Sorry about Debbie and Stoney.
Yea, I know about the double h's- heat/humidity. It is the norm down here.
At the Barn Builder ride in North central FL held on 10 Dec 95, it was
about 99% humidity and 70 degrees when we started (before dawn) and went up
to about 90 degrees. The horses I was riding with kept getting pulled and
I ended up in front and won the thing - a very unusual place for me. Over
half the horses got pulled in that 50 and the horse that came in second to
me failed to come down in an hour - a fairly high attrition rate for a 50.
The only saving grace about that ride was there wasn't 100 miles of it!
The 93 OD was my second 100. I did my first last year in Ocala FL at the
Far Out Forest. We took a mountain vaction in Tennessee in May and I
decieded to give the OD a try, fairly ambitious. We were doing fine until
we got on the miserable stretch form 54 miles to 68 miles. There was
absolutely no trail water. It was all up and down and the only place to
make any time was a 4-WD road and the 4WD's had it so wavy that you could
not get any decent rhythm. My pit crew didn't know the trail so they
didn't meet me when I came out of the woods. Even with all of this we were
making good time. We would have pulled into the 68 mile check 2 hours
ahead of closing.
Then she stopped and I panicked - tie up. It wasn't but I didn't go on -
all about a mile from the check this happened. When my pit crew finally
showed up an hour and a half later with Jim Bryant(the head vet), and got
Misty some water, she was fine. The horse must have drunk 5 gallons then
walked over and started munching on grass. Frank Farmer had come along and
I told him to send out my crew. He went into the check and announced that
there was a horse tied up on the trail and caused a panic.
Jim examined the horse and said she was just very thirsty and had enough
sense to stop. He said that if I had gotten her water she probably would
have recovered and gone on. Next time my crew will know every trail/road
crossing and be there! She was fine the next day - her opinionated self
that is. I can't really feel to bad about bringing a horse from the flats
of FL and doing 68 miles of the OD for her second 100 mile ride, especially
since she has come back strong this year.
I wanted to come up for the OD this year. But Misty and I were both weary
from the number of miles (450) we did between 1 Nov and 1 April (the
Biltmore showed me that), so I decieded to rest both of us and start this
fall to get ready for the 96 OD - that is a lot of riding in the
mountains. I don't know where I will get the time off work, but - hey,
what is more important?
Give Debbie by congrads on making it that far in such adverse conditions.
It is better to pull to to go on and run another day.
Truman
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The race is not always to the swift, but to those that keep running.
Truman and Mystic "The Horse from HELL" Storm
prevatt@lds.loral.com
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