My weekend story. Are we starting a theme here??

[Louisa_Pierce@ne.3com.com]

Well we did our first 25mi CTR of the season.  My friend Carolyn (or CB as I
call her) went to
Levertt, Mass.  We did had a blast and the people are very nice there.  They
really put
allot of work into this.  I have put together a long story about our event.  I
am not a good
writer like Angie or Howard, but I thought you'd enjoy some of this.


TRAILING
This was my first time pulling the horses.  CB has always pulled them in her
truck, but we are
using my husbands F350 dully for the long trips now.  I was nervous and I wanted
to make
CB feel comfy w/ me driving, I'm sure it was weird for her to be in the
passengers seat.

We made it all the way to Levertt in record time, and I was about to pull into
the entrance when
I got confused on where the entrance was.  I had seen a dirt driveway and I
thought that was
where I was supposed to turn, but I should of turned before the dirt driveway,
and now I was to
far to make the correct turn.

I was on a major road and I was stopped in the road, I had some traffic starting
to build
up behind me.  I was feeling like I needed to make a quick decision so I turned
into the dirt
driveway.  I was hoping there was a way to pull forward and loop around and get
back out to
the road.   CB did not see away for me to pull forward and we decide we had to
BACK out!

BACK!  BACK!  I was not planning to back out of anything, let alone a busy road
:-)  I had been
to Levertt before and I knew I would not have to back up.   The truck I am
using, is a dump truck,
and it has what construction people call H-Boxes on the back.  You do not have a
rear window to
speak off and the H-boxes stick out so far off the truck, that you really have
no view of the trailer
behind you. I do have dual mirrors, but you still can barely make out the
trailer behind the truck.

I was hoping to have more time practising w/ the truck, the mirrors etc..before
I was asked to back.
CB got out of the truck to help me and guide me on which way to turn the wheel.
But I was nervous,
feeling under pressure and I just could not do the right thing.  I asked CB to
jump in, maybe she'd
have better luck, since she knew the body language and how the flow should go
and she's
backed super many times before.

She got in and she also could not back up this truck either.  She is used to
looking out the back window.  So
to make this part of this long story short, CB made a sharp turn and the dump
body hangs over the hitch
and the dump body hit the landing gear handel and we broke the landing gear and
crank right off.  The pole inside the landing gear fell to the ground, but it
did not fall completely out.

I motioned CB to STOP and I quickly took a wire and looped the pole up so we
could drive to the
field.  Then we noticed that YES, indeed, we were after all able to drive
forward and get into
the field with out backing up!!!  So CB parked the truck and we thought we'd
deal w/ the broken
landing gear later.

SETUP
This whole time it is RAINING!!  We found a nice spot.  We take the kids off and
put them in a stall
we had reserved.  A nice stall that is set up as a run-in, we were very happy.
Then we go back
out to the rain to set up our tent and awning - did I mention it is RAINING!!
:-)

After we got done setting up camp, we are frozen (it was 40 degrees) we hopped
in the truck to get
warm, but we did not want to get out of the truck again.  About 4hrs after we
got there, they are
ready for hand-on in the indoor.  My hands-on went pretty well... my horse is
always very good, but
he was very spooky this day.

HANDS-ON
It is now CBs turn.  Her horse Gem does not like indoors and he is a very
courious soul.  She knew
she'd have some troubles w/ her trot out.  She tried to trot but Gem is very
interested in everything
around him - but he starts to settle in when of couse a group of 10 people
wearing flowing poncho
types of rain gear, everyone had on a different color poncho and they were all
talking and
laughing.  They all come into the side door of the indoor at once.  At this
point CB asks if she
can be done - the judge says "okay"

THE NIGHT
We get the kids settled in again, and off we go to our tent.  It is RAINING even
harder and the
temp is dropping.  It is 8:30-9:00pm and we try to go to sleep.  I roll out  my
bran new sleeping bag
and I find out I brought a CHILD'S bag!  I can barley get a leg inside this
thing, let alone my whole
body.  I squeeze in, and we are just shacking, we zip the bag up and over heads,
we breath into
the bag trying to create heat to get us through the night - but we don't get a
wink due to the cold,
the wind and sound of the flowing water.

