the first time that
some aspirin either in the crew bag or on the horse could be useful!
And luckily we didn’t really trust that the bags would
make it to the 3rd hold since the 100 milers were still on the
trail.So the night before, we
walked out to the last hold with a bale bag and left it in a good spot. Good thing because we ended up sharing
with others who were more trusting!And we also learned that horses are not likely to eat dry grass and
weeds when it is really hot, so bring your own hay or alfalfa when told that
there is grass around for the horses. I ended up running around looking for
bits of green grass and a few sparse alfalfa plants to stuff in my horses mouth.She’d
chew what I stuffed in her mouth, but she wouldn’t eat on her own.Probably overly concerned since she got
A’s all day, but our guys just aren’t used to heat and I’m
not used to seeing them not scarf down everything in site.
Most rides I’ve done have had in camp holds or my
husband and I have traded crewing for each other on 50’s, so this was a
good experience.I also learned
that I do like out of camp holds better in some ways – I pay more
attention to my horse and keep her moving a little, plus the horses don’t
think they’re done and are more willing to keep going afterward.I was initially concerned about having
multiple short holds (we had a couple 30 minute holds), but it worked really
well.
The ride we were at was the Colorado Horse Park Challenge
and we had a blast.New loops,
excellent sponsors and awards, wonderful dinner and you can’t beat the
facility.
