She even looks ready for a nap here! Luckily, Whisper is a very good camper and is content to be tied to the trailer. She has plenty of room to move around, and would be able to lay down if she desired. Of course, having a full hay bag in front of her at all times helps! Under her number on her hip, I placed a pink breast cancer awareness ribbon. This is October which is National Breast Cancer Awareness month, after all!
My friend, Jaimie, was due to arrive before dinner. She was going to help me and be my crew. She also used to do a lot of endurance rides, and was going to help me find someone safe and sane to ride with the next day.
5:00 AM Saturday morning, I got up, got Whisper a new bag of hay, started up the generator and put on a pot of coffee. The 50 miler's started at 7:00 AM, and we 30 miler's were to start at 8:00 AM. I got Whisper booted up in her Easyboot Epics, tacked up and was mounted at 7:30. Whisper was cool as a cucumber - and this was only her second ride! We wandered over to where my ride partners were, Peggy and her granddaughter, Brittany, and they weren't quite ready so we wandered around camp a bit. I was joking with Whisper to "calm down" because if she was any calmer, she would have been asleep. I was quite pleased by her demeaner! It's way easier to hop up a horse than it is to calm one down! Finally, we headed out to where the starting line was, and started out about 8:20 since we wanted the "hot shoes" to get a good chance to get out of sight of our horses. To get to the start, we had to ride a trail parallel to the highway before we crossed over it. Whisper had never been that close to fast moving traffic before, and had never seen an 18 wheeler, let alone one going 65mph. She acted as tho she had seen traffic daily! What a good girl! The ride to the vet check was close to 16 miles, and we went up and down hills, over a railroad track, paralled the railroad for several miles (all the while I was praying no train would go by) and about 2 1/2 miles from the vet check, Whisper had a good trip, but recovered, but then slung her head back at me several times. This did not bode well. I did take a couple of pics while we stopped and Peggy opend and then closed a gate for up. Peggy is dismounted, and I also got a good pic of Brittany on her 1/2 mustang. The last pic is Princess Whisper.
Once at the vet check, Whisper trotted out for the vet (the famous "Duck") and he said to go remove Whisper's boots and come back because she seemed "off". We were both hoping that there was a rock in her boots. No such luck. Evidentally, there was a rock on the trail with Whisper's name on it, and her ride was done. We got a trailer ride back to camp on the ambulance trailer with another horse, a 50 miler, that had a rock on the trail with her name on it! Oh well, that's part of the heartbreak of an Endurance ride. When we got back to camp, I found another vet who verified which foot was bothering Whisper with the hoof testers. He did find an increase in the pulse to that hoof, but no swelling, so he recommended at least a week off. Whisper had on boots with pads, and even if she had on shoes with pads, that same rock may have found her. Here is a link to our trail that was downloaded from my Garmin 305 GPS with heartrate moniter:
If you go to the map, then click satellite, then below the map, click google earth, you can zoom in and see the trail. This is a really cool feature of the Garmin 305.
Peggy and Brittany finished in time and got their completions! I may not have gotten a completion, but I met new friends and had a great time doing it! That's why the sport of Endurance is so much fun! The people are the best anywhere! We stayed for dinner and the awards ceremony and enjoyed a good night's sleep in the camper before packing up and heading home at around 10:00 AM Sunday morning. By then, Whisper didn't seem owey on her foot at all just walking around camp. Now we have all winter to get her feet in condition along with the rest of her!