THE MORNING
5:00AM does not come soon enough.  We go and feed the kids and ponder what to do
next.  We
need to keep moving to keep warm.  We decided to break camp and put our wet home
away.  We
look at the water buckets we had outside the tent and we see 4 inches of water!!
and it is still
RAINING.  We both ponder what do to.... we don't want to ride in this - not for
our selves but for the
kids, we don't want them to get sick etc.  We talk to the vet, and she assures
us the kids will be fine
and they have decided to shorten the hold to 10min - so we can keep the kids
moving!   We look
at each other and say "we made it this far and we are already wet so lets go"

MISC
The night before, a 18 wheeler truck w/ a 10 horse van came into the field full
of pony clubers.  In
the AM on Saturday the truck went to move and he SANK in the field.  Then a last
minute person
came in on Sat for the ride in a 2 wheel truck, and she SANK in the
exit/entrance horses and
all!  The Mgmt of the ride gets a tractor out there to move the 2 wheel drive,
since the horses
have to exit out that way for ride - and to also move the 18 wheeler.  The
tractor gets every
thing moved but the ride starts later then they wanted.

We hung out in the indoor, waiting for word on the truck removal etc...and when
we walked into
the indoor we see that all the pony clubers had set up their tents inside the
indoor!  CB and I
look at each other and say "why didn't we think of that".   They are all dry,
and more important
all their stuff is dry! - UGH!

THE RIDE
We go up to the start and we ask the started what number are they on.  They are
on number 8&9 and we
are numbers 31&32 so we have some time.  We go for a little walk to calm the
boys, they are always
very excited the first 10min or so.  we were only gone about 4min or less, and
we are walking back to
the start when we hear our numbers being called.  "What the ----" we say to each
other,  and we rush
to the start - and off we go!   DID I TELL YOU IT WAS RAINING ??

The first part of the ride was the best!  There was no one in front of us and no
one behind us.  The kids
do best when they think they are alone - they really get into a groove!!  We did
come to some horses
eventually, but the kids were doing super.  Sultan was happy, and Gem was strong
and happy.  Gem
is very competitive, but he is really learning to conserve his energy for these
rides.

We make it to the hold and we were worried about the kids muscles getting tight,
we search for our
blankets etc.. and work on getting Gems pulse down.  Sultans is already down,
but Gem takes a tad
longer.  After about 8min we call for PULSE and we are happy to see that Gems
pulse is at 58, a record
I think for Gem.  Sultan is at 40, so we both get in line for trot-out.  It
moves quick and off we go!

We always had a goal of walking in the last mile, but we have never been able to
do that.  It seems
when ever we do a ride, we always get behind other riders who want to run into
the Finnish - I hate that!
But this time, we were with some people just like us, and everyone was taking it
slow into the
Finnish.

We get to go to our stalls due to the weather, and we call for PULSE!  Sultan
and Gem make their
Pulse and we are very pleased.  We both do well at trot out too.  We are able to
put the kids in
the stalls/run-outs and eat some lunch.

Everyone is eating like they had not eating is weeks, the food was the best we
had ever tasted!  I guess
the extreme cold and rain made everyone's body work over time to heat it self,
and we all needed
food very bad!! Even the horses were very hungry!!

Gem ended up with a 94 for his score.  And Sultan got a 91.5.  I had 3 points
taken off for a rub my
saddle made (another story for another day).  But very respectable scores and we
are very happy.

TIME TO GO HOME
Okay, how do we get home?  our landing gear is dragging on the ground.  We don't
want to bug the
Mgmt, they had enough going on w/ all the trucks sinking in there field.  And
more people w/
2 wheel drive are still sinking trying to go home - they are closing and opening
new exits in
their fence etc...  but we had no choice.  The Mgmt was super to us.  They sent
over some
very nice men  and offer to dig a hole and maybe the rest of the landing gear
will drop out?
Well, it works!!!!!!!

Louisa and Sultan in Mass