Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

After something like 25 years (give or take), the Silver State ride 
is now history.  It's kind of sad, I will really miss the ride.  It 
was the first multiday ride (3 days) on Weaver and the flag print 
bandana that I still wear on my helmet was what we received for 
completing all three days.  That bandana has done several thousand 
more miles since then, I'm going to keep fixing it with duct tape so 
it will last forever.  I think all of my horses have gotten their 
great starts on that ride.  First Weaver as his first multiday, then 
a couple of years later I rode Rocky two days in a row on that ride 
and that is where he finally "got it".  He was trying to eat the 
cholla by the 2nd day he was so hungry and from that point forward he 
became a really good eater!  Then Chief came along and got to do a 
day of Silver State as his first ever point to point ride.  This 
year, my newest horse Zenos also got to do two days of the ride 
including his first point to point.  I am probably really fond of 
this ride simply because I have had so many great rides there over the years.

The BLM is closing down some of the trails for 3 years to all 
recreation.  There was a fire in the Blue Diamond area that they want 
to 'reclaim'.   It's unlikely that we'll ever get the trails back, 
and besides a new cargo airport is going to be built at Jean, 
Nevada.  Claire hasn't found a new place to move the ride to 
yet.  :-(  The BLM classifies endurance riding as a speed event 
because they think we travel at "25 miles per hour".

I really like smaller rides.  Especially when you know most of the 
riders.  This year was great, we had about 35 riders the first day, 
which was the 55 mile day.   I brought two horses down so that I 
could alternate them.  I had already vetted Chief in for the first 
days ride when Dave Rabe came over and talked me into riding Zenos 
instead, he said he'd ride with me.  I thought about it and realized 
that yeah, it would be good for Z to do more than just a one day 
ride, he is definitely ready for it and it'll be great for Chief to 
do just one day.  I've been trying really hard to cut back on riding 
him on every ride, every single day.  It's not been easy for me, 
since I love riding him so much!  So I went ahead and vetted Zenos in 
for the 55 mile day.  I put Epics on his front feet, so he wouldn't 
be walking around camp barefoot on all 4 feet and went over and 
vetted him in (it's really rocky there).  These end of season rides 
are great for all of the point chasers.  It is such fun to watch all 
of the goings on and see who is doing what and so on.  I love it!  It 
of course is more fun for me, since I'm not riding for points, and 
already was far enough ahead in the mileage category to not have to 
worry about it.

We started in the back of the pack and when others in front would 
stop we stopped and fiddled around.  Mostly that was so that Dave's 
horse wouldn't pull his arms out trying to catch up with horses in 
front.  Zenos didn't really seem to care, and it was good experience 
for him learning that he can stop and be patient and just watch 
horses trotting off ahead of us, or by us.  He handled everything 
extremely well.  We had a great ride into the vet check.  There is 
only one 'out' vet check on the ride each day, and it's remote.  If 
something happens to your horse out there, you won't be hauling him 
back in a horse trailer.  So you keep that in mind and try to be 
careful out there.  The trail is extremely rocky, moreso this year 
because other trail users loosen up the dirt and it blows or floods 
away leaving only rocks and hardpacked dirt.  There are also lots of 
washes so you are constantly going up and down.  Zenos handled all of 
the footing and terrain changes traveling smoothly and with 
grace.  At one spot there was a washout that just dropped off, Dave's 
horse jumped off it and kept going.  Zenos stopped and looked at it 
and waited for me to tell him what to do!  I was so pleased :).  We 
made it to the vetcheck, and Z pulsed down to 60 right away and we 
went over and vetted.  Everything A-ok.  So over to find our crewbag 
and get fed.  I barely got the food out and mixed with water before 
the horse had it all gobbled up.  I put elytes in each of his baggies 
of feed and he ate it all, then tried finishing off some of another 
horses food.

We had volunteered to pull ribbons down on part of the next loop 
since we were last and that section of trail was only going to be 
done on that first day.  Luckily Dave brought along a plastic bag -- 
which we filled up completely stuffed with ribbons on 
clothespins!  They really way overmarked that trail (lol).  That was 
also great experience for Z, as he got to stop and let me lean over 
to pull off some of the ribbons, and was the only horse :* that 
wasn't afraid of the plastic bag filled with ribbons.  Once we got 
thru there we were able to leave all of the ribbons at the water stop 
with the radio guy.  We stayed there a few extra minutes to let the 
horses eat before heading in.  We made up some time there and 
finished at about 5, just as it was getting dark. That wasn't too bad 
since we had until 7:45 to make it in by.  We were last.  We 
entertained ourselves by reading the big flashing billboard on the 
sign in front of the casino as we headed towards it.  They had a 
special, for $10 you got an hour of dance lessons, 4 hours of dancing 
and 2 drinks.  I don't know if anybody from the ride went or not, but 
we did make it in that night to have prime rib for dinner in the restaurant.

