Hi all,
I'm just wondering if anyone who finished the Mendo ride was going
to post what they though about it and how they did (Karen? Carol?).
-Okay, Kimberly, will add my $.02 worth to the ride!
This was Mystery's and my 2nd endurance ride. He came up "gimpy" in
the 14 mile vet check and I voluntarily pulled him and walked the other
14 miles. When he was rechecked, he was sound and so I am happy. As a
novice, I learned a few important lessons:
-I also did the 25, took my mare Chancey on her first endurance
ride. I had done Mendo two years previous on Ashley, so knew there
was there nice, long, steep hill at the start! And mostly climbing
and level to the first vet check. That, and having my riding buddy
Lindsey to help "babysit" me, convinced me to do it. LIndsey has
a former endurance horse of Lari's, an Arab X/Orlov. It would be
LIndseys first endurance ride also.
2. Judge the terrain better when deciding where to hold the green
"lets go youngster" back...ie: don't try at the top of a hill where he
will see the others disappear around a corner..when he flips, it is too
dangerous to try and "turn or hold him" on a 10% downslope!
-The first person that passed us was a problem. My mare started to
freak. I turned her around to face Lindsey and Shimmer, and she
settled, while they went out of sight. The rest of the ride she
was pretty much okay with people passing, though she wanted to keep
up
3. Start a little later than 5 minutes when you don't want to get
caught in a shot gun rush!
-We planned this one! We rode the start hill the night before, with
Carol and Leslie. My mare was on edge, and wanted to keep up with
Carol's horse. I remember Carol trotting nicely up this hill, my
mare bounded. IN the morining, she was also really keyed up, so we
warmed up along one of the roads away from the start, and started
about 7 minutes behind. AS soon as we started walking the hill, she
settled, and we were able to start trotting and cantering. Then
I knew I might live to tell the story.
-I was overall really pleased with my mare. She was always
manageable, though she really wanted to go. I felt like to was on
her mouth too much, trying to slow her down, but she did listen
some to voice commands and seat commands. On the trail after the
vet check, she really relaxed and was a pleasure to ride.
All in all, the trails were very well marked, the vets were good, I was
too tired for the entertainment, the weather was beautiful and other
than the stumps and piles of debre left by our forest service, the
mountains and scenery was outstanding.
-Ditto on trails! Lari does an excellent job marking. Lots of
ribbons, chalk and pie plates. Never was any question of where the
trail went.
I hope the results will be posted by someone soon. I understand there
were quite a number of pulls, not because of metabolic problems, but
because the earth was so hard and there were feet problems.
-We came in 13th, Carol and Leslie came in 5th and 6th. Don't
remember rest of the results, maybe Lari can post them.
-We went quite a bit slower on the later part of the trail becuase
the road had been scraped hard-Lari had warned everyone about this
at the riders meeting. Even though we condition a lot of hard
roads, I had not done that much trotting downhill, so we walked
a lot of it.
-I was really happy with how my mare went through the vet checks.
She had all A's the day before. All A's at the vet out of camp,
except a C for gut sounds. I was worried about this, didn't make
sense as my mare had been drinking a lot and eating beet-pulp mashes
in camp. She wass definately fit for the ride. Dr. Ridgeway
wasn't too concerned, just said try to get her to drink and eat.
She had quite a bit of hay at the check and finally drank. At
the final vet she was back to A on gut sounds (after having eaten
another mash after completing.) She has all A's but a B on anal
tone and jugular. An A on back and withers, riding with the Spoort
saddle.
And thank you to Lari Shea and volunteers for all the hard work she did
in arranging this ride.
-Ditto again, Lari puts on a great ride, anyone in Northern Calif
should give it a try. Lots of shade on the trail. There were
several big water buckets at the vet check, with people hustling
to keep them filled.
Karen (with Chancey)
Kimberly (&Mystery the Morab....#1.....but only in my eyes!)
Petaluma, CA
To: ENDURANCE@MOSCOW.COM