Diablo Vista

[Gary Fend <garyfend@pacbell.net>]

Well it only took me a year and a half, but I finally got Khutrina to an
endurance ride.  Between injuries and other commitments, it seemed like
we'd never get to a ride.
Diablo Vista was a tougher ride than I had hoped for her first ride, but
Lake Sonoma was canceled, and I refused to let another year go by!
We camped next to Kathy Campbell & Meraffa and Bill Coburn and Beau, so
we were happy & secure with our buddies.  Since they don't allow dogs,
Gary came over for dinner but went home for the night - returning at
5:30 the next morning to gather everybody's stuff for the vet checks.
The ride was perfect, we finished darned near last, but Khutrina did
everything way better than I had expected!  She is not a group horse (at
all).  She has a huge personal space, so I decided to wait until all of
the 50 milers were well out of sight before I even left the camp.
Kathy  was riding the 25, so she asked Shel if she and Meraffa could
escort me to Mariani's and wait there to start with the rest of the
25s.  Thanks Shel - it was great to have a baby sitter!  Our walk down
the 2 miles of road was quite a relief.  They had no distractions
(except some scary goats), so we made it in one piece to the actual
start - and yeah! - the riders had already gone from there too, so we
had a marvelously easy first start!
It was an incredibly beautiful day, and the ride lived up to it's name
this year.  The views were spectacular (unlike some very foggy mornings
I can remember there).
Cory and Tom have made some great changes to the trails - some really
fun new single track after lunch.  And the footing was perfect.
Aside from some lost riders galloping past me at about the 5 mile point,
I never saw another horse until the 1st vet check.
Gary was there with lots of goodies, so she chowed down and had a nice
rest.
It took a while for her to relax with this new assortment of horses and
riders, but she finally figured it out.  From then on, I was able to
walk her into the different vet stops and reach criteria within a minute
- it got better with each check.
She has always been a great drinker, so we took advantage of every drop
of water on the trail - to the extent that we climbed an extra hill to
find an empty trough, but there was some water in the muddy spring next
to it, so I scooped several times, (covering my shoes in mud reaching
in!) and she guzzled - what a good girl!
We actually passed a few riders during the last two loops - amazing -
and we even got to ride with some other riders.  This is where I really
got happy - she usually makes the nastiest faces - "the queen of ugly
faces" - but by now she was really happy to have some company and we
were even able to ride next to other riders!!
Coming down the last stretch she really stretched out and did her fun
"moving out" trot.  It felt so good to have her feel that energetic at
the end of 50 miles - I guess it was worth the wait.
Thanks to all the workers - it seemed to go along quite smoothly (though
I was never where there were any large numbers of horses).  The vets
were great!  And boy did I enjoy getting to ride!!

Laura & Khutrina (finally)