Ridecamp: [RC] Big South Fork 50

Just got back from the Annual Big South Fork ride. This ride is 
put on in the most incredible place on earth on the eastern TN/KY 
border. There is an incredible campground with full facilities, over 
200 miles of marked horse trails, and incredible views of the gorge. Of 
course you have to pay for that with chiggers, bee stings and poison ivy 
:-p but it's well worth it :)

I was taking Hank to this ride. Hank is a 7 y.o. walking horse that is, as
I like to say, the poorest excuse for walking horse there is :) since he
trots most of the time under saddle and always in hand.  This was his
first ride and my first one in 2 years and the first time doing a ride
on anything other than an Arab. As we drove into camp and I saw some
familiar faces I thought how nice it was to be back :)

My best friend Lyn was with me - she had planned on riding the 30 but had 
to leave her guy at home as a horse in her barn was very sick. She didn't 
think it was wise to either bring the creeping crud to BSF or bring 
any new crud back to her barn. Not 
good for her :( but since she is a *fantastic* crew good for us :))

We nosed our rig in as the camp was quite full - this ride just grows and 
grows thanks to the wonderful area and the fantastic ride management. This 
ride has it all -well marked, gorgeous trails, nice campground, great 
management - definitely one of the premier SE rides.

We got Hank set up on his picket (in the middle of Chigger Village and yes
we were using 100% Deet all weekend and still ended up with those #%@*
chiggers that BSF is so famous for) with hay, beet pulp, and water and
went about setting up camp.

As were setting up camp we saw another rig trying to find a place to park. 
Lyn and I waved them in in front of us - by moving our truck and walking 
carefully there was pleny of room :) Turns out they were first time riders 
on the 30 so we spent alot of the weekend answering questions about beet 
pulp, elytes, sponging, etc..We were more than happy to help them out - 
I've had many people do the same for me over the years and was glad to be 
able to return the favor. 
 
When we vetted in the vet had a hard time really hearing his pulse - his
comment was "best I can tell he's about 32 - barely alive" :) Oddly enough
those are great words to hear :) Being a good ole' walking horse (instead
of one of those silly, flighty ay-rabs <vbg>) he looked as at home on
Friday in camp as he does in his home pasture. Even laid down on his
picket line and slept Friday nite.

There was a scale there and he weighed 970 to start and when we finished
he weighed 902 :( but gained back up to 934 3 hours after we finished. The
scale was already put away early Sunday morning but I suspect he would
have gained back some more overnite. I'm hoping with more experience he'll
maintain his weight better though he wasn't the only one that lost that
much. Weights were recorded in a log by the scale - lots of interesting
info there for Susan G :)

Thanks to all the Parelli work I've done with him I got on him Sat AM with
45 horses milling around and he promptly started grazing - pulse 42. Not
that Parelli work teaches your horse to graze :) - I mean I got on him and
he was just as quiet as he is at home. Once he saw some other horses
exploding like popcorn around him he took a bit more interest in his
surroundings but was still nice and quiet and sane - how wonderful :)

I planned on going easy all day (to get my money's worth you know <g>) so
I started with the last 5 or 6 people. He was very forward but quite
manageable I was happy to find. Since he was a bit wound up we gaited most 
of the first loop
rather than his normal nice floating trot - uugghhh, he doesn't have the 
smoothest
rack/pace/whatever it is. The first trail is 16 flat, easy miles. I got
off to tail up a small hill into the first check - that's where the
photographer was so Hank's first ride pics are of us tailing :-p

I came into the check at a walk, untacked, put some water on him and
realized I didn't have my stethoscope. You'd think I'd never done this
before :-p When you're riding in the back like this there are never any
vet lines so a courtesy check was no problem. His pulse was 49 - yup, I'd
say he was down. 

He vetted through fine and he ate some but was more interested in all the 
craziness going on around him. He didn't drink but I knew he would - there 
were too many elec in him not to. I was elyt'ing approx every hour with 
either Lyte Now (which he *hates*) or Perform'n Win (which he *loves* but 
isn't quite as convenient). By doing it every hour or so I could see that 
they keep eating and drinking and don't get that mid ride bonk we often 
see.

The next loop was 25 miles and pretty remote. Only way to get to you was
by 4 wheeler - inaccessible otherwise. Karen's (RM) words were be smart
and stay safe on this loop. I loaded up with food and water for me,
carrots and an apple and elec for him, and took off.

