2013 Western States Trail Foundation 100 Miles 1 Day Ride -- Tevis

I had everything together. I had a horse ready to pack my half-crippled ass over any obstacle. I knew we could get it done. Due to what can best best be termed pilot error, we did not ride into the fairgrounds in Auburn after hours on the trail; we came in on our trailer.

I made two critical and ultimately ride-ending errors. The first was believing the "suggested cut-off times" ride management had published were realistic. The second was freaking out when Hoss's heart rate monitor malfunctioned and showed him with a significantly elevated heart rate.

We started the day in good form. I did not want to ride around in circles in the "pen" with the rest of the horses, which would have seriously amped Hoss up and made him more difficult to manage than usual. So we headed out from our camp in time to catch up with the tail end of "Pen 2" when I figured "Pen 1" had been released. We got there a bit later than I would have liked. I underestimated how long it would take us to ride to the gathering area. Still, we hit trail at a good time.

This early in the ride we were hung up in quite a large pack. Hoss was doing pretty well keeping pace with the somewhat faster Arabians around us so long as we were trotting. When we needed to walk, however, his slower pace became apparent. Much of the trail is on single track, so when the pace needed to slow to a walk, the horses ahead would pull away while the horses behind would pile up. We became very good at giving trail for faster horses!

At the pre-ride briefing for "new riders," the speaker described five bridges over a boggy area. The way he described it, I envisioned five narrow bridges side by side over the same section of trail. I was a bit puzzled by the idea of this set up. Why would anyone do that? It didn't make sense. It turned out the five bridges were, of course, one after another on switchback trail. They were quite narrow, but Hoss handled the notion just fine.

After we made it through the single track we were in Squaw Valley and climbing up to High Camp. The road was pretty steep, so everybody was walking. In hind sight, I probably should have urged Hoss to trot more, as he is quite slow when walking and we lost a significant amount of ground. We did make it to High Camp before the suggested cut off time of 7:45, leaving me feeling pretty good about our progress.

The next "segment" of trail crossed the Granite Chief Wilderness. I had heard it was a challenging segment. During the pre ride briefing it was mentioned not to expect to make up time across this section. The suggested cut off times essentially said this 8.5 mile section could be traversed in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Unfortunately this was a bit optimistic for your average horse. Much of the trail is steep and rocky, and there are sections of bog and places the stream runs right down the trail. I have since seen another rider describe the Granite Chief Wilderness as the most challenging section of the trail. Hoss tackled it just fine, but we missed the suggested cut off into Lyon Ridge by 21 minutes, coming in at 9:21.

The next section, to Red Star Ridge, was relatively easy. Still, we weren't going to get it done in thirty nine minutes. Suggested cut off was 10:00. We crossed this section of steep sided trail which included Cougar Rock in 1 hour and 39 minutes. Hind sight being 20/20, we probably could have accomplished it faster, and should have. Cougar Rock was the most challenging part of this section, aside from the trail being generally narrow and steep sided. Hoss is a sure footed and confident horse, so I now feel I could and should have striven for a faster time.

By this time we were largely alone. Other horses had passed us and gotten just far enough ahead we were setting our own pace.

Red Star Ridge is the first stop with a "Gate and Go," meaning Hoss needed to recover to a heart rate of 60 beats per minute and pass a modified vet check. Walking down the hill into Red Star, Hoss's heart rate on the monitor was 92, just exactly what I would expect under the circumstances. We came in just under the cut off time of 11:00. We had one hour to get through this check and make the next 7.5 miles to Robinson Flat.

This was my second error. I had hung the heart rate monitor on Hoss's tack so I could see his heart rate recovery. We came into the check and he promptly took a big drink. I had given him electrolytes at High Camp, but hadn't given him a second dose until just about two miles before we came into Red Star. I was already thinking he would be doing better if I had been slugging him with electrolytes at a quicker pace. His heart rate had been elevated at High Camp, and started coming down to a more normal rate after I had slugged him. When we got to Lyon Ridge, I contemplated giving his next dose then discarded the idea as too soon. Coming into Red Star I had changed my mind and electrolyted him before we got in. So of course I was thinking I was behind in getting electrolytes into him. When the heart rate monitor showed him at 101, I thought, oh dear, he's gonna have a hard time coming down because I didn't give him the electrolytes sooner.

I sponged him and watched the monitor. One of the volunteers checked him with the stethoscope and said he was high. Well, I took that to mean the HRM was right, and now it was going up. I was beginning to get a little freaked. The HRM got up to 168 and stuck there. No amount of sponging made any difference. All the while, Hoss was standing there cheerfully eating. This should have been my first clue the HRM was malfunctioning. Other horses nearby that were not recovering were ignoring food. Hoss was eating as he usually does -- as if the food might at any moment be stolen from him.

