Longstreet's Charge/novel

[rides2far@juno.com (Angela C. McGhee)]

Thought I'd try a new ride report format.  No names particularly, just
atmosphere transfer.

Friday morning when most people were leaving their homes to come to the
ride, we had horrible storms.  There was about 3" of rain in my horse's
feed buckets, and LOTS of thunder and lightening.  The temps had been in
the upper 90s for the last several days, and those of us in management
had a lot on our minds...a mountain where all the mud holes were
dry...all vet checks at an away check where it would require a full hour
to haul a pulled horse back to camp, and a ranger who had been warned by
the CT people that our horses would be going much faster, probably be out
of control and we'd kill ourselves on the way up the rugged mountainside.
 They had him so worried that he wanted us to put mileage type markers up
the 2 mile climb, so he'd know where to go pick up the pieces.  He also
stationed himself at the top of that trail at 6:00 AM Sat. just to be
ready for the worst. (They had had the IAHA Championship two weeks
earlier, and a NATRAC ride one week earlier and nobody thought this was
necessary for those rides).  Needless to say, we really wanted to make a
good impression.

By noon, the sun came out, the field was dry with no problems for rigs,
and things were looking good.  It was still muggy, but at least we knew
there was plenty of water on the trail now, and this trail does well in
rain, so that wasn't a big problem.

I took Becky Siler, the photographer to the top of the mountain and
helped her look for good spots to get pictures.  Guess what we found out
during the drive?  She's assistant manager of the entire stables at
Disney World!  She's in charge of 82 horses, buying and selling of teams,
drives the huge rig (gorgeous mural of Clydesdales on the side) when the
parade goes on the road.  Anyway, Hood's overlook was a definite, since
you can hardly imagine the view from there, but the LD's wouldn't be
going by it, and we just couldn't find anything that would say
"Longstreet's Charge" when you saw that background.

When I got down everything was running so smoothly it was scarey.  I
think the great thing about having bad weather leading up to a ride is
that all the "Weinies" stay home.   I don't remember when I've enjoyed
being around a big group so much...EVERYONE was just happy, relaxed,
excited.

The pre-ride meeting was a lot of fun.  We poked a little fun, and with
Danny Herlong and Nina Gibson chipping in, had everyone laughing and
loose.

When it came time for my "trail talk", I must have been scarier than I
thought, because Joe Schoech said that the vet came over afterward and
said, "That was a little intense!" and Joe said, "That's because she
doesn't want us to hurt our horses."  Joe later credited the weather and
the intensity of my talk with the incredibly low pull rate.   I
emphasized to the riders that the trail up this mountain is only about 1
3/4 mile long, over slippery flat rock, and with good sized "tripping
rocks" everywhere.  The best plan was for EVERYONE to just walk up it,
then have at it.  There was plenty of room to race up on top, and it was
just silly to tempt fate on that trail.

We agreed to start at 6:00 AM (barely dawn) and went to bed.  At 3:00 AM
I looked out and saw a terrific lightening storm to our west, got in my
pop-up with my 2 daughters (hubby sleeping in Dodge Dakota to guard vet
check stuff on top of mtn) and prayed that front south of us.  Found out
next morning, several others had helped.

At 5:30 AM, the weather was very cool, and we had a blanket of fog...that
just doesn't happen here in June.  It was so black out that we had to
move back the start time to 6:30, which just relaxed everyone.  Suddenly,
we just "had some time" and it was a great way to start a ride.  Maybe we
should always do that.

I left out for the vet check, since it was almost an hour drive there,
and we wanted to beat the horses.  Our ranger was sitting in a chair at
the top of the mountain trail and told us later that he could hear the
riders coming from far away, and they ALL walked.  When they would get to
him they would say, "Are we on top?" and he'd say "Yes" then ZOOM!  He's
seen a lot of CT rides but this was his first chance to watch us.  After
awhile, when they came up he'd just say, "You can go now" and they would.
 

For people out west, you can picture our woods like a rain forest.  It's
GREEN and thick and beautiful this time of year.  Now, picture it in a
thick blanket of fog on a cool morning with steaming horses trotting
through it, and you can imagine what this morning was like.  This turned
out great for the photographer, it didn't matter what the background
looked like, folks will see the fog in those photos and say, "THAT'S
Longstreet's Charge!"

  Our head vet, Otis Schmitt went to another crossing to watch the horses
go by and check for problems.  He said if he hadn't been there, they'd
have missed the turn, even though it was marked with 2 pie plates and
LOTS  of turn ribbons.  The fog was so thick, you couldn't even see a
truck until you got to it...but it was COOL!  Unbelieveably so.  They
said the temp was 70 that morning, and wouldn't be climbing but 4
degrees, and the humidity was LOW!.  

At the first vet check all the horses looked great, the workers did their
jobs beautifully, and it was a well oiled machine.  We had thought we
might get a little rain, but it stayed dry, and cool.  The riders still
seemed remarkably relaxed, being very cautious about respecting the
trail...and it showed.  The mood just spread, the vets were cheerful, the
P&R people had a great time, and we had NANCY GOOCH as timer which just
makes EVERYBODY feel like things are going to be fine!

