Oconee WMA --story

[Samm C Bartee <bartesc@mail.auburn.edu>]

Howdy ya'll!!   I rode 50 miles on Sat and boy am I paying for it today!!  
First, I rode about 15 miles 2 weeks ago. back in Nov, I did 25 miles, and
then waaay back in August I did another 15 or so miles. that is all that I
have ridden until Sat.  Before anyone gets upset, I was riding someone
elses horse, not mine, so that doesn't mean that the horse was as bad as
me!!  

In Jan., I won a ride entry to Tevis, my good friend Nina Gibson said she
would loan me her horse Coujur for that ride!  Great, but I weigh 100 lbs
more than her and so I needed to get him ready for it. no problem. We
decided to meet at this ride and I would ride him there and see what I
thought...as if there would be any question!HAHA.... Coujur is a great
horse, has tons of fans all over the US.  he has a lower AERC number than
me:-)  sigh.  He's done the ROC, OD, and lots of other rides. He's
AWESOME!!  But, I still had never ridden him.  
Nina and I were both late getting to the ride on Fri afternoon. So, I
didn't get to pre-ride him before the start of the ride.  To make matters
worse, we had to vet in Sat morning, due to being late getting there, so
he was READY to go.  He is a veteren of these things and KNEW why he was
there, just not what he was in for!!  I had about 10 minutes with him
before the trail opened, so boy was I terrified!  I think people were
worried about me there for a few minutes. I always have a bad case of
nerves, have always spazzed just before the start of a ride, but this was
a major case!!  Coujur is a real gentleman, and I needn't have worried,
but I still was.  
At the start, we let lots of the riders go before we took off. Coujurs
trot is possibly one of the most impressive things I have ever had the
pleasure of sitting and man did I have a blast!!
There were 58 riders that started the 50.  As the day went on, due to a
sudden unexpected heat rise, they dropped out quickly.  I rode on. Each
vet check, Coujur came in and dropped quickly.  Not bad for a horse
carrying way more weight than he's used to and with still having a winter
coat to boot!  On the 3rd loop, disaster struck. we were going through
some bad mud, he slid and took a couple of bad steps. I bailed off and
expecting the worse, was almost relieved to see that he had bent the shoe
badly.  Well, well, well. ..I stayed off him walking. Muttering to myself.
I had an easyboot, he couldn't ahve pulled it off all the
way...Noooooo...all those times I lost time due to lack of an easy boot,
here I had one and it did me NOOOOOO good.  Oh well, luckily, the trail
went almost back to camp before looping back out again. So, I took about a
1/2 mile detour to camp, got the shoe fixed and him looked at--sound,
whew! and we were off again!!  Lost about an hour, but he was sound.  I,
however, was not!!  I never take drugs for pain...almost never.  I took
advil and I will freely admit my weakness.  My knees hurt, my back hurt,
my pride hurt, but I was still smiling bigger than most anyone else
there!!  Finished that damn 3rd loop....the 12 mile length seemed to grow
to 80 miles or something like that!!  Vetted through and waited out our
hold time and off again to finish.  13 miles to complete!!  Yippee....it
was an easy last loop, just keep going....Caught up with Trish Harrop,
and we came in together.  She was limping along--her not the horse, she
pulled some ligaments in HER ankle a couple of months ago and was having
some pain problems of her own.  We made a great pair though!  I nearly
cried when I saw the finish line. Coujur knew where we were and he broke
into a canter, so I let him. It felt good on my body to do something
besides trot...there was no race off, no point, we just cruised in and I
got off.  My best friend Kathy was there--Kathy rode my Ara-App filly
Weagle in the limited distance ride and they finished in Great
shape!!--she had water for us.   That was nice.  We went to the vet check
and completed--Yeah!!  Now, after that ride, I need only two more to have
*MY** 2000 mile patch. that's nice.  I spent all last year going to rides
and helping, not riding.  It was fun to help and I really enjoyed it, but
there is a lot to be said for RIDING!!  

I can sure tell you guys, that where we were on Saturday, it was a great
day to be riding.  It was clear, the sky was blue, blue, blue, the horses
felt great, the trail was marked so well that you could have swung from
the ribbons.  The pull rate was high, due to the extreme heat for this
time of year, but it seemed that most people took great care of their
horses and pulled before there was a problem.  Everyone was happy and in a
grand mood but most of all.....IT WAS FUN!!!  



APPY TRAILS



SAMM C. BARTEE
Auburn, Al.  SE Region
with
COUJUR--I have to carry what?
B JETS WAR EAGLE--endurance newbie
110 miles and.....
SIR REVEL--what about me?