After fifteen minutes, I was beginning to think my horse might require treatment, although nothing other than an apparently high heart rate suggested it. A volunteer came over and checked him -- and he was recovered. I don't know how long we waited, but long enough I suspect it made the difference in us making the drop-dead cut-off at Robinson Flat of 12:00.

We went to the vet, who checked Hoss over and declared him fit to continue, although he felt Hoss was behind on hydration. I knew I would need to up his electrolytes, but he didn't look that bad off to me, and he was certainly drinking well enough now to catch up. We left Red Star Ridge at 11:20, giving us 40 minutes to make it to Robinson Flat.

Another horse, which had taken a long time to recover at Red Star, was just ahead of us, giving us the inspiration we needed to book it. We have covered 8 miles in an hour and fifteen minutes, trail much more challenging than the mostly downhill and flat jeep road we were on. So off we went, trotting and cantering all the way. We would canter the flats and as far up the hills as possible, then trot on down. The other horse (plus one which came galloping up and passed us, offering us more inspiration) got well ahead of us. We came to a steep downgrade about 1/4 mile out of Robinson Flat. I hopped off and walked down the hill, giving Hoss a bit of a break, as we was starting to feel the speed of this section.

I got back on when we reached the bottom and rode him in. When I looked at my watch and realized we weren't going to make the cut off, I stopped pushing and we walked the rest of the way. We were overtime by 15 minutes. We made those 8.5 miles in about 55 minutes, probably would have been 50 if we hadn't slowed down.

My daughter and husband met me on the road. Since we were over time, we were not given an "in card." I didn't take the time to cool Hoss off and get his heart rate down because it didn't matter; we weren't continuing. He took a good drink while my daughter pulled his tack. We walked down to see the vet, my thought being to get it over with and get him to food.

When we got to the vet, Hoss's heart rate was, understandably, high. He was at 72. This isn't exceptionally high considering what we'd just done and not taking the time to pulse down. He got his exam, and the vet asked me to bring him back after 20 or 30 minutes to be seen again.

We walked over to our crew area and got Hoss set up with food and water and got him sponged down. After sufficient time had passed I took him back to the vet. Now his heart rate was down, although only to 60. Considering the walk back over to the vet in the heat, I wasn't the least bit alarmed by this. The vet, though, was alarmed. It turned out she had gotten the impression he was "weary." This was because Hoss likes to "point" a front foot while resting the opposite hind. He also tends to "switch off" the instant I get out of the saddle. He knows it's rest time, and he isn't about to waste a moment of it if he doesn't have to.

This began the most bizarre process I have ever experienced at an endurance ride. Hoss was demonstrably fine. He just wanted to rest and eat and drink. Since there was no food, he elected to sleep. But because the vet thought he was "weary," I had to keep him over in the treatment area to be examined. Long story short, we were there for at least half an hour and three separate people had to check him over. By the time the last person got around to seeing him, he was starting to look dehydrated and the guy commented on it. It was all I could do not to point out he'd be eating and drinking and probably not dehydrated had he been where he should have been rather than cooling his heels where he didn't need to be. I stopped by the water troughs on our way out and he took a big drink. Duh.

Getting a trailer ride was the next ordeal. Whole forests die to put this ride on. We had to have a slip of paper to get a trailer ride. I don't think I've ever seen anything made so complicated.

Hoss was, of course, absolutely fine. We got our trailer ride back to Foresthill where my husband had parked our trailer. Hoss was so unhappy he was being a handful and my hip was giving me a great deal of trouble. My daughter took Hoss from me and decided it would be easier to ride him than lead him. She hooked the reins to his halter and got on bareback. Yup, he was fine!

We didn't finish, but we learned some lessons to apply next time. I don't know if we'll be able to go next year, as I'm on the path to get my hip fixed at some point in the next months. How much down time I'll have is yet to be determined. I'm hoping to be there next year, but I'm not counting on it.

I do know when we get back again, we'll be going faster. To that end, we've got our work cut out for us. I'll have to recover and rehabilitate from whatever surgery I wind up having. Hoss will have to work on going a bit faster on uphills, his one problem at rides which he doesn't really have at home. So, between now and surgery, since I've already stopped working due to my hip, I'll be taking him out and getting him running uphill in hopes of getting him trotting uphill at rides. Who knows? Maybe it'll get him running uphill at rides if I ask for it!

Here's the video from the ride. Fair warning -- I drop an F-bomb toward the end!

2013 Descanso Endurance Ride, 50 Miles

My original plan had been to take DC to this ride for the 25, with Hoss along again with Wendy Turner. Unfortunately, she was decidedly lame two weeks before the ride. I never did figure out exactly what was going on. Happening so close to a ride, I was reluctant to pitch her in anyway and take my chances.