The only sour note all day was when one of the LD leaders (last year's
champion, Eddie Edwards) came over and told me that the two girls in
front of him had never passed him, and he'd been in the lead the whole
way.  GRRR.  I went over to them and asked them, had they seen anyone
else on the trail and they said no.  I said, did you follow yellow here?
And they said, No, White. GRRRRR!!!!  I said, "The first leg was yellow,
you were supposed to follow white back.  It was a relief to see that it
was their mistake and I was not responsible for the problem, but this
rider went balistic on me.  She had a fit because we had started them out
on a trail with white flagging on it. I told her that the white flagging
had been
on her left the entire way.  I said, "Did you come to the ride meeting?"
She said, yes, but that we should NEVER have started them on a trail with
white flagging if we didn't want them to follow it (there was yellow
flagging too, where the trails overlapped).  It was a pretty rediculous
argument.  She appologized later that evening.  What got to her was that
Eddie had seen them go that way and had said nothing.  Actually, she had
seen Eddie go the other way, and had said nothing to him either.  Nothing
like trying to "Win" an LD!

On the other extreme, when we finally had almost all the LD's vet
through, there was apparently one rider missing...Bekki Crippen on Buddy.
 I hadn't really gotten her any kind of "sponsor", since there was nobody
that I felt I knew well enough to ask.  I had simply told her to pick out
whoever was in back and keep up with them.  If that was too much for
Buddy, we'd just pull him.  Her parents and sisters sat very quietly and
looked worried, the vet check was empty and we all kept watching the
horizon.  The ranger said he'd seen a woman on a HUGE grey horse that was
very out of shape come huffing up, and it had a paint with it, but the
rider had on brown, not Bekki's turquoise.  Finally, I sent Bill (hubby)
down to watch for her at one crossing, and her parents to another.  I was
picturing Buddy deciding to turn back on the mountainside and Bekki in
all sorts of trouble.  Finally, there they were trotting into camp as big
as life accompanied by the huge grey (actually an Appaloosa former show
horse on his first ride).  Bekki had a brown coat over her turquoise and
had fooled the ranger.  Somehow the Grey's number had gotten checked off
on the timer's list and we'd thought Bekki was the only one left out
there. 

 Buddy came in looking bright eyed but FAMISHED.  He took a huge bite of
wet alfalfa, a big gobble of bran, dove for the beet pulp, looked up and
GRABBED a bite of my ham & cheese sandwich (leaving green alfalfa goop
all over the rest), was ALL OVER Bekki until he got the apple she was
eating, had several Oreo cookies that my daughter gave him, then turned
and took a bite of Bekki's sister's boot.  I got in the truck and rounded
up the search party and everyone was VERY happy and relieved.  The lady
on the App was new to this, and Bekki had plenty to tell her as they
rode.  Buddy looked fine, but the App looked pretty tired.  They just
rode the rest of the ride at a walk for the most part and finished just
fine in 7 hrs. & 15 min.  

Out of 31 starters in the LD, none were pulled.  2 got completion only
for doing the trail out of order, and Bekki and her pardner went over the
time limit.  They received "Course completions" just not AERC
completions.

In the 50, 37 horses started, and only 3 were pulled, all for lameness,
probably stone bruises.  68 horses in a June ride and not ONE metabollic
problem!  Jim Barnett did the toughest ride of all.  He wanted to sponsor
his grandaughters in the 25, then go on and do another 25 for "completion
only" in the 50.  With the trail laid out the way it was, this meant that
he had to ride up and down the mountain the entire 50 miles. On the
results it says completion only, but that's why.

I can't begin to tell you how perfect this weather was.  It got so chilly
that one of the P&R people had on a down coat at 2PM!  I actually had to
give Dave Bennett a wool blanket for his horse at the noon stop because
the breeze was making him shiver.  

Around 4:30 when the last horses came in, the sun suddenly came out, and
it felt like Fall.  The sky was brillient blue, we had a great cookout
right on time, and the awards presentation was FUN.  It was so nice to
not feel like everyone was in a hurry to leave. This is the first awards
program that I can remember where out of 68 entries, 64 of them were
present to recieve their awards...no trailer race out of the camp. There
was lots of laughing, and even the LD lady who was sooo mad earlier came
up an apologized and said she'd really had a good time.  Just goes to
show, never judge anyone while their adrenaline is pumping.

Top 10 in both distances got directors chairs.  Weight divisions in the
50 got saddle racks with the Longstreet's Charge logo, BC recieved
GORGEOUS Spruce tack boxes in both divisions, 1st Jrs. got really nice
rump rugs, all other Jrs. got a nice assortmant of goodies from Animal
Tacker, then there were "High Vet Score", "Tail End" awards, "Middle of
the Pack" awards, "Best Pacer" (finished the 25 in EXACTLY 6:00), and a
few other fun awards.  All completers recieved a Longstreet's Charge
T-Shirt., then Becky Siler our photographer presented Bekki Crippen with
the most beautiful framed 8x10 of her cover photo from EN complete  with
turquoise mat.  Becky's husband had made the barnwood photo and hand cut
the letters to spell "Bekki, Buddy, and Endurance Rider" around the
frame.  It was great. 

 BC in the 50 went to Roger Blaylock on Blitz, and BC in the LD went to
Joe Baker on Touch of Class.  I think they were quite happy with their
awards.  High vet score went to one of Roger's flock, Either Leslie or
Amanda Brumleve, I forgot which.

When we got up Sunday morning...the temp. was 42! (For contrast, on Wed.
it was probably 80!)  Sure made us want to have a multi-day right quick! 
It was so nice, we went home and got the kids' ponies and my husband and
I walked a 10 mile loop while the kids pulled ribbons.  I've NEVER felt
so good after managing a ride.  For those of you who didn't get to come
this year, I think we've got this thing figured out, and it should be
even better next year. But I'm not sure I can guarantee THAT kind of
weather! 

By the length of this post you can see I'm just excited about our ride
and the possibilities for the future.  I hope that pretty soon it will be
on EVERYONE'S "must do" list.

Thanks to all the riders, you did a GREAT job!

Angie McGhee, June Parsons, and the Chattanooga Arabian Horse Club
 

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