I mount up and follow the parade of competitors past our trailer down the
road to the starting line. Travis begins to get antsy and starting to
behave like an idiot so I ask him to do some serpentine/polebending
exercises around a bunch of rocks on the ground and that seems to calm him
down. At four minutes to seven I trot up to the starting line to check in
and immediately retreat to the rear to avoid being caught up in the front
runners. At seven the pack starts off at a reasonable fast trot and I stick
Travis behind Nancy Senn's horse 'Face'. We're at the bottom/middle of the
pack and I am able to keep T there all the way up the mountain, a good five
to seven+ miles along a hard-packed road surface, climbing 600-800 feet.
Unfortunately, he begins getting impatient, despite the pace and starts
pulling harder. I am constantly fighting him as we drop into Edinburg Gap
and begin the descent through the hollow and back along the ridge through
the first substantial rock. At this point, Nancy and Joanna fall off the
pace a bit and T and I move on. The rock begins to get rough, so I dismount
and walk a mile or so on foot, intermixed with a bit of trotting in hand.
Mr T appreciates the break as the temperature is beginning to rise, and when
I remount he again picks up the pace. Descending the narrow trails and
switchbacks down the side of the mountain we make up several minutes and
catch a pack of six riders, and once at the bottom of the hill and back on
the road, pass all of them, pulling into the first hold at 8:49AM -- great
time for 15 miles on this the terrain. By the time I walk from the timer to
the water buckets, his pulse is 63 and several sponges-full of water and a
minute later he's 52. Into the P/R check we go, passing with a 56. Onto
the vet and we pass with only a hint of dehydration. His trot-out
apparently doesn't look good, but that's my fault as I slowed him down to
keep his CRI down -- not a problem (48/48). I go for an out time and
discover that the P&R person didn't record a time!!! I have to find the
right person and get my time. All set we return to the truck for a banana
and gatorade for me, bran mash, electrolyte and an apple for him; change to
new Pro-choice boots for his front legs; check to make sure we had inserts
all around; and slap on a fanny pack with water and gatorade for me. The
worst section of the trail was coming up -- should be a slow loop, but I
want to get through as early as possible. We leave the hold at 9:23 and
head back up the road turning left onto loop two. This section climbs a
small bench and has good footing through a jeep trail before descending onto
Crissman Hollow Road (a gravel road) for a mile or two. Travis is really
strong and I let him go at a controlled canter as we catch Heather Hoyns and
Snowdown, and then Steve & Dinah Rojek. I suppose I should have realized
how far up in the pack I was when I caught Heather and the Rojeks (remember,
this was supposed to be a 'slow' ride!) Travis and Snowdown race each other
a bit while Heather and I chat until we began the hard climb up the next
mountain. Travis bulls ahead huffing and puffing but not slowing as we make
the 1200ft climb, reaching the summit a few minutes ahead of Heather, Pat
Tancredi and a few others we had passed. At the top my Avocet watch says
2570 feet (i admit, probably somewhat off, but still...) and Travis show no
hint of wanting to rest -- He knows there are more horses ahead. I drain my
water bottle on his neck to cool him and hold him to a walk as we descend
into Duncan Hollow and the "ROCKS FROM HELL". I want to get off and go on
foot, but he is being pushy and I am afraid he'll run me over if I try to
negotiate the awkward footing. Instead I opt to allow him a mixture of slow
trot and walk in the worsening rock. We continue to make a little bit of
time and as I predicted he begins to drink at about 20 miles (too late as it
would turn out due to the heat/humidity/speed/terrain). Then I come upon a
rider whose horse had thrown a shoe and who is wrestling with an easy boot.
Having had problems with discourteous riders myself in the past I stop to
wait while she finishes and remounts. Then to my dismay she starts off at a
horrendous pace. Travis, of course, smells a race and picks up after them.
Flashbacks of Rhode Island come to mind as I try desperately to keep Mr. T's
mind on the trail and not on the horse ahead of us. I can feel him sliding
off rocks as we fly down the trails, but miraculously he keeps his feet and
we stay with our new leader. A few more stream crossings and the rocks end
giving way to a better surface. A few minutes later we once again catch
Steve & Dinah Rojek and four of us pull into Camp Roosevelt together. There
is some confusion as to where the trail goes, but we find it and start down
the hill and into one last stream crossing. Travis and I are third in line
as we enter the stream and get pushed into an awkward position in the
stream. T has to twist and wiggle through the big round rocks and my fears
soon come true. As we pull out of the woods onto the road 1/2 mile from
check two I hear the "clank clank" of bare base plates, and even worse, he
seems off right front. I hop off not caring whether T is going to fight to
go with the others who have trotted off and discover that we had lost not
one, but both front Slypner inserts and one shoe looked damaged. One of the
rear might also be gone, but I don't bother to look as I don't have enough
inserts with me to fix the damage anyway. Mercifully Travis behaves as we
walk up the hill on the berm to the check. We walk into the second hold in
eighth position at about 11:18, and I scream for my mother to grab more
inserts. I find our buckets and stop T there and begin the arduous task of
cleaning the base plates so I can replace the inserts. It is at this point
I discover that the right front shoe is ruined. Mom offers to run back to
base camp to get a new base shoe and I decide to procede to the P&R's --
about 10 minutes have passed and T is at 52. Once again a P&R person
forgets to mark my time and this time puts the pulse in the Vet check-1
recheck section of my rider card. Back I go for a correction and then back
to the vet. Uh oh, bad news -- B's & C gut sounds. Worse, the CRI jumps
from 48 to 56. The vet also says he looks to be stiffening right hind. I'm
surprised by this as I thought he was off in the front but the vets don't
seem too concerned. I'm asked to come back in 10 minutes and catch Mom just
before she leaves. I push the vet card under her nose for her opinion. It
continues to get hotter and I know that loop three, which repeats the first
loop, will be brutal as the first five-seven+ miles are a climb. Mr T. sips
some water, but is uninterested in the bran mash, carrots or even apples
(his favorite). Mom and I agree that Mr. T has had enough. We return to
the vet after ten minutes and this time the CRI spikes from 48 to 64. Too
many signs indicate impending problems and the vet eliminates us. Now we
can relax to some extent (still watching his metabolics) and we head over to
the farrier to replace the ruined plate. Funny thing -- the farrier has
removed multiple SETS of Slypners from a number of horses replacing them
with steel shoes. Apparently I'm not the only one having trouble. Travis
is fine watching the horses come into the hold but gets frantic at each
departing horse. The heat gets to me and I crawl into the shade underneath
a tree for a moment, but the lightheadedness passes. Task complete we
return to the truck and Travis finally begins to nibble on grass and relax.
At this point I'm wondering aloud just why I am doing this sport, and
swearing I will never take another step on these trails... Mom mostly nods
and shoves another bottle of gatorade at me. We wait another twenty minutes
while I drink gatorade like a fish and eat another banana, and Mom loads up
the truck. I sit on the tailgate and hang onto Mr T's lead while he trots
along behind looking like he'd not done any miles, even beginning to race
the truck as we go down the road! Ears are forward and he looks happy. We
made the right decision.
Two days later he is full of spit and vinegar, moving fine. I think he is
mad at me though, as he didn't want to be caught yesterday, and gave me
dirty looks in the stall tonight. He knows I pulled him and doesn't
understand why I gave up when we were in a position to move up in the
race... I keep reminding him of something -- dehydration. I have a great
horse with all the talent and heart in the world and no brain. Not a good
combination!... Well, we learned a few things the hard way this ride, and
we'll work on improving for next go around.