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City Slickers in Memphis, TN provided a perfect opportunity for my horse and I 
to complete our first 50 and to do it barefoot (the horse not me; I wore new 
Ariat Terrains).  Due to my wife having to work Saturday, I loaded up and 
headed out alone.  This would be another first; my horse on a ride without his 
buddy.

We have done a couple LD?s and I have volunteered at a few rides as well.  But 
nothing as unique as this one.  I am more used to trying to find a dirt road 
leading to a small meadow that is the ride camp than pulling into a paved 
parking lot and unloading the horse into a lighted barn stall with shavings!  
Instead of carefully stowing all food and garbage so bears don?t visit, I 
walked to Wal-Mart from ride camp to buy a Rib eye for dinner.  Finally, I 
noticed the LD riders outnumbered the 50?s 2 to 1.

It was cold Friday night!  I slept in the stock trailer, just set up the cot 
and crawled in and crashed.  It had been a five hour drive and a long week.  I 
woke up to ice on my sleeping bag!  I?ve got to get an LQ trailer.  Ok that?s 
too expensive; I?ve got to get a warmer sleeping bag.  On the bright side, the 
milk I bought at Wal-Mart the night before and left in the back of the truck 
was nice and cold on my Fruit Loops.

The start of City Slickers has you winding back and forth across a large field 
before plunging into the woods.  I dismounted, turned my horse backwards to the 
start line and let everyone else leave before I started.  My object was to 
complete safe and sound, nothing more.  My mistake was I didn?t wait until the 
leaders were completely out of sight before starting out.

My usually well behaved half Arab half Tennessee Walker was a freak!  Without 
his buddy to keep him company he was nervous, almost uncontrollable, and wanted 
to bolt at any moment.  It didn?t help that I was riding a hack and not a bit.

Several scary miles down the trail I encountered the first of the many helpful 
riders I want to thank.  Unfortunately I am bad with names and can?t remember 
her name or the  junior she was sponsoring.  She was riding a beautiful Tiger 
Stallion that was so well behaved and tolerant of my crazy horse I am immensely 
grateful.  I ?parked? my horse behind hers and followed them on to the first 
vet check.

A mile or two before the first vet check my horse and the juniors both bolted 
at the same time.  Neither horse wanted to concede to the other and neither of 
us riders could stop our horse.  We were both finally able to steer our mounts 
in a circle in a large field and bring them to a stop.  That little girl is an 
incredible rider to not come off that horse going a full gallop and racing my 
horse.  Wow, scary!

Without further incident we made it to the first vet check.  I was amazed that 
after such a disastrous beginning my horse got all A?s on the vet check and was 
32/36 on the CRI.  Even my new riding partners were not dissuaded from inviting 
me to continue to ride with them.

But after leaving the vet check with them and experiencing some of the same 
behavior problems I decided to let them ride on ahead.  Of course my horse was 
not happy about that.  Trying to get off of him to walk for a while was almost 
a rodeo.  A rider, I believe Irving McNaughton, rode by and asked how it was 
going.  I stated that I had my hands full today.  He smiled and said: ?Son, you 
don?t know what a handful is yet!?  That was prophetically true.

I decided to jog for a while to calm both my horse and me down a bit.  We 
stopped at a stream to let the horse drink and I made another mistake.  Not 
paying attention, I let the horse step on the reins and he broke his bridle in 
three places.  It was hopelessly destroyed.  Of course I had no repair kit or 
spare available.  I was beginning to believe this was just not my day, but 
being a hard headed Swede I was not about to concede defeat.

I tied the reins around the horse?s neck and took off jogging along side of 
him.  I?m guessing it was a 6-8 mile jog to the road crossing.  I tried to slow 
down and walk several times but every time I did the horse would push me in the 
back with his head as if to say ?hurry up? we got ride to finish.

At the road crossing where the police would stop traffic to let the horses 
cross I stopped to reevaluate.  Finding a rope and making a temporary repair 
put me back in the saddle.  I was almost afraid to climb on.  What if he bolted 
again and my makeshift bridle repair came apart?  I endeavored to keep him to a 
walk back to ride camp and the next vet check.  Riiiiight?

He had other ideas.  Where did all this energy come from?  Yes, we followed a 
conditioning program derived from Dr. Lovings book.  Yes, he was well fed and 
properly e-lyted.  But how could he be such a freak on the trail and still 
pulse so well at the vet checks???  So we compromised and he settled into the 
fast walk TWH gait.

I have heard some veteran riders say in the first 50 it is not uncommon for a 
horse to be unsettled in the initial 25 only to settle down and have a great 
second 25.  As I limped into ride camp at the halfway point, I was sure hoping 
they were right.  I took the 40 minute hold to rebuild the destroyed bridle 
with cotton rope.  Ugly, but it worked.

Well the second half WAS much better.  Not because my horse decided to calm 
down on his own, but because we met up with Opal from Ohio and her wonderful 
Arab/Standard bred.  That horse calmed mine down, taught him to drink out of a 
mud puddle and allowed us to finish the ride safe and sound.  Thank you very 
much for allowing us to ?go to school? on you and your horse.

We finished with 18 minutes to spare.  We vetted out with all A?s and pulsed at 
40.  Who cares that the winners were showered and changed and probably already 
drinking wine and beer.  Who cares that our pace was so slow that we saw 
turtles and snails passing us up.  We finished safe and sound.

So as I lay in my sleeping bag freezing while frost formed on my socks that 
night, I tried to figure out what I should have learned from this experience.  
I came up several lessons:

1.      Riding a horse named Memphis in the city of Memphis could be trouble.
2.      To finish really is to win.
3.      Conditioning is not everything; your horse must have manners too.
4.      Endurance riders are wonderful tolerant people
5.      Memphis is cold in March, really cold.

Hope to see everyone at LBL.  I?ll have a horse that is much better behaved by 
then.  Oh, BTW, even though my wife missed this adventure she was home to see 
our new mustang give birth to a beautiful charcoal grey philly!  Funny how life 
works out, huh?


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