Hallelujah War Story

["Angela C. McGhee" <rides2far@juno.com>]

Well folks,

Since the word's out that I bombed this weekend, I might as well give a
report.

Went to the Hallelujah ride in Columbia, GA.  Great place, super nice
weather (70 degrees, a little warm for winter coats but lots of sponge
water...and when you're "one of" the Spongin' Champeens...no prob.)

Observers for the Pan Am selection were there, along with serveral hot
shoe 100's, so I made a deal to ride with Karen Pruitt & Robin Oscar who
were going to be conservative.

Started slow, rode forever.  That's about it.  There was about a one mile
stretch of deep mudholes that were lined with wood chips.  You'd sink
low, but wouldn't feel trapped.  Pretty slow go, we were supposed to do
it 4 times and after re-routing a trail to avoid a real bog, had to do it
6. The rest was as nice a footing and mixture of terrain as I've ever
seen...it just seemed to grow and grow.  After 9 hours had elapsed
(including holds) we still had 45 miles to go.  Talk about disheartening.

The vets were great, the vet checks were every 10 and 15 miles, and
management was well organized.  After 55 miles Robin called it quits.  He
had started the ride with a stress fracture and felt he'd reinjured it. 
This ride was a fund raiser for St. Jude's Children's Hospital, so the
local Emergency Rescue group was out in force.  They had a schoolbus with
an overhang & generator at camp, an ambulance, and about a blue-zillion
guys on 4-wheelers out on the trail to keep an eye on us.  They went out
to check on Robin and word was he blacked out (he denies it).  They took
him to the hospital and he got a couple of bags of fluids.  His horse
should be ashamed for over-riding him. :-)

Kaboot and Jack headed out with a definite lack of enthusiasm for our
next 15 mile loop.  This really bummed me out.  Kaboot has always left
very happily, even at end of rides.  It took us 2:48 to do the first 13
miles of it.  We had to do the mile of mud twice, but thought we were
making decent time other than that, but it sure didn't show.

I came in at the 70 mile mark just in the mood to pull.  First time in my
life.  I'd been out about 13 hours and had only covered 70 miles.  Karen
was lucky, her horse wanted pulled.  Jack was just tired and his CRI went
up so Karen pulled.  I was standing there whining to Otis Schmitt DVM
that my horse was tired and it was looking like I had another 6 hours to
go and would be doing it all alone.....I was trying hard to convince him
that Kaboot was pooped, and Otis just ignored my whining and checked him
out.

 I was facing Kaboot's flank explaining to Otis just how tired my poor
horse was when Otis said, "Trot'em" and Kaboot took off like he was shot,
with me trying desperately to catch up.  After a wonderful trot out, I
tried to tell Otis that he ALWAYS trots out that way, doesn't mean he
feels good, but Otis just said, "Do whatever you want, but he's the best
looking thing that's been through here yet"  (Let me point out that all
the other horses who had been through had been 10 miles farther and were
an hour and 20 min. ahead of me).

Lucy Hancock was very nice and offered to saddle up her mare to follow me
for safety reasons if I was still on the trail after everyone else
finished.  I decided to try him out for 10 more miles.

  When I got to where you turned on the white loop (no mile of bog this
time) I got on and he just took off like it was first thing in the
morning.  It was great.  The moon was out, they'd hung glowsticks so
often that you'd see 2 at a time, and the trail was a wide sandy jeep
road that was very light with only the moonlight. I was soo glad to be
out there.  I was smiling and having a big time thinking, "I'm going to
finish this stupid ride". 

Just then we topped a hill and were going down the other side at a good
trot when suddenly his head just disappeared, he did a summersault, and I
did a major pile-drive face plant onto the road...the kind where you feel
yourself sort of bounce.  It knocked the breath out of me, but I managed
to get up and turned to see Kaboot getting up to my left.  He let me grab
the reins, then I just sat down in front of him till I got my breath.  I
still had my flashlight in my hand so I looked him over.  He had a gash
just above his hoofline that was bleeding pretty bad, the end of his nose
is scraped up, a big scrape on his shoulder and all the way down his
neck.  I just sat until some 75 milers came along in about 5 min. and
told them to tell the spotters I was going to go on back to camp.  I was
just a mile out, and felt pretty good, but I knew that that cut on his
coronary was going to be sore and we both might have more wrong than we
realized.  

About 10 min. later the cavalry showed up.  The Emergency Rescue group
insisted that they check me out and I accused them of being perverts who
hang around all day waiting to goose some poor woman's ribs. :-)  Made
the mistake of weaving a little in front of them so they insisted on
following me back to camp.   (as if Kaboot might have gotten lost after
wearing out this strip of trail all day). They didn't realize that I
always weave around this point in a race.  I said, "Fine, when I get to
the main road I'm going to trot him in" at which time the man gets on his
walkie talkie and announces in a very businesslike tone to "base" that
"the victim plans to trot back to camp" It was too funny.

Kaboot trotted the 1/2 mile uphill back to camp like gang-busters.  We
sailed into the vet check lookin' good.  Otis looked him over and agreed
that the hoof was going to be sore. You've never seen anybody so happy to
be pulled.  I was practically saying, "O.K. we're bleeding now CAN WE
STOP?" 

 After I got in the light I saw that my hand was bloody and I'd torn a
pretty thick layer of skin off the back of my finger.  I decided to give
the rescue squad something to make them feel useful.  I showed them my
finger and they started looking for a first aid kit...and couldn't find
one.  It was tooo funny.  They ended up pouring some cold bottled water
on it and announcing that really cold water was VERY good for it. They
were so serious that I really had to try hard to look grateful. :-))

I did a pretty good number on my ribs.  When Kaboot stepped in the rut
(which is what got him) I felt his head go down, but you know how
sometimes they just sort of crawl for a stride and come back up for you,
so I just stayed very straight and the road seemed to just nail me out of
nowhere.  It was so dark, I never saw the ground coming at me, so my
hands were still on the reins and down at my side.  I landed perfectly
flat from my knees to my helmet and had a flashlight hanging around my
neck that really did a number on my ribs.  Seems strange to have bruises
and scrapes above the knees and on back of my hands. Later, I saw that I
still had the loop to my broken sponge string hanging around my wrist. 
Fortunately, my good little KMart string had broken...Lynda Corry's
Walmart rope would have gotten me in trouble since the sponge was clipped
to Kaboot's breast collar. :-)

 When I got under the floodlights I saw that Kaboot really did a number
on my saddle.  It's all scraped up with dirt imbedded in all the creases
and seams.  Looks like he did a complete summersault.  The tree looks
O.K.

I'm having a heck of a time with soreness, and had so much shortness of
breath I broke down and had x-rays yesterday, just badly bruised.  The
Dr. introduced me to a new toy that I bet Roger Rittenhouse would love. 
She just slid my finger into a clamp and it told how oxygenated my blood
was.  I was proud to see that even when in pain I had the Dr. beat on
pulse and oxygenation. :-)

So, there's my big successful debut for the new year.  My hauling partner
Kati won the 75, so at least one of us had a good weekend.    

Angie (still got all my teeth) :-)






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