Silver State Point to Point Ride Story (LONG)

["Valerie Newson" <vnewson@tax.state.ut.us>]

This ride was last November in Jean, Nevada and I never finished my ride story and it seems to bring me bad luck to not finish them so I'm sending this even though it's a little (okay a lot) late.

We had never been to this ride before so this was quite an adventure for us, it's about an 8 hr drive from Salt Lake City so we broke it up in two days and spent one night in Mesquite on the way down.  

There was already quite a few people in camp and we parked and got settled in.  I went for a little ride with my new friends from Montana.  They had spent Tues night at my pasture on their way down.  If anyone needs a place to stay in Salt Lake just let me know, I've got room and love to meet people and their horses.  Then we ran into Vegas and picked up my sister, Steph, from Phoenix at the airport and vetted in, went to the ride meeting and went to bed.

The ride started at 7 am and we were ready, it was kind of fun getting tacked up by casino lights.  We couldn't believe how many rigs and horses there were, this place was packed!  Steph was riding Lady for her first 50 after her cortizone injection in her hock and Bak had been throughly cleared by my vet from the strained check ligament and swollen tendon from Gunlock.  My poor vet, he saw Bak three times in the month between rides, I'm glad he's patient.  Our game plan was to let the front runners go and just have a nice ride, we were both just excited to be here and ride together, it's been a couple of rides since we've been able to ride together.  People ride endurance for a lot of reasons and its different things to different people, for us it's to spend time together and enjoy our horses.  

I think over 90 horses started, this ride was HUGE, I've never been to something of this size.  Oh, and this ride is rocky, I mean really rocky.  We didn't pad or easyboot and it was a mistake.  There's rocks in Utah but they seem to be spaced and sized a bit differently and Bak had a hard time really taking full strides because he was trying to pick through the rocks.  There was water at 14 miles in a spring, just before that we saw a herd of wild horses.  They were beautiful, a paint mare with foal, a palomino and a chestnut.  Our horses drank a little at the stream but it was a little crowded so we moved on.  The trail turned back towards the casino and then teased you a little before it turned you away from the casino and we looped around a little.  There was water three miles from the base camp which was also the vet check.  At the water stop there was also people cups and water and candy for the riders.  NEAT!  We had an hour hold back at camp, the horses were doing great with 15 miles left.  The last 15 miles was a little slow for us, the horses seemed a little tired and it was really warm, I think it hit 70, our horses had winter coats and we hadn't wanted to clip so we didn't want to push them too much for fear of overheating them.   We finished in good spirits somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Well at the finish, Lady was slightly off in the front but not in the leg that is diagonal from the hock so we decided to not ride the next day.  After Gunlock I was just doing one day no matter what with Bak even though he finished fine.  Our original plan had been to ride Lady and Bak on day one and then ride Lady and Valenya on day two for Valenya to do her first 50.  We both had to get back to work so we weren't able to ride day three.  So Steph and I decided that we weren't going to ride the next day and I went and told Peggy that we wouldn't be riding.  After we got to the trailer I was feeling pretty sad that Valenya wouldn't get to go and I'd worked so hard to get her ready for this ride this year so I told Steph that one of us should ride her even if it meant going alone.  Like I said earlier, we ride together.  Steph decided to ride her so I went back and told Peggy and Claire that one of us was riding after all, I thought they were going to kill me for keep messing up their paperwork since we couldn't decide what we were doing!  Not that I blamed them, they had a ton of riders to take care of and everyone was changing horses or not riding or riding, etc.

Valenya and Steph took off the next morning at a reasonable pace and  we moved camp then hurried over to the vet check to wait for Steph.  I LOVE to crew, that's how I got started in this whole sport.  I started crewing for Steph and our Dad 'cause I wasn't going to ride - they were crazy!  Never say never!  I gonna brag though, I'm GREAT crew, I bring everything - chairs, food, drinks, brushes, water for sponging horses, coolers, rump rugs, etc.  While waiting for Steph I like to keep busy so I held some horses for people, helped out my friends from Montana and another friend from Salt Lake, he was riding without any crew and he looked pooped so we put him in a chair handed him a drink and took care of his horse's leg, it was really bloody from a cactus but it was just minor after it was all cleaned up.  I love brushing these horses and fussing over them at checks, they seem to just love the attention and the brushing seems to really relax them while they're refueling.  Another friend from Park City horse had a tough time and they had to start him on an IV and it's weird but no-one seemed to have any blankets for him to borrow so I pulled the polarfleece blanket out of my truck and we put it on his horse and I held the IV pole for a while so that he could eat the sandwich and drink I stuffed in his hand.  The number one rule of crewing is that you can't ever make enough sandwiches, bring enough drinks or blankets.  As you can see I was a happy little busy body - this is my element!  Finally Steph and Valenya came in, and Valenya just looked great, this check was at 35 miles which was good because they had most of the ride over and the next loop would seem to go quickly for them since it was shorter.  I fussed and fussed over Valenya and fed both of them - I was just so dang PROUD of them that I seemed to float around.  As Steph mounted up to get ready to go I started ponying her around to get Valenya warmed up.  Steph is completely embarrassed by her big sister now and begs me to stop.  Okay, okay.  As Valenya t
standing next to me and I proceeded to tell him how great Valenya was, she was doing her first 50 at age 17.  The poor guy was confused and had to ask if I was talking about the horse or rider!  (the horse of course!)

They finished just fine, in fact they finished exactly one minute different that we had on day one, hows that for pacing!  Valenya had done tons of 25s with our Dad and then she taught me all about endurance as I started doing 25s with her.  We never thought she could do a 50 for silly reasons really, like she's older or she's used to 25s, in all honesty until I did a 50 with Bak I just didn't really understand what it takes to do 50 miles and how to train for it.   So for those of you with older horses, don't give up on them.  Valenya just loved endurance, every part of it, the attention, the pace, the camping out, the whole experience was just fun for her and it was plainly obvious.

Bak and I are headed down to Gambler's Special today as soon as I leave work, same place and trail as Silver State in Jean, Nevada.  I'm struggling with it a little bit because I'm really excited to go as this is our first ride this year but also really sad.  We lost Valenya to strangles two months ago, after her first and only 50 miler last year.  She ruptured inside and died nearly instantly in my arms, my vet was rather shocked, since it's not really normal for horses to die from strangles, and we had been watching them closely.  Out of my herd of nine, five came down with it.  Steph's mare Lady is still recovering and Bak was lucky and missed the whole episode.  Lady will probably be out for a little while - at age 15 they just don't bounce back quite as fast.  Having never had to deal with strangles before let me say that I'm not interested in every seeing it again and have destroyed every contaminated item in my pasture.  It strikes horses of all ages, I had a 18 month old filly, a 4 year old mare, a 15 year old mare and two 17 year old mares come down with it.  

I still miss Valenya every single day and I'm sure I'll be "seeing" her everywhere down in Jean this weekend so if you see me sobbing down there just pretend like you don't notice, okay.   Bak and I are riding this one for her.....

Valerie Newson and Bakdom
No. Salt Lake, Utah