That being the case, I opted to take Eclipse instead. Eclipse, clearly, is up to more than a 25, so I put it to Wendy to move on up to the 50. She was a little intimidated, but game. I took her and the horses up to Cuyamaca the weekend before and we rode 30 miles of the 50 as a tune up for Wendy and Eclipse.

The night before the ride, my husband was flying in from work, so I would have to go get him. Wendy and I didn't make it away from the ranch until 6:30. Hindsight being 20/20, I should've just driven to the airport, horses and all, before going to the ride. As it was, we barely arrived at camp, checked in, got the horses vetted in, and the truck unhitched by the time his plane was landing. I went and got him, but was over an hour late picking him up. And, we had missed dinner! So when Mike and I arrived back at camp, we had to pitch the tent and prepare some dinner. We didn't make it to bed until nearly 11:00.

The ride start was 6:00am. We all dragged out of bed at 4:30 to start getting ready. Very little was accomplished in terms of getting ready to ride the prior evening. Our water bottles needed filled and we needed to make sure everything we wanted was in our saddlebags. It was gonna be a hot one, so we had to be very sure we had enough to last between vet checks. Mike was crewing for us (and volunteered while he was at it) so we didn't need crew bags.

We got a late start. By the time we finally headed out of camp, Terry, the ride manager, had driven back over from the start, and the vet was walking back toward camp. I knew we'd better hustle, as this ride is challenging. I'd done my best to prepare Wendy, letting her know we'd have to trot every step we could, even if it was only five paces.

 No amount of preparation will ever be quite enough, when it's just verbal. I chucked Wendy into this ride and trusted Hoss to get her through it.

We got out on the trail and I got us all trotting. Eclipse is significantly faster than Hoss, but he's not as well conditioned as Hoss. So I needed to keep Eclipse checked back to a 7-8 mile per hour trot, rather than his preferred 9-10 miles per hour. This does not make Eclipse happy, I'm afraid, and about 6 miles in, he made sure I knew it.

I'd already discovered Eclipse will spook when confronted with passing a downed tree or similar things some evil critter could "hide" behind. Don't get me wrong, his spooks are quite easy to deal with. I mean, even the time he went 20 feet to the side, it wasn't one of those leave the rider behind sort of things. He quite gallantly took me with him. And now that I've ridden him a while, I can read him and have a sense of when he's thinking about something a bit too hard.

We were coming around a corner with a large boulder in the side of the hill to our left. I had my eye and attention on the trail, and I really didn't think the boulder was one of those objects he was liable to spook about. He did, though. He did a pretty hard jump to the right, forcing me to engage my (pretty badly damaged) right hip in order to stay on. I dropped the right rein, a habit I've picked up riding as a result of my shoulder injury. Before I had the rotator cuff repaired, I didn't have sufficient strength in my left shoulder to hang on, so I just took to dropping the reins altogether when a horse trips. When I dropped the rein, Eclipse tried to run out to the right. I am, however, pretty damn fast. I got the rein back and checked him before he could launch a complete stride.

Wendy missed the whole thing. Hoss had fallen far enough back they were around the corner. All she got to see was me yelling at Eclipse for being a snot.

We made the highway crossing and kept up our pace. I wanted to be to Vet Check 1 by 8:30 if possible. Cut off time was 9:30, and I knew from past experience it gets harder to make cut offs as the day progresses at this ride. Our in time was much closer to 9:00. We got the horses pulsed down and vetted through, then got them eating. I gave Hoss his electrolyte laced bran mash, which he didn't finish. Eclipse won't eat bran mash, so I just let him eat whatever he wanted, then gave him a tube of electrolytes before we left the vet check.

Back out on trail, we picked up the pace once again. I knew we had limited opportunities to move out, so I was pretty brutal about keeping it up when we could. By this time Eclipse was starting to think I might be right about the pace I wanted to set and gave me a little less of a hard time about it.

Going around the lollipop loop, added last year in order to make up a few miles the ride was short otherwise, we weren't able to go very fast. It's a bit technical to allow for much speed, and thus we could not make up much time. Once we were back on the fire road, though, we picked it up. We had to walk the steeper downhill portions, but we trotted most of the downhill and finally go to the flatter fire road.

After turning onto the flat fire road, we came to a water stop. Eclipse drank sparingly, Hoss drank quite a bit, as per usual. Hoss also took the opportunity to pee.

Once done at the water, we got out rears in gear. There was a steep uphill climb I knew these two horses were not trotting up, so we had to keep up.

At the bottom of the hill, we slowed to a walk and allowed the horses to climb at a walking pace. It was a warm day, but not nearly so hot as the previous weekend. We made decent time on the climb, then picked up the trot again once we were back on flatter ground.