By now it was getting hot. About 2 miles from camp we came to a bit of
water - I went to sponge him and saw that I had taken it off the saddle to
use during the vet check and it was still there :( So here I am on this
long loop in the heat with no sponge :( Angie would not be happy at all
with me. But one gets inventive when one needs to. I had an easyboot with
me and just planned to get off to put water on him - there was tons of
water on this loop and at my speed, while it was an inconvenience to use 
the eboot, it
wasn't worth adding 4 miles to go back and get the sponge. Besides I 
caught up
with some other riders halfway through the loop - we rode the rest of the
way together and they let me use their sponge :)

About 10 minutes after that I got stung twice on the ankle by bees :( 
While scratching/rubbing my ankle we managed to walk my knee into a tree 
branch :(

Hmmm....not a good start to this loop.

We came to our first nice stream on this loop and he put his head down and
drank and drank. Ahhhh....watching those ears go back and forth as he
drank was really nice :) I used my eboot to put water on him, gave him
elytes and we were off. This loop was the most scenic of the three - it
basically went down a long hill to the river at the bottom of the gorge,
along the river for quite a ways where there were rocks the size of houses
in the middle of it, up a big, rocky climb, did a loop on top in the sun
since it was now past noon, came back down again alongside the river and
then back up a hellacious climb and then into camp. I had planned on
taking 5 hours on this loop - I did that almost exactly by trotting where
I could and walking/tailing the climbs and really rocky sections. We also
grazed some, stopped to elyte, etc... We pretty much noshed our way from
point A to point B to use Susan G's terms :)

My fabulous crew, Lyn, was situated in a life saving position - right
after that last huge climb.  While Hank tanked up I found out that she had
helped several folks that had come by since we had plenty of water (people
and horse) on the truck - there are lots of people at this ride that owe
me big time :))

One thing that helped on this ride for me was how Lyn really made me take
care of myself. She dubbed herself the Nutrition Nazi <g> and made sure I
ate things for longer term energy, took elyes myself and of course drank.
It worked - even though it was a looonnnnngggg hot day I never got that
weak in the knees feeling you sometimes get late in a long ride. Of course 
for those that go faster you are already back in camp when you get that 
feeling :))

Back in camp for the second check we pull tack, sponge, take him over, 
the pulse taker puts the
handheld on him and he jumps to the side kind of alarmed. Seemed kind of
odd but I just figured it startled him. Pulse was 60 since he had just
jumped 3 feet to the side :) He had been trotting on the trail at 110 so I
knew that he was fine, but a little tired. So far we had all A's with a B+ 
for guts. 

I put him on his picket line to eat and hang out for the 40 
min hold - that was a
bit of a mistake - he was quite alarmed when I started tacking him up
again - he was in rest and recovery mode back at his trailer and could do 
without 10 more miles thankyouverymuch. 

While tacking up I found out why he jumped with the handheld HRM - his
girth area was a bit sore :( I had used my felt girth which I've used
several times before but changed back to my ortho-flex softsides girth
which is wide in the middle and really contoured in the armpit area - it
was so loose there was daylight under it but when we got done with the
last loop his girth area was much better. I normally ride with a 
loose girth but had tightened the felt one up a bit so I could use 
the HRM for his first ride - won't do that again.

When I vetted through after loop 2 Ken Marcella asked me if this was my
normal pace - I said I sure hope not :). He made an interesting point
about riding really slow when it's hot - and I think he's right. Basically
he said sometimes you can go too slow in the heat - don't make the mistake
of being out there too long - sometimes you use up less energy asking your
horse to move on if he will and getting it done rather than taking forever
while thinking you're doing some good and going slow (I think that's a run
on sentence <g>).

The deal is the horse builds up heat but you get no evaporative cooling
(which we have very little of anyway here in the east) because you're
going so slow and the sum total is worse then if you asked the horse to
use a bit more energy and get it done and out of the sun and back to
food/water/rest - within reason of course.  I had never really thought
about it that way but I can certainly see the sense in that. 

So with that
in mind we picked up an easy trot and off we went. This loop was flat and
easy except for 2 moderate climbs. He got a second wind once away from
camp so we ended up doing the last 10 miles in a little less than 1.5
hours - not breaking any records for sure :) but faster than we had gone
for most of the day. Camp was about a mile past the finish line - he
figured that out pretty quickly and picked up a trot/canter after we
finished and just sailed all the way back in - just made me smile the
whole way back to camp :)

Once again, pulled tack, put some water on him and took him over - I think 
he was 54 or so. Vetted through fine - prognosis - tired but in good 
shape -  overall an A-. Our ride time 
was 9:35 I think. And no I didn't get the coveted Turtle Award - there 
were 3 people behind me believe it or not :)

All in all it was a truly enjoyable ride on my gaited boy :-)) and many,
many thanks to the help of my great crew Lyn :) and Karen Clark and 
her many volunteers who put on this wonderful ride.

-Tina and Hank with 50 AERC miles to his name :)
tina@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




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