Sunday, October 19, 2008

High Desert Classic Endurance Ride

Whisper and I went to the High Desert Classic Endurance Ride with the intention of doing Saturday's 30 mile Limited Distance Ride. Ride Camp was located at the Boy Scout Camp at Fort Churchill on the Carson River. We have been to this camp many times for trail trials, trail rides, and this was Whisper's first camping trip over 2 years ago. Whisper and I got to camp by 1pm on Friday afternoon, and we got a nice choice spot that would provide Whisper shade no matter the time of day. I don't go out in the camper much by myself, so was quite proud for getting set up, the propane turned on, and the hot water heater turned on by myself. Here is Whisper settled in quite nicely in camp:





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!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Where did the Summer go???

Here I am sitting in my hotel room in Hawthorne at my second job, looking at the mountains with a dusting of snow, 23 days left until the most historic Presidential Election, wondering, "Where on earth did the summer go?" And, oh my goodness, I havn't written in my blog since July 12? Lazy, lazy, lazy...well, not really, more like busy, busy, busy. So, what's been happening since then? Well...

I have been riding Whisper regularly with my friend down the street, Sharon. Sharon is a 3 Day Eventer, so conditioning her horse is simular to Whisper's conditioning for Endurance. With one BIG exception - Sharon would like to do canters and gallops, and Whisper does these annoying "whoohoo" bucks when I ask her for speed, and since I would rather not get launched off my horse at 18mph, I tend to keep the speeds down. We are cantering on a regular basis, just not fast enough for Sharon's horse, Phynn, to get in a good canter gait as his stride is so much bigger than Whisper's. At least riding with Sharon is pushing my envelope and making me do things I have been afraid to do in the past.

With my rides on Whisper getting longer and faster, Mom just didn't have the ability to keep up, so Raven now has a job! After getting ridden maybe 6 times in the past 2 years, Raven is now the "mom horse". Of course, since she is fat and out of shape, Mom has had to slow down and shorten her rides for me and Raven. Raven is enjoying her job, and now winnies at me when I go out and get a horse. Raven and Whisper vie for who is going to go first.

Andi got a break from riding as I had been concentrating on training him to pull a cart. I went to a couple of clinics with him, and he freaked out over wearing blinders and went crashing thru a 16' pipe corral gate going full speed. I worked with him another 6 weeks, but I just don't think I want to put in the time to make him a driving horse. So I will begin riding him again after next weekend.

What happens next weekend, you ask? Well, Whisper and I have a 30 mile Endurance ride out at Fort Churchill. Even tho it has been snow flurries all this weekend, next weekend it is supposed to be in the 70's, so it should be perfect for an Endurance ride. She will be wearing her new saddle, a Specialized which I am able to tweak and fit perfectly to her back. She will also be wearing Easyboot Epics on all 4 hooves instead of shoes. So I will be able to see if I have everything "tweaked" correctly after doing 30 miles in 7 hours.

Bruce and I went on a camping trip in September. Bruce ended up inviting his department at work to meet us there, and we all had a great time. With disel prices pushing $5/gal. we stayed fairly close to home and went to Berlin-Ichthiasaur State Park about 90 miles away. Here is a slideshow I put together of our trip:



Last weekend, we took the Amtrak from Reno to Truckee. The train follows the Truckee river and stops just short of Donner Pass. It was breathtaking and !cheap! at $23 round trip per person. The train ride was just over an hour, and not nearly long enough, so in January or February, we will take the train on over to Sacramento and spend the night and return the next day. It should be beautiful going over the Sierra's in the snow and I am looking forward to it! Here is a slideshow I made of the train ride:



Well, that's the quick catch up! Hopefully I will have a successful Endurance ride to write about after next weekend!