We didn't make as good time as I would have liked. Cut off for the second vet check was 12:30. We were in at 12:15. Both horses pulsed down and vetted through easily. We got them set up with lunch and got ourselves something to eat. The lunch crew was getting everything ready to pack up, so we just made it.

By this time Eclipse was beginning to feel the exercise. He spent most of the hour sleeping while Hoss pigged out on the hay and beet pulp we set out and finished the bran mash he hadn't eaten at the first hold.

A pair of drag riders came into the vet check, but they had missed the lunch crew and as a result got nothing or very little to eat. They were understandably miffed, and asked us to make sure the "cookie stop" crew knew they were coming and wouldn't leave before they had made it through. We promised to do so.

Once our hold was near over, we took the horses for one final drink before giving Eclipse his electrolytes and bitting up. Eclipse did not think highly of the paste electrolyte thing, and this second time he was downright offended when I shoved the tube in his mouth.

With three hours to make the next 13 miles, we had to really get our hustle on. Cut off for vet check three was 4:15. The next 13 miles were not very fast miles. I knew we were going to have to take risks I wouldn't take under non-competition conditions. With that in mind, we got our butts moving.

We had to climb up out of the third vet check. It is a wide fire road, and by this point Eclipse was over trotting uphill and Hoss has never been particularly fond of it. So I was working hard to keep them moving. When the road was less steep, I'd demand they trot. Eclipse would trot for a little then want to fall out. I told him the shorter he made the trot sessions, the shorter I would make the walk sessions.

Once we topped the hill and started down the far side, both horses were more willing to move out. We boogied on down the trail with as much speed as we could reasonably muster, slowing for steeper parts of the trail. It was a race against the clock to make it in to the third vet check.

We made it to the cookie stop (and five minute hold), and gave the horses a chance to drink while getting our drinks topped up. Eclipse stuck his nose in each of the buckets but did not drink. Hoss drank like he usually does.

By this point I was getting a little worried about Eclipse. He hadn't peed all day. Of course, he's done this before and been fine, and this time he was getting the electrolytes he needed, so I wasn't thinking he was in some sort of dire danger. I'd just rather see him feel comfortable to go ahead and relieve himself! I was sure by that time his bladder had to be full.

We made sure the cookie stop crew knew about the drag riders (the riders later thanked us for making sure they weren't forgotten), and got ourselves on down the trail.

Now we were on winding single track, Hoss's favorite thing. I got Eclipse moving out and let him go just a bit faster, knowing Hoss would be more enthusiastic given the nature of the terrain.

A few miles along this trail, we came to a water crossing. Eclipse stopped and plunged his nose in, drinking deeply. I realized his objection to the water at the cookie stop was it was hot from being in the tubs all day. Picky horse!

We hotted right along, going around and up and down as fast as we could. Just as we made the turn to the vet check, a man on foot popped out from behind a rock. Eclipse spooked a bit, not enough to really make me notice, but enough those watching from the vet check noticed it. We made it to the third vet check with minutes to spare.

Unfortunately, Eclipse did not pulse down on time. He was technically a few minutes over time. However, the vet staff knows me well, and decided to allow us to continue. The area was being cleaned, so we got Hoss's bran mash made and down him, and let both horses eat from the bucket full of collected hay. The vet, realizing we really didn't have anything to feed the horses and not much time left, released us from the hold early.

We had an hour and a half for eight miles. Hoss has done the eight mile loop at Hollenbeck Canyon in an hour and fifteen minutes. Last year, Hoss's time on this ride was eight hours. I knew we could do this. All Wendy had to do was stay on.

By this time I was getting pretty tired from holding Eclipse in check. Eclipse was beginning to realize we were headed back toward camp. So we were making Hoss work a bit hard, but he was game enough. When I looked back, Hoss was coming along, ears forward, looking every bit like he hadn't really done anything yet.

We came into camp with ten minutes to spare. Eclipse was not recovering, and even Hoss didn't come down very quickly, so I decided we'd take the horses back to the trailer and get them untacked before vetting them out. I suspected the reason Eclipse's pulse was hanging was he hadn't peed yet, and sure enough, once we were back at the trailer, he let go. Once he peed, his pulse came right down. We unsaddled and sponged them off, gave them bran mash, and took them back for final inspection. They both passed, of course, and we took them back to the trailer before heading over for dinner ourselves.

After dinner, Wendy was asked how she liked the ride. She responded it was "95% fun." When asked what wasn't fond, she allowed as trotting downhill kinda sucked. In all, I have to say that's a win. For a first-time rider to say it was "95% fun" immediately after a ride is pretty amazing.