Riding with Dave is a lot of fun, he's always so patient, and so 
considerate.  He just can't hear real well.  We had fun all day 
comparing our horses heart rates, then finally at some point I kept 
hearing a beep beep beep sound.  I asked him if that was his HRM -- 
and he didn't know, said he couldn't hear it! <G>  Sure enough, his 
HRM was not attached and was beeping.  It kept doing that, so I kept 
telling him "there's that bird again".   Dave was able to tease me 
because my horse was trying to eat orange rocks, and chew on bark on 
the joshua trees (now he knows that stuff isn't edible) :P

The next day I rode Chief-- we started out in the back and I got him 
thru the first part without him getting too excited.  He always wants 
to catch whoever is in front, as well as stay ahead of whoever is 
behind.  Next year I can ride him faster and he won't be mad at me 
for making him go so slow.  I've been practicing on the last few 
rides letting him canter a little bit here and there.  We do that a 
lot on training rides, but in an actual endurance ride he tends to 
want to gallop like his tail is on fire.  So we're doing little 
stretches where I work on our transitions in a speed that is in 
control, and he is getting better and better about it.  We soon 
started to pass other horses, especially going up the steep climb up 
Cave Canyon.  He is great on technical trails and goes well over the 
big boulders and rocks and doesn't need to stop and take a break, so 
up we went up and up and over the top, then down trotting thru the 
sand into the vetcheck.  We caught up Kathy after lunch and rode with 
her into the finish.   I really wanted to let Chief go more, but 
thought better of it until I have more time to back him off of doing 
so many miles in a season, so I kept him at the same pace and we 
finished the day with him looking as great as he always does!  I was 
happy and sad, knowing that he'd just finished an incredible ride 
season and sad because it was over and knowing I'd never get to ride 
him on that trail again.  I think we finished around 13th out of 28.

The third day started out a bit windy. It had blown most of the night 
at Blue Diamond.  I still planned on riding Zenos.  He was handling 
everything so well, the day I rode Chief he was trailered to the new 
camp and when he got there he spent the day eating and 
drinking.  Another horse got loose and ran around camp and Z just 
stood there calmly and watched.  About 3 a.m. I heard a loud 
commotion outside, but with the wind I couldn't tell what it was.  It 
sounded like a horse had gotten into a wreck, or had gotten loose so 
I went outside to look. Both of my horses had eaten all of their food 
and drank all of their water and they wanted more!  So got them all 
refilled on their rations and back to bed for another hour or two 
before getting up.  We started at 6 a.m.  I got Zenos boots on, 
tacked him up and walked him over to vet.  He was fine. yay!  I 
remember feeling his legs and checking him over and thinking that you 
couldn't tell he'd done a ride, that was great.  His attitude was 
good too, as we headed out.  He seemed happy to follow Dave's horse 
again and off we went.  We had a small creek crossing in the first 
few miles, and he calmly walked thru it, yay!  I really like how he 
stays calm when horses pass or he sees them up ahead.  A couple of 
times I would pull him back a little and let Dave's horse get farther 
up ahead just to see how he'd handle it, and he did fine with 
that.  I don't want him to get too attached to another horse.  On all 
three days, neither of my horses had their HR's go above 
140.  Actually, maybe 133 was the highest they got to climbing the 
steep hills.  I used the Garmin 301 so it measured the distance, 
elevation, HR and all that jazz -- so I can put it on the laptop and 
view the graphs.  Mostly I use it to keep an eye on my average speed, 
and also the speed that we are going at.  It's almost scary how much 
your average can be thrown off when you stop and fiddle faddle 
around, or are pulling ribbons or whatever.

The vetcheck was shortened to a half an hour because of the cold and 
wind.  That was just long enough for the horses to eat well.  They 
had sandwiches for us along with chips and drinks and candy.  The 
last part of the ride went really well, we had more downhill to do 
since we were riding back to Jean.  Zenos was well mannered when I 
led him on foot down Cave Canyon.  Then I got on and trotted the wash 
part.  We didn't have any ribbons to pull today so didn't lose time 
there.  When we got to the water stop the radio guy told us that we 
were 6th and 7th out of 19 riders.  We'd been figuring that we were 
the 19th riders <G>.  Wow, how did that happen?  I guess we had been 
doing a lot of steady trotting, not fast but we weren't fiddling 
around and goofing off either.  So we kept on going occasionally 
letting the horses canter where the terrain allowed it.  What a great 
day it was, we had the best time.  Since we'd started so early and 
had only a half an hour hold, we finished at about 2 o'clock!  That 
was great, I had plenty of daylight left so the horse could get dried 
off and cleaned up.  It was sad saying goodbye to everybody. They did 
a great job at the ride this year all around.  The trail was well 
marked, the lunches were awesome and all of the volunteers and vet 
were terrific.  The group of riders were also all the best.  I will 
miss Silver State.

Congratulations to all the riders and their horses that met all of 
their goals in 2005 and good luck next season!

Karen
in NV

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