Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Sandhills was wonderful! (as usual!)

Food was great, traditional Irish dinner Friday night, homemade breads Sat 
morning.  Of course same wonderful facilities, stalls, pipe corrals, real 
bathrooms with showers! Trails were marked to death.  Plenty volunteers/vets.  
Plenty of clean water provided in tanks on trail.  The rider meeting couldn't 
have been more fun, we had a quiz on our colors, and some improv. (For those 
who attended, don't forget, "No trailer trash in the bathrooms"!) We were so 
spoiled!

We (riders & horses) found the terrain very fast.  One, the trails were marked 
so well, there was little slowing down to find the turns.  Two, its mostly 
flat, sand roads, you have the ability to ride three wide, pass, and canter 
every step.  Three, there is no "food" on trail, thus you move forward every 
minute (except for the water of course) there is very little "down time" out 
there. (I'm sure this is one of the reasons for the nice long holds.)

My plan was a moderate plod down the trail, and just get the 4yo around 30 
miles.  This proved a difficult task!  He loves to run, and there was little I 
could do to convince him he shouldn't.  We compromised and cantered a bit, and 
trotted a lot, even managed to disappoint him into a walk a few times.  (The 
rules when we left camp were NO dumping Mom, NO rearing, NO bucking, and NO 
cantering, per usual he listened to half of what I said.  But hey, he was kind 
enough to leave me in the saddle ;-)  He finished with way too much energy 
left, more than I had to cope with him!  Argh, gotta love babies!

Big thanks to Tim, Patsy and their gang of helpers!  See ya next year.

Jen

> From: Equus Wolf <equuswolf@xxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2006/03/19 Sun PM 10:47:32 EST
> To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [RC]   Sandhills Stampede
>
> Hi everyone,
>   Did anyone make it to the Sandhills Stampede?  I was supposed to ride the 
> LD but was unable to ride due to circumstances out of my control (basically 
> didn't have my trailer ride)
>   My mother and I took a trip to just spend time together and so I could at 
> least see what goes on since I wasn't able to get my horse there.  It was 
> great to see the horses leave out at 6am (the 100) and 7am (the LD and 55).  
> I helped two very nice women when they came in from their loops by holding 
> one of their horses and scratching her itchy lil head.  They were very nice 
> and I was extremely impressed with how thankful and appreciate they were for 
> someone just to hold their horse's lead rope!  I watched the vet in and 
> everything seemed to happen the way I thought it would (people explain things 
> very well!)
>   All-in-all it was a great experience.  I just wish I could have had Shelby 
> there as planned.  I know she would have handled it all very well.
>   One rider came in from the first loop (not sure which mileage) much quicker 
> than anyone anticipated.  I think they said the loop was 23miles? and this 
> person came into vet check at an hour and 20odd minutes.  Isn't this quite 
> pushing the envelope?
>   I saw a lot of really nice looking horses and I also saw some rather skinny 
> horses, which bothered me.  Even my mother commented on 2 in particular.
>    
>   So anyone here actually ride?  How did it go for you?  
>    
>   I guess I will be searching for a trailer as soon as I can afford it.  I 
> don't want to be stuck at home again  :(
>    
>   Jennifer in SC
>
>               
> ---------------------